The Small Press Spotlight is going back to the awesome ‘80s this week. Black Eye Books recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for John MacLeod’s The Mundane Adventures of Dishman on the Canadian platform Fundrazr. Collecting issues 1 through 10 of the hugely successful 1980s mini-comic, as well as the previously digital-only issues 11 and 12 from 2018, this edition will be the most complete Dishman ever published.
“I never exactly thought of Dishman as a superhero satire. I felt like it wasn’t so much that I was satirizing superheroes, but more like by treating them as rigidly realistic as I could, I gave them the opportunity to satirize themselves if people wanted to read it that way. I wasn’t trying to say that superheroes are ridiculous. I just wanted to say they weren’t realistic,” MacLeod stated in an interview with Mel Taylor.
Dishman launched as an eight-page mini-comic in 1985, near the height of the decade’s small-press comics boom. As one of the top-selling minis of its time, ten issues were published between 1985 and 1990, and Eclipse Comics released a collection of the first six in 1988. Two more issues were published digitally in 2018.
Read details from Black Eye:
“The book is perhaps best described as a combination “slice-of-life character/superhero study”. It’s the story of Paul Mahler, a schoolteacher who—after years of washing radioactive Fiestaware—suddenly gains the power of instantly cleaning dishes and putting them away by telekinesis, and his attempts to launch a career as a costumed crimefighter. It’s the superhero comic for people who don’t like superheroes. Dishman’s satirical absurdity comes from playing everything absolutely straight, so feel free to laugh.”
This limited-edition collection is prestige black and white from cover to cover, with a matte laminated printed hardcover and deep blacks on 100 lb uncoated paper inside. To date, it will be the most complete edition of the popular series.
Check out the campaign here (only a couple of days left to preorder!) and head to the publisher’s website for publication dates.
