Hawgfat Funnies

Plot

This is a completely politically incorrect yet fairly funny comic book from Sheldon Adams Bickford. Hawgfat Funnies features comics starring Clem Hutchins, a redneck sheriff in Cletchville, Georgia. After a one-pager on the inside front cover that provides a quick preview of Hutchins' personality, Bickford gives us a couple multi-page stories that illuminate the ways of life in Cletchville, from the farm and the back alleys to the jailhouse. This sets the stage for the 15-page epic, "The Night of the Slanty-Eyed Trash," in which sheriff Hutchins battles to keep "the yellow chinkies" from "using oriental drugs to turn our youth into mindless commie puppets!" His hard-fought success earns him an award from the governor.

Though the drawing is rather poor (I was charitable when I scored it as "competent"), Bickford shows no fear when it comes to satirizing life in the South in the early '70s. He exposes sheriff Hutchins as a violent racist but also makes him an anti-hero by portraying every character in the most negative and stereotypical manner possible. The fact that the 22-year-old Bickford captured these stereotypes from his small burg in northern Vermont makes Hawgfat Funnies a bit more ironic.