Toybox Americana: Characters Met Along the Way

by Tim Lane, Scott Phillips (Preface)

A collection of flash fiction and illustrations celebrating the hardscrabble underbelly of Americana. From the rail yards of San Francisco to the dive bars of St. Louis, cartoonist Tim Lane has taken pen in hand to chronicle scenes of American life. Scores of motley characters ― roughed-up boxers, bleary gamblers, rowdy winos, philosophical rail riders, acrobatic fire-swallowers, femmes fatale ― weave together into the rich tapestry of Lane’s America. Through these sharply observed slice-of-life stories, illustrations, and comics Lane captures the spirit of the hardscrabble American character. A uniquely designed collection of images and prose, Toybox Americana , like the culture it explores, is at once meditative and brimming with life. Black & white illustrations throughout.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 4, 2020

About the author

Tim Lane is a licensed paraglider pilot and a registered nurse. He has a BS in biology and an associate’s degree in nursing.

Reviews

[Rod Brown]

If you want to know about the night life in St. Louis, Missouri, in the 2000s, this is the book for you . . . and since I don't, it's definitely not for me.

Produced for a local publication in St. Louis, Tim Lane shares what caught his eye or ear when he was out at wrestling or boxing matches, bars, music venues, or just hanging with his friends. The first 160 pages consist of two-page spreads with a full-page illustration on the left side and a block of typeset text floating in the middle of the page on the right. It's all vignettes, all the time, with dull attempts at capturing the profundity of the common man or some-such crap.

Once you get past the chaff, there are about 50 pages of actual comics telling the history of Stagger Lee, the "Millionaire Hobo," a champion woman wrestler, Steve McQueen, and the Mississippi River that are a bit wordy but actually pretty engaging.

But to kill any momentum, the book finishes with two text-based short stories with some highlight illustrations. Bah.

This is one of those books that gets crammed in the graphic novel section of the library because of all the illustrations, but it is not what I want when I'm expecting a graphic novel.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contents: Preface / Scott Phillips -- Read This First -- Illustrated Vignettes -- Experimental Vignettes -- Graphic Feature Stories | • Mississippi Meditation | • The Story of Stagger Lee | • Welcome to Hopeville, USA | • Remembering the Millionaire Hobo | • St. Louis' Own Penny Banner, the First A.W.A. Women's Champ | • Steve McQueen in Slater, MO | • The Spooky River -- Short Stories | • The Ghost of Eduardo | • Goin' to California

[Matt]

I started skipping ahead. The stories didn't hold my interest.