By Donna Barr (A Fine Line Press)
ISBN: 1-89225-317-8
Donna Barr is one of the comic world’s most unique talents. She has constructed a fully realised fantasyscape to tell her stories and tells them through a style and voice that are definitely one-of-a-kind. Her most well known creations are The Desert Peach, which features the humorous – if not rampagingly Camp – adventures of Field Marshal Erwin Rommell’s homosexual brother in the deserts of World War II Africa, and the star of this particular volume, Stinz Löwhard, the Half-Horse.
Using an idealised Bavarian agricultural landscape as her starting point, Barr has been taking good-natured pot-shots at humanity with an affable centaur soldier-turned-farmer and his family, since 1986 when she adapted characters from her own book into the lead strip in Eclipse Comics’ fantasy anthology The Dreamery.
The stories here, mostly printed from her postings on www.moderntales.com, occur in a universe that has expanded enormously from the simple life in the idyllic Geisel Valley. Stinz’s world has bloomed into a full blown tapestry of drama, politics, war and wild adventure, and the characters have aged accordingly.
The warmth and surreptitious venom of Barr’s sallies against contemporary society are still in evidence here, but, as always the sly commentary is stiletto tip not battle axe. This volume also contains the third (and final?) chapter of ‘Bosom Buddies,’ a new yarn about an American G. I. and German Officer transported from World War II to another dimension where they are transformed into centaurs and enslaved by humans with horse’s heads.
Barr’s work is distinctive and honest but not to everybody’s taste, which is a shame as she has lots to say and a truly wondrous way of saying it.
© 1st March 2004 Donna Barr. All rights reserved.
NEAT! Replaced ego-surfing with Google Alerts. It helps me answer reader questions or guesses like: “No, this isn’t the last Bosom Enemies. The last one is Bridgework, that brings everything full circle. Possibly the funniest and wildest of the series; anyway I laughed my butt off (joke intended) the whole time I was writing it!” It’s all over at my website, and Amazon (buy my copies — you’ll get ’em autographed and I’ll get more $$!), but the best way to find me or my stuff is just to Wiki me. God, I love the internet; it’s Home Sweet Home for Aspies like me (embrace your Asberger’s Syndrome and scare the Neurotypical!).
Hi Donna,
Long time no see (we shared table space at a UKCAC in London last century! Miki says Hi too) .
Happy to plug the work, And on that note…
We’re planning to review old as well as new books here, so are there any Collections or albums of Stinz or Desert Peach that supersede the volumes I bought those many moons ago? Any that are impossible to find? I gather Ersatz Peach is rarer than Good movies of comicbooks.
I’d like to give readers an even shot at picking things up if they want to.
Oh, anything you’d rather I didn’t feature either?
Let us know if you want a link or eventually an ad on the site too.
Win