MANIAC ISLAND (1987)
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Artwork: “Maniac Island” (as featured in DR. WIRTHAM’S COMIX & STORIES #10, Clifford Neal) © 1986, Rick Grimes.
GRIMES: ” ‘Maniac Island’ has Nudolph and Cathy Doll, (Sicky Claws’ underlings) turn up for a healthy dose of karma at the erratic hands and implements of still another combo of newly lumped together ‘kiddy-characters’ (ie Spiketball Bobo, Mudda Mudda, Billiard-Ball Bull and their unstable overseer, ‘The Maniac’). Think: The Island of Dr. Moreau meets Snuffy Smith.
This time there is a built-in ‘out’ at the beginning. It may all be a ‘child”s outing in a cardboard box, and did not really happen. (Nudolph and Cathy being the ‘children’).
At the same time, however, the story gives ‘reasons’ for why Cathy Doll’s foot, (or the lack thereof), is how it is, (or isn’t), on the cover. …” — Rick Grimes (December 22, 2008).
+GRIMES: “Maniac Island – The ‘out’ in the ‘real-or-not?’ of this story is not a pretend trip in a cardboard box; (that’s in a different story of theirs). Misremembered. In ‘Maniac’ the ‘out’ is when Cathy Doll is hit by the oar. The bulk of their ordeal is, then, possibly Cathy’s coma delirium. Then at the end: relief his foot’s okay. But, a shark may’ve gotten the good one. Pretty ‘funny’, hunh? Their oar-deal. The cover could be ‘set’ much later, and it ‘was’ real. Or it, too, is unreal. (So, if I use Cathy Doll again, he’ll be back to having two feet)!
The character pushing the gurney is Spiketball Bobo. Didn’t have room in the story for his name. Or his spiketball, and what it could do. So he is bouncing ‘Mudda Mudda’ at the end, farewell, instead.
Hope all you scientists at home are taking notes.” — Rick Grimes (March 15, 2009).
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