The Collected Neil the Horse (Graphic Novel) (Humor)

By Katherine Collins (formerly Arn Saba), Trina Robbins (Introduction)

Publisher: Conundrum Press (Octover 2017)

Softcover 328 pages 





           I feel like I’ve always known Neil the Horse. I’ve never read it before, I may have seen a few issues back in comic shops back in the day, but I’ve literally never read a line. Yet somehow, it is as warm and familiar as slipping on an old pair of slippers. A feeling of nostalgia surrounds me on every page, and somehow I get a comforting feeling for things past, even if all the material is new to me.

This is because the influences that shape Neil the Horse come from early childhood (from everyone’s childhood at this point). They are bright spangly cartoons (half in black and white, half in color) that danced about in the 1930s. The old ones from early Disney or Fleischer studios , Betty Boop, early Popeye the Sailor, Koko the Clown, all of which often had music to pad up the experience. These early visions of a cartoon universe gave birth the Neil the Horse and his companions. The entire book is an ode, a love letter, to the masters of the past, which obviously infected the author’s imagination.

While the subject matter and style may not be unique, it is very different from any comic I’ve seen out there. The author constantly plays with form and mediums. Sometimes it’s a straight up comic, other times it’s a prose story with illustrations. Often there are cut out sections for old fashion dress-up paper dolls, and sheet music for the numerous songs presented in the stories.

This volume contains all fifteen issues of the series’ run, plus a number of inked strips originally appearing in several alternative Canadian newspapers and magazines. The main characters are the happy go-lucky Neil the Horse, whose defining feature is that he’s not too bright and loves bananas; Soapy, a cynical, cigar-chomping cat; and Mam'selle Poupée (French for doll), a life sized wooden doll come to life through unexplored means. Orignally published by Aardvark-Vanaheim the home of Cerebus. While there is no crossover with the antihero aardvark, there is with another old fashioned indie charter, Omaha the Cat Dancer- The sexualized cat character, whose comic was essentially an anthropomorphized soap opera.

Author Katherine Collins

These are static characters placed in different time periods as is needed by the story. If you’re looking for some world building, or a mythology this is not the book for you. This doesn’t mean the stories are bad, on the contrary, but remember this is simply light hearted fare. Wonderful, whimsical, and silly.

A few of the stories don’t work. Some of the illustrations lack polish, the framing indicates an amateur on the verge of becoming a professional. The black and white often hamper the frivolity of the comic. I don’t often say this, but color would have really helped to sell the magical nature of the world. There’s something about a rainbow done in greyscale that is so depressing. And musical numbers do not translate well at all to a comic medium.  

One final note. Neil the Horse is one of the few independents to jump mediums. In the 90s a series of radio plays was made by the author using the cast of the comic. Apparently, it had rave reviews. Now they are all available on Youtube. The first of them is included below.

           For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.