CAZCO - What a long strange trip it’s been!

 

The Godfather of The American Graphic Novel, Phil Yeh, will release a brand new Graphic Novel celebrating the 30th anniversary of his famous Cazco graphic novel of 1977.

 

Cazco - What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been! is the saga of an idealistic cartoonist in search of a publisher. The search takes him 35 years and he travels all over the world. The character of Cazco was first introduced in Phil Yeh's successful daily comic strip for the school newspaper at California State University Long Beach (CA) in the fall of 1972. After Phil, a new editor stopped the strip in 1973 and Phil decided to launch his own newspaper, UNCLE JAM, to continue drawing and writing. Uncle Jam became a legend among free newspapers in California for the next 21 years.

 

In 1976, Phil published a comic book of Cazco strips and then gave up on comic strips in favor of the expanded format and freedom that the graphic novel provided. Phil was a film and art major in college and he believed that graphic novels are a much better way to tell stories than dealing with the often shortsighted folks in the film industry.

 

Phil's friend and mentor in Long Beach was Richard Kyle, who first coined the term "graphic novel" in 1964 and the same who published one of the very first in the United States in 1976. Phil was inspired and encouraged by his friendship with Richard to write and illustrate his own graphic novel in the spring of 1977. Richard's comic book and science fiction bookstore in Long Beach was a gathering place for many talented artists and writers in Southern California.

 

Even Cazco Gets the Blues was a graphic novel of all new material ( Kyle 's novel was a reprinting of comic strips by George Metzger ) and it took the comic book industry by storm. It featured introductions by Sergio Aragones and Don Rico , who gave the book such high praise that it took Phil years to live up to it. Another year would pass before Will Eisner 's "first" graphic novel appeared and Phil has been trying for the last 30 years to set the record straight in the strange and often inaccurate comic book press.

 

Cazco: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been chronicles Cazco's travels all over the world, starting out in the present day in 2007 and then, through a series of flashbacks, it tells the funny and very true story of a struggling thoughtful artist in a world of tasteless consumerism and mass-produced values. It fits nicely into Phil's own journey of the past 22 years as a literacy & arts advocate traveling to promote reading and art with his group, Cartoonists Across America & The World.

 

This graphic novel was written for the baby-boomers who are often overlooked in the current shallow pop culture. It is also a fun sktech of the past 35 years and shows how things became the way they are. Ultimately, it is an optimistic book for future generations to consider, since the vast majority of young people today have not read history books or aren't sure what happened in the sixties and seventies. Perhaps this graphic novel can correct some of the gaps in our collective memories. It will definitely do so in an entertaining way.

 

For anyone who remembers the first appearance of The Beatles , and the "Summer of Love" , this book will capture that era like no other graphic novel. Phil's treasured friendships with many notables of the last century play a significant role in this fictionalized story.

 

The release date is June 1-3, 2007, at the BookExpoAmerica convention at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. This debut will be followed by a worldwide tour.