Week of 6/24/2024 Sunday Edition

Barefootz Funnies #3 Review

Barefootz peaks in his third and final issue which is Howard Cruise’s most daring endeavor yet at this point in his career. Right after a few regular comic strips in the indicia page, Cruise makes no hesitation in showcasing his creative shift and versatility in the wildly experimental and self-explanatory “Variations”, a six-page comic that sees the Barefootz cast go through an identity crisis in a series of disjointed incarnations. For Barefootz, these range from being a funny animal, capitalist pig, black revolutionary, born-again Christian drowning in a baptism (a cheeky nod to Cruise’s evangelical upbringing), and a fat daddy that looks like a proto-Peter Griffin.