Ed the Happy Clown

Chester Brown's Ed the Happy Clown is one of the most genuinely strange and unforgettable creations to emerge from the Copper Age's thriving underground and alternative comics scene — a character whose very name promises something cheerful and delivers something far more unsettling. Debuting in Yummy Fur #2 in 1987 from Vortex, Ed inhabits a surrealist nightmare world where he somehow shares the page with figures as wildly disparate as Jesus Christ and Ronald Reagan, which tells you everything you need to know about the anarchic, boundary-dissolving spirit of Brown's vision. The fact that this character's adventures have been collected and reprinted across decades — turning up in Madman anniversary editions as well as his own Yummy Fur run — speaks to a lasting cult fascination that has kept Ed relevant long past his underground origins. If you have any appetite for comics that pushed the medium to its weirdest, most daring limits, Ed the Happy Clown is an essential and genuinely singular figure worth tracking down.