DOPE RIDER A FISTFUL OF DELIRIUM: A Fistful of Delirium (English Edition)

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I'm not exactly judgmental when it comes to recreational substance use but after awhile I felt like the glorification of excess and full blown addiction was off-putting and vacuous. These strips find Kirchner breathing new life into the motifs and conventions for which he and his strip are known. The walker's magical high wire takes him over skyscrapers and into offices, dinner parties, supermarkets, and the homes of the gray citizens who, for panel after panel, fail to look up and see the miracle above them. Dope Rider is a concept EP based on the strip of the same name, created and illustrated by Paul Kirchner for High Times beginning in the 1970s. She seems to calmly accept the realness of the new reality, and this acceptance is her saving grace.

Dope Rider,’ the trippy wild west comic from ‘High Times’ ‘Dope Rider,’ the trippy wild west comic from ‘High Times’

The album, which was previously released on cassette and compact disc, is now available on vinyl with some exclusive comic art. On his quest to keep pursuing that ultimate high he is joined by a supporting cast that includes sidekick Dilly the armadillo, MJ, Chief and his nemesis Wild Bill. But while the landscape may speak to Salvador Dali, Sergio Leone, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, the dialogue and visual gags, which are peppered with pop culture references belie a certain “normal dude” sensibility. In "Highwire", the opening entry in Paul Kirchner's new collection Awaiting the Collapse, a tightrope walker navigates the skyway of a busy metropolis. As Kirchner has stated in multiple interviews, he’s no head, no psychonaut, and his straight down the middle cultural references reflect that.Roughly a third of the stories star Dope Rider, the pot-smoking skeleton whose psychedelic adventures take him through colorful vistas equally reminiscent of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western films and of the surrealistic paintings of René Magritte and Salvador Dalí. The aesthetic is peak Haight-Ashbury with a Kevin Smith mentality, with references ranging from a “Doobie Wan Kenobi” gag to Dope Rider being gawked at while attending Comic-Con (“If his head were on fire, I’d say Ghost Rider”). An other third of the book is a miscellaneous collection of comics whose stories range from the loony (the sextraterrestrial invasion of Earth in “They Came from Uranus”) to the satirical (“Critical mass of cool”) and the outright subversive (if you ever wondered what games toys play at night, read “Dolls at Midnight”). But from bar brawls that use multiple, impossible perspectives to portray chaotic violence to a gunfight with Wild Bill that lasts decades it’s Kirchner’s next-level imagination that is the ultimate draw. The brainchild of New York comic artist Paul Kirchner, the first incarnation of Dope Rider was done on spec, so the artist would have a sample to show prospective freelance employers.

Éditions Tanibis - Dope Rider: A Fistful of Delirium, by Paul

Dope Rider, a psychedelic skeleton cowboy, embarks on adventures that transcend time, space, and psyche.While the book celebrates weed in its every iteration, it arrives in a transitional moment for marijuana culture. Tanibis has now published Awaiting the Collapse: Selected Works 1974-2014, a gorgeous compendium of some of Kirchner's finest work over the past four decades. The original Dope Rider strips ran in the 1970s/’80s in the pages of counter-culture magazine High Times. It’s a masterpiece and if I had to select just one book to be stuck on a desert island with to remind me of the unique properties of the medium it would be The Bus.