Tales From the Interstate #1: 20th Anniversary Edition
It’s a shame that so many artists hate their old material, as this is an idea I’d like to see explored more by other artists. I still have never seen King Cat #1, for example, and would love to see it in this format. Pam put her first comic, a redrawn and expanded version of that comic and a “commentary” booklet all together in this package. Her style in the redrawn comic is much improved, obviously, but her commentary makes it clear that the seeds for the characters she’s used all along were here right at the beginning. I’ve been trying to put my mind back in that time period, as I started reading small press comics only a few years after Pam started drawing them, and I’m honestly not sure if this one would have stood out for me at the time. The redrawn edition would have definitely gotten my attention, but the original? Hey, why don’t I tell you about it so you have the slightest idea what I’m talking about. A young couple picks up what appears to be a Buddhist monk hitchhiking. The monk was quiet, either because he was full of wisdom or didn’t speak much English, and he paid for gas a few times, then the comic ends. The Haitian proverb on the back cover might have gotten my attention, but there really isn’t a whole lot to the story. As for the redrawn version, it stays pretty true to the original, then adds eight new pages onto the original six. These new pages show the couple meeting up with the monk again, as he’s now running a used bookstore. These pages tie it into her current Kekionga series more closely, but I’ll leave the contents a mystery for long time fans who want to see what she’s changed. The booklet is also quite informative, as Pam tells the story of how she got started (Matt Feazell has done all kinds of good for comics creators throughout the years) and takes us step by step through the pages and the characters. This may or may not be all that interesting if this is the first thing of Pam’s you’ve seen, but this is indispensable if you’ve been reading her stuff for years. She doesn’t put a lot of personal details in her stories (or if she does she hides it under fiction) but you’ll learn a lot about both Pam and her work if you read this whole set. No price listed, but this has to at least be a few dollars…
Posted by Kevin 
