Understanding Milk and Cheese

Yesterday I gushed that Milk and Cheese were being collected by Dark Horse in a hardcover book. I realize not everyone is familiar with Evan Dorkin’s manic children, so today I’m going to talk a little bit about the strips and why I love them so much.

Each M&C strip usually falls between 1 and 3 pages. The standard strip layout has them in circles above the title. The pose and what they’re saying changes in each one, usually reflecting what the story is going to be about. Most of the stories are pretty simple; M&C get angry at something/someone, drink a lot, yell even more, and then cause carnage and destruction.

The violence sometimes develops into a montage. The page gets filled with little circles and each circle is another stabbing, beating, or berating. The example above is pulled from two different strips.  Over the top does not begin to even describe it; no one is safe from their rampages. Also, it’s very loud. Sure it is just words printed on a page, but when you read them yelling, there is something about it that you can hear them yelling.

There are quieter moments. There aren’t many of them, but they are there. In all that mayhem there is usually a drawing of the two that can only be described as cute. Looking at the picture above it isn’t hard to believe that a lot of people approached Evan about turning M&C into a cartoon. The way I’ve heard Evan tell it at conventions, a lot of people had no idea what they were pitching to him because they wanted to make a kid’s cartoon out of it.

I almost forgot one of the other things I love about the strips. In the margins and under panels a lot of the strips have little doodles or messages. Some of them comment on what is happening in the strip, others seem to just be randomly placed there. A lot of it has an almost Mad magazine feel to it.

That’s it for more look at Milk and Cheese. I realize a book about a pair of hyper violent dairy products on murder sprees isn’t going to be for everyone. But personally just hearing the phrase, “Gin makes a man mean!” makes me smile.

Booze Up and Riot, Milk and Cheese Gets Collected

Brandon has the day off due to a rough work week, so I’m updating the site. It was just announced that on December 21st, Dark Horse is going to be releasing a 240 page, hard cover collection of Evan Dorkin’s Milk and Cheese called MILK AND CHEESE: DAIRY PRODUCTS GONE BAD. Evan Dorkin gave even more information about the book here. The book will contain every Milk and Cheese strip made from 1989 to 2010 (only the 1988 M&C/Pirate CorpS! strip from Munden’s Bar Annual #2 is excluded).

The book will include over 80 pages of comics that have not been collected before. There will be a 24 page color section featuring all the color Milk and Cheese strips, a cover gallery, pin-ups, merchandise art, trading cards, etc. There will also be a 24 page B&W supplemental section featuring pin-ups, t-shirt designs, and other art, etc. The book will include the rare 1997 M&C Special Edition 16-pg mini-comic featuring the expanded "Darth Vader Overdrive" strip and extras.

This announcement makes me so happy I actually have a hard time expressing it. Milk and Cheese came out right when I was exploring indie comics. I thought I was so edgy leaving the comic shop with M&C and Poision Elves tucked in between my superhero books. When I did my giant long box purge, my Milk and Cheese books were part of that small group I kept. At Heroes this year I replaced the Milk and Cheese lunchbox that was stolen from me a few years ago. If you’ve never read Milk and Cheese before, come back tomorrow and we’ll be talking about the actual strips. If you’re already a fan, get your pre-orders in at your local shop, because this book sounds fantastic.