Lafferty and Comics

Comics and Lafferty make a fascinating story, given the place comics occupy in his work as both an influence on his techniques and a subject in their own right. Think of the Toonerville Trolley and its influence on “Interurban Queen,” Rocky McCrocky, the cartooning of Enniscorthy Sweeny, Dorg and cave art as cartooning, and so on.

There is an alternate universe in which Lafferty’s stories get adapted during the second flourishing of horror anthology comics in the 1960s and early 1970s. In ours, his work is tied to illustrators associated with underground and independent comics, including Vaughn Bodé, Larry Todd, and Kenneth Smith. Bodé did the cover and interior illustrations for Space Chantey (1968). Todd did the cover and illustrations for Aurelia (1982). Smith’s memorable illustration for “Mr. Hamadryad” appeared in Golden Gate and Other Stories (1982) and was reprinted with the story in Fantagraphics’ Prime Cuts (1987).

What about mainstream comics? Aside from Marvel and Warren Publications, not much.

At one point, it looked as if “Goldfish” would appear in the third issue of Marvel’s Haunt of Horror. “Ghost in the Corn Crib” had appeared in the first, but the magazine was canceled after two issues.

The only version of the man himself I know of in comics is the Scottish Aloysious Timothy Lafferty, who had an unfortunate encounter with Iron Man in 1982. Contrast this countercultural figure with the one in the two biographical notes at the end of this post.

Also, what a hypocrite, that Iron Man.

One of the weirder places Lafferty shows up is in the June 1974 issue of Terror Tales, one of Eerie Publications’ horror magazines. It includes an illustrated prose reprint of “The Ultimate Creature,” its title comically shortened to “The Creature” to squeeze the last bit of juice out of the monster market. We are a long way from “Teresa”, the non-genre story from which “The Ultimate Creature” developed.