Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman #1-5
Published by: Eclipse Comics – 1989
Written and Illustrated by: David Boswell
The title of Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman—a five-issue 1989 Eclipse Comics miniseries by David Boswell—tells you everything you need to know: it is about a man named Reid Fleming who is both a milkman and very tough. The spitting image of a balding John Belushi with a cuboidal nose, Fleming wreaks havoc on his delivery route, destroys delivery trucks, accosts customers, romances a television actress, and tries not to miss his favorite TV show.
Reid Fleming is a comedic comic in the tradition of Milk and Cheese, Pete the P.O.’d Postal Worker, Flaming Carrot Comics, and anything by Kim Deitch. Though not as surreal or sincere as Deitch’s tales of Waldo the cat, and not as violent or sophomoric as Milk and Cheese, Reid Fleming shares with them a visual style and an acerbic sense of humor that relies on a version of physical and verbal slapstick more than on satire or social commentary. Reid Fleming has most in common with Pete the P.O.’d Postal Worker, where an undeterrable employee beats all odds to accomplish the task set before him, regardless of personal safety or the wellbeing of himself, his customers, coworkers, and anyone standing in his way. However, Fleming is a much more three-dimensional character with a romantic relationship, friendships in the form of his coworkers, an adversary in the form of his boss, and a life outside his job.
Reid Fleming will likely appeal to a younger audience—i.e. teenagers—whom will appreciate the physical humor, but it also has more subtle humor in its dialogue—even once referencing James Joyce’s Ulysses to comedic effect. Though silly, Reid Fleming never transcends silliness into stupidity. The violence is neither graphic nor gruesome but, rather, cartoonish and unlikely to offend. There is no nudity and only incidental profanity. It should, thus, not lead to many objections for a younger audience, though it is clearly not for children.
The black and white line art—sans grey-tones—in Reid Fleming has much in common with Deitch’s style of cartoonish caricatures and ubiquitous hatching. The art is not impressive, but, at the same time, it is not a detractor. The art does what needs to be done, and little else. The characters are each unique with distinctive features and are simplistic enough that even when they are “off-model” they are still easily identifiable and easily distinguished from each other.
Though at first seemingly an episodic comic, the five issues of Reid Fleming have a uniting story arc with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. At the end, everything is resolved so neatly, it almost precludes subsequent stories—barring a dramatic shift in premise.
Recommendations:
Any fan of the slapstick of Reid Fleming in search of something a little cruder will likely appreciate the aforementioned Milk and Cheese by Evan Dorkin—most often published by Slave Labor Graphics in a seemingly unending series of “first” issues. Milk and Cheese is the story of a misanthropic, anthropomorphic, carton of milk and wedge of cheese named, aptly, “Milk” and “Cheese,” respectively. They get into fights, start riots, and drink alcohol, usually in only a couple pages at a time.
Anyone fond of the more sincere aspects of Reid Fleming—the friendships and romance, the trials and tribulations on the road to happiness, the verbal playfulness—would probably enjoy Kim Deitch’s oeuvre, specifically the very good Boulevard of Broken Dreams and the not as good, but still good, Alias the Cat! Deitch’s art is very similar to Boswell’s—black and white without grey, lots of hatching, misshapen cartoonish faces and bodies, and uniform line weights—but Deitch organizes his pages with a greater deference to an appealing visual aesthetic.
Pete the P.O.’d Postal Worker—published by Sharkbait Press, written by Marcus Pierce Jr., and illustrated by Pete Garcia—probably has the most in common with Reid Fleming both in concept, tone, and execution. The art is more similar to mainstream American comics and cartoons than the underground aesthetic of Deitch’s work, largely eschewing hatching for stark whites and blacks and the occasional halftone grey. The story follows the eponymous “Pete”—a stolid postal worker—as he delivers the mail, encountering angry dogs, gangs, and assassins whom he violently dispatches with the tools of his trade—swords, guns, and grenades. Pete the P.O.’d Postal Worker possesses much of the same silliness of Reid Fleming—turned up to eleven—but, likewise, manages to avoid trespassing into the realm of stupidity.
Flaming Carrot Comics—a 37 issue comic series written and drawn by Bob Burden and published by various companies over the years—is another comic series that comes to mind for an audience appreciative of any of the aforementioned. It follows the often absurdist adventures of the eponymous “Flaming Carrot” as he acts as both superhero and good Samaritan. Its sense of humor will be familiar to any fans of Reid Fleming, but it also shares a zest for lighthearted science fiction and adventure more akin to Mike Allred’s very good series Madman and its spinoff titles.
Brian Bigelow
February 10, 2017
