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I'm late to the party on this one: Donna Barr has been producing this odd little comic since 1989 through her own A Fine Line imprint. But a collection called Seven Peaches, reprinting the earliest issues, has just been published with Xeric Grant money, and it seems like a good time to get acquainted. I've seen bits of Barr's work elsewhere, and she's always had interesting things to say about sexuality—never more so than in The Desert Peach.
The setting: World War II, North Africa, in the ranks of Nazi General Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox." And commanding a support battalion in Rommel's Afrika Korps is... his (fictional) brother Pfirsich, who is, well, a flaming queen. I use the word advisedly, but there's no other for it: Pfirsich is a real screamer, a full-on mincing John Inman caricature.
A high concept, indeed. And there are so many hot buttons here—war, Nazis, homosexuality—that it sounds like it should be an extravaganza of bad taste. It isn't. The Desert Peach is often very funny, but always humane and affectionate—like its titular hero, it hasn't a mean bone in its body.
It's a sitcom set-up: Pfirsich (who's only in the Army so that Erwin can look after him) is the benign and beloved commander of a platoon of misfits; a pacifist by nature, Pfirsich has established an unofficial truce with Allied units in his area: naturally, wacky hijinks ensue. Think Hogan's Heroes, or, better yet, F-Troop.
Barr's art is highly decorative—each panel is crammed with detail, crazily ornate lines and super-stylized word balloons. You'd think that would bog down the storytelling, but The Desert Peach races along surehandedly. It's a delightful book, and oddly engrossing in the interplay of its characters.
For those who follow the series, a few talking points:
(1) The paradoxical portrayal of Pfirsich: though he's plainly a figure of fun—vain, frivolous, often oblivious, ever drawn in one exaggeratedly fey pose or other—his immense kindness and decency makes him the firm moral center of the book.
(B) In many ways, Pfirisich is a very modern figure—in his open homosexuality, his open-mindedness, and cultural sensitivity (he does not tolerate the telling of ethnic jokes). In others, though, he's a throwback to the "gentlemen" of the pre-World War I era—his modesty, his sense of honor towards the "enemy," his insistence on remaining "civilized in the midst of war (he receives his brother with tea from bone-china cups in the midst of a battlefield).
(III) What are the implications of this character, written by a nominally het woman? I'm interested especially in the reactions of gay readers. |
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