I came across Trots and Bonnie again a few weeks back through the interview with Shary Flenniken The Comics Journal did years ago. What struck me was the artwork, which looked as if it should’ve been published alongside Windsor McKay’s and George Herriman’s in some early twentieth century newspaper’s Sunday edition. Even in this golden age of comics reprints there are strips that have fallen through the cracks: no commercial interest, difficulties getting the rights together, too obscure, too difficult to get the original sources for the art together etc, or there just isn’t anybody interested and dedicated enough to overcome these things. Trots and Bonnie is one such comic, for which these problems should be relatively easy to overcome. It’s the last great uncollected underground comic.
Earlier this month Shary Flenniken did an interview for Jeff Kay, who’d emailed her a list of questions expecting to at most get a mail back; instead he got a four part Youtube video:
Part one: general introduction:
Part two: Trots and Bonnie
Part three: about the possibility of a reprint collection of Trots and Bonnie and all the technical difficulties into getting it together.
Part four: what Shary is doing now.
Come on Fantagraphics, Drawn and Quarterly, Top Shelf: get us the complete Trots and Bonnie, you know you want to.