Jimbo's Inferno

Jimbo's Divine Comedy #1

by Gary Panter

"Don't try to pass a pop quiz on Dante's Hell based on a reading of this comic," warns Gary Panter. "It won't work. Even though the comic is engorged with Dante's Hell and though Jimbo mouths a super-condensed version of what happens in The Inferno, canto by canto, characters are fused, actions inverted, parodied, subject to mutation by my odd memories and obsessions and whims..." That said, Jimbo's Inferno is the hugely anticipated sequel (or prequel, as it was actually completed first) to Jimbo In Purgatory. In this oversize hardcover cloth-and-gold-finished volume, produced to the same exacting standards as 2004's Purgatory, Jimbo, accompanied by his trusty guide and ride Valise, visits Hell (here envisioned as a gigantic subterranean shopping mall called Focky Bocky), and in so doing runs across minotaurs, drug-addled punkettes, UFOs, giant robots, and more, leading him to such profound questions as, "Why do so many recreational activities involve smoke and heat?" Panter's Albrecht Dürer-meets-Jack Kirby graphics are wilder and more hallucinatory than ever, and given the full, expansive treatment they so richly deserve.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Sequential Art, Fiction

40 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Gary Panter is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer, and part-time musician, widely regarded as a leading figure in the post-underground, new wave comics movement. His work, described by The Comics Journal as defining him the "Greatest Living Cartoonist," has influenced alternative comics and visual culture for decades. Panter grew up in Texas, studying at East Texas State University under Jack Unruh and Lee Baxter Davis. In the 1970s, he became a key participant in the Los Angeles punk scene, producing gritty, expressive art for the fanzine Slash and numerous record covers. This period saw the creation of Jimbo, Panter’s punk everyman, who combines influences from Jack Kirby, Picasso, and underground comics, appearing in Raw, Slash, and Panter’s own graphic novels, including Jimbo in Purgatory and Jimbo’s Inferno. These works blend classical literature, particularly Dante’s Divine Comedy, with punk sensibilities, and Jimbo’s Inferno won an American Book Award. Panter’s influence extended to television as the set designer for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, where his densely layered, chaotic designs earned him two Daytime Emmy Awards. He also created online comics like Pink Donkey and published retrospectives such as the two-volume Gary Panter. He contributed album cover art for Frank Zappa and Yo La Tengo, bridging the worlds of comics, music, and fine art. His style is expressionistic and fast, balancing painting, commercial art, illustration, cartoons, and alternative comix. Exhibitions of his work include the Phoenix Art Museum, Dunn and Brown Contemporary Gallery, and the "Masters of American Comics" show at New York’s Jewish Museum. In 2012, Panter received the Klein Award from the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, recognizing his enduring contributions to the field.

Reviews

[Drew Canole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really much to say about this. The art style can be fun at times but a bit chaotic and inconsistent. The story was a drag.

[Jesús · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a collection, this book is too aimless and busy. But if I had read these as originally written and published—with some time lag between—I think the strangeness would seem more genuinely strange and better paced. Reading them all at once feels like listening to a punk album at 2x speed. It’s exhausting.

I think that’s also why many of the individual panels would work as album covers to late-‘80s/early-‘90s indie band tour cassettes (which Panter has done). There’s a density in the panels that needs much more time than a book format encourages.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book kind of scared me, but the visuals are great, and I can't stop thinking about the river of hot dr. pepper. what would dr. pepper taste like hot?

I have been procrastinating reading this because I don't want to return it. It's a very large book, and I got it from the library, and I have to return it not the normal way (which is a space age conveyor belt thing) but another way, but I forgot what the other way was.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mindfuck of the sort where I need to go do my homework

I love the shattering of hi/lo-brow castes here, the fusion of grungy zine work right at home in the Fields of the Lord. I also feel like I’ll probably switch to 5 stars once I have time to revisit influences and explore the other volumes. I love what Panter is doing here - unoriginal name drops but I sense a aesthetic and formal commonalities with Woodring and Regé. Great great stuff, which I’m long overdue to be reading.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Largely nonsense, but beautiful nonsense nonetheless. Panter has a way of achieving amalgamations in style that none else can replicate, but it can result in a lot of pretty incoherent storytelling. As a segment of Panter's overall tapestry that is "Jimbo's Divine Comedy" this doesn't read all that well, but it's still electric to see Panter's evolving style here. The linework is gritty and busy, but there is an overall simplicity to the pages that lends towards a nice visual flow. Not exactly a deep read, but a visual treat overall.

[Joel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Basically jibberish.

[Edwin Vazquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Jimbo's Inferno' collects issue # 7 of the short run comic 'Jimbo', published by Bongo comics. To experience the magnitude of 'Jimbo's Purgatory', 'Inferno' is a must read. If you have the opportunity to view 'Jimbo' issues 1-6 then you are in for a treat.

[John Isaacson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I live the page layouts and use of panels to show characters as they wander through a much bigger scene. It took me awhile to figure out that this is based on Dante's Inferno which I haven't read since high school.

[Hillingdon Libraries]

Find this book at Hillingdon Libraries

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was originally Jimbo #7, continued from Jimbo #1-4. (Jimbo #5 features Panter's 70s work and Jimbo #6 features Dal Tokyo). I think Fantagraphics should have published along with Jimbo #1-4.