BugHouse From the Top

Tenor saxophone maestro Jimmy Watts leads his talented band of bugs from the swing era into the uncharted maelstrom of Bebop. As he and his band mates claw their way to the top of the jazz world, they must fight the temptation to be consumed by addiction to a substance known as "Bug Juice."

Inspired by the postwar explosion of Bohemian cultural stylings from artists as diverse as jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and Beat avatar William Burroughs, cartoonist Steve Lafler delivers his indigo-tinged masterwork graphic novel, BugHouse.

Comics writer Tasha Lowe-Newsome describes BugHouse: This volume collects the BugHouse books (BugHouse, Baja: A BugHouse Story and Scalawag: BugHouse Volume 3 ) as they grapple with the problems of addiction in the context of the creative life. Sax player and bandleader Jimmy Watts struggles with the substance "bug juice" - which can symbolize anything from booze to heroin. Inspired by Miles Davis's autobiography and Lafler's own increasing dependence on alcohol at the time, the books are set in a slightly surreal 1950s Manhattan peopled by characters with human bodies and insect heads.

Yes, there is a nod to William S. Burroughs, and the Cronenberg adaptation of Naked Lunch. This might sound creepy, but it is actually very engaging. One of the most delightful things about this series is that Lafler sets up many possible pitfalls for his characters, then takes a different, more interesting, and less predictable path. The moralistic lessons so often found in stories of addiction are passed over. There are consequences, there are lessons learned, but not in the way that Hollywood would do it.