By JIM GOAD, JIM BLANCHARD (Fantagraphics Books; 2004)
This one shot comic book, initially presented in the form of one-page installments in the Portland, OR based EXOTIC magazine, has been called a “tawdry, hateful, utterly irredeemable string of illustrated panels awash in excretory functions and cheap homophobic humor” by its own creator. That creator was the late Jim Goad, who could always be counted on for hackle-raising content, and outdid himself in this XXX-rated exercise in provocation. Illustrated in frank Daniel Clowes-like black and white drawings by Jim Blanchard, it’s a comic with something to offend absolutely everyone, gay or otherwise.
About two long haul truckers whose major dilemma is summed up by the title, TRUCKER FAGS IN DENIAL abandoned Goad’s favorite post-2000 subject—race—in favor of an equally hot button topic: homosexuality. The alleged inspiration was Goad’s time in prison, wherein homophobic cons enthusiastically practiced the gay acts they spoke out against, but I can’t help but suspect that Goad, a wife-beater whose early carnal experiences were admittedly of the same sex variety, had a more personal, deep-seated connection to the material than he let on.
The focus is on Butch and Petey, truck driving bachelors who “spend perhaps more time together than any two men should.” They harbor a special animosity toward gay men (or, as they’re identified here, “fags”), with Butch bragging about having killed a fellow trucker for propositioning him. These guys are also “harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty…almost as if they were blind to their own physical ugliness.” One night they find themselves sharing a motel room bed and, in a hilariously disgusting series of panels depicting “Unspeakable deeds…Deeds thought by many to be impossible,” give full vent to their repressed desires.
The following days see Butch and Petey resuming their anti-gay stance, and getting into a fight that lands them a few days behind bars. Upon getting let out they embark on a homophobic killing spree that’s apparently “unparallelled in the annals of crime,” while “For the rest of their lives, they continued to drive a truck…act like fags…and deny it. And they were happier than they’d ever imagined possible.”
Complaining about this comic being overly graphic and/or politically incorrect would be beside the point. Equally pointless would be complaining about the wafer-thin philosophizing (with unnamed “psychologists” referred to throughout the narration) and uncertain moral stance, as I strongly doubt that Goad or Blanchard concerned themselves with those things. What they were evidently concerned with was ugliness and upset, two things that come through loud and clear in an account that’s damn funny in addition to being screamingly offensive. In short, whatever Goad and Blanchard’s true intentions were, they appear to have been handily accomplished.