I’ve been a fan of the obscure webcomic Buttercup Festival since ~2005 when I discovered it and A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible (probably my 2 favorites were “Another Day” and the yeti) through Dinosaur Comics, and was pleased to see it restart in 2008.

It ended in 2013 with the announcement of a Kickstarter for his book Renaming of the Birds. I will be honest, I am not a big fan of Troupes’s realistic prose and poetry as compared to Buttercup Festival, An Island People Go To, or his unfinished Green Evening Stories - for the most part, they strike me as embodying the worst sins of English poetry in the 20th & 21st centuries, while his artwork at its best nears the spare beauty of some East Asian traditions. I was not pleased to hear that it was ending in favor of a short novel, but I did notice in the announcement:

Among the rewards are original Series 2 BF strips and it’s first-come-first-served for choosing strips, so if there’s one you’d really like to have hanging on your wall, better get a move on.

and on the Kickstarter page:

Pledge £80 [$120] or more

23 backers; Limited (77 left of 100)

THE MIGHTY EAGLE: Barn Owl reward plus the the original artwork for the Series 2 Buttercup Festival comic of your choice! First backers are first choosers, so let David know your top choices in order of preference.

Now that was a different story. I’ve always been a little bit impressed how effectively Troupes deployed Sharpies for his comics, and this was too good an opportunity to pass up. Plus, apparently I might get some books or something as well. I immediately subscribed and submitted my preferences:

Luckily, I spoke up quickly enough to get my first choice.

The Kickstarter succeeded and the printing of the book went through apparently without much issue, so I received my package in early January 2014.

The original of comic #120 turns out to be a sheet of stiffish paper about 29.2x20.3 centimeters, much larger than the web image. The image also doesn’t do it justice: the original is actually visibly textured with whiteout, you can see variation in the intensity of black, and between that, the stars in the stream seem to shine a little bit. So I was satisfied and just needed to find a frame for it. I scanned it to have a backup copy:

https://i.imgur.com/98YSV07.jpg

I also received:

“Standing in the Sea” [2011] set of 6 postcards featuring David’s poetry and the fab artwork of Laurie Hastings.

Hastings’s artwork was interesting but not really in my vein. David’s poetry was decent enough that I copied part of 2 of the better ones; from “Their Daughter”:

“The cooling, still-warm blue
of September rolls westward
…Their daughter toe-steps among the twizzles
of melon vine, which follow
everything, seek everything,
labouring now and again to fatten a soul
sweet and blind.”

And from “Pumpkinseeds”:

“…Outside
summer tumbles
like a slob through the valley.
We roll up our sleeves to the shoulder,
we dip our children in greeny ponds.
It is only for us that catbirds mock cats.
It is only for us that pumpkinseeds
float in weedy splendour, flecked
like whittles of sun.”

Not bad. I eventually wound up using the postcards for a prank.

Renaming of the Birds (2013; ISBN 978-0-9927133-0-0) is a 74pg novel with ~56 black-white sketches of birds/landscapes/people as illustrations. (There is one short poem at the end, but it seems they were all split out as the companion pamphlet The Fountain along with unused illustrations.) The Kickstarter for it describes it as

…an illustrated storybook about a young clerk who is assigned to rename all the birds in his town. The book is in the form of a journal kept by the clerk, and proceeds through a whole year, as he ventures farther and farther into the woods, looking for new birds to rename. He ends up sleeping outdoors, travelling all around, building a winter den and going a bit crazy. I originally thought of this as a kids’ book and kept the language within hearing of 10 to 12 year-olds, though really it’s a book for all ages, and adults will find plenty to think about. If you’re familiar with my webcomic Buttercup Festival you’ll know the sort of whimsy, humor and outdoorsiness you’ll find in Renaming of the Birds. If you’re not – I hope you’ll find out!

This is not inaccurate a summary, but it overemphasizes the ‘renaming’ part: one might think it’s a sort of magical realist novel or more upbeat Kafkaesque novel or an experimental novel, but the renaming part and the new names passes quickly. Which is too bad because I thought it was a nice parody; for example, the letter with the assignment:

Special Committee for the Avoidance of Bird Death Unhappiness

To Whom It Will Concern:

It has been determined that the recent phenomenon of Bird Death Unhappiness will best be avoided by a process of de-bird-familiarization. We are therefore undertaking to render birds less familiar, and this will be accomplished through the assignment of new bird names.

The task of bird name reassignment will be passed to the appropriate local agencies, to be staffed at their discretion. Agents should rename every type of bird within their town.

All necessary forms are enclosed. Agents are to begin immediately.

Ever Yours,

SCABDU

I had to read that fifteen or twenty times before it began to sound like real words. But the gist of it, I think, is that they wanted me to rename the birds.

It is Orwellian bureaucratic reasoning that would not be one bit out of place in England. Why not?

So the protagonist sets about his task, renaming mockingbirds to ‘Yelling Birds’, Crows to Rattles, Gulls to Tattles, Pigeons to Ladyfriends, Mourning Doves to Vinegar Doves, Grackles to Velvet Inkdrops, and runs out. So he sets off to the woods, and of course meets a woman there. In a few more vignettes wandering the woods, he kills time and renames some more birds. He declines to rename swans, and is puzzle by sparrows. It becomes an extended camping trip: the narrator sees some more trees, watches a kestrel kill one, sleeps in trees, and winter comes. He survives the snow by making a lean-to. (No mention of where he gets food initially before learning how to scavenge roots, which was a major concern of a Maine hermit I read about recently and who I’m reminded strongly of when rereading RotB). After winter, he wanders his way back, eventually returning to his house. Wandering around some more, he re-meets the woman and together they wander out into the woods and watch birds. He still doesn’t know what to rename sparrows to.

The illustrations are appropriate and well-done.

The writing is fair enough. It’s not as overripe as much of Troupes’s poetry, and he generally underplays incidents and avoids too much mawkishness and invocations of God. It does indeed feel like a journal of a long camp-out, and Troupes is doubtless taking a lot of material from life. It’s pleasant, but not much beyond that.