Best known for eccentric satirical works about a gay Nazi officer (The Desert Peach), centaurs (Stinz) and German culture, self-publishing comics pioneer Donna Barr returned earlier this summer with the release of Afterdead, a new collection of comics and prose that brings together her principal characters in one series.
Desert Peach follows Colonel Pfirsich Rommel, the gay brother of the General Edwin Rommel (known as the Desert Fox); Stinz, followed a society of Alpine centaurs in a kind of early 20th century Germany. In Afterdead, Barr creates a futuristic, militaristic afterworld run by the Reich, which is inhabited by many of her existing characters. Pfirsich Rommel is an Afterdead and his brother is a terrorist known as the Raider. Stinz is a disgruntled officer in the Reich and his wife Brüna is his sergeant. In an interview with PWCW, Barr said that having several series going at the same time “was making me crazy and the readers crazy, so I consolidated,” adding that, “I always knew my characters would want to talk to each other.” Fans who have long asked if this type of crossover was possible should be pleased with the result.
In Afterdead, Barr continues to explore themes such as the influence of the military on society, the complexities of love and sexuality and the gray areas of morality and human responsibility. She believes Afterdead will allow her to comment on a wide range of issues facing modern life, noting in her introduction that “the new Peach will open up hunting season on the whole of human history and every country that ever was or could be.” Barr acknowledges that the current political climate, in which issues of war and civil liberties are of central importance, should give her rich material with which to work.
New Afterdead volumes will appear approximately once a year. Barr is publishing the work through her own imprint, Fine Line Press, using Print On Demand publisher Booksurge. Diamond Comics Distribution will handle distribution and the volume is also available through online retailers, lulu.com and Barr’s Web site. Barr is releasing the 320-page Afterdead in two versions, one in color, the other less expensively produced in grayscale. Color, she explained, was a learning experiment and she acknowledged that she didn’t always have complete control of its effects.
The volume also includes two short stories based on material she originally wrote in the 1970s for her Black Manuscripts, hand-written and illustrated books now located in the San Diego State University Special Collection Library. Barr finds some of her stories work better when told in prose alone, especially those that focus on characters’ internal lives. She published the novel Bread and Swans in 2005, which addresses the Desert Peach’s experiences growing up.
Barr is using the Web to promote the book. The Jenkins Group, a book sales group, represented Afterdead at the American Library Association Convention in June. Barr prefers attending smaller comics conventions, including the Small Press Expo and the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, instead of a mega-media event like the recent San Diego Comic-con. “San Diego is becoming less and less a comics world and more and more of a media world,” explained Barr. “It’s getting to the point where the artists are getting lost in the media.”
