We may be discounting the influence of Pixie, Dixie, and Mr. Jinks.

So I had a copy of this on the shelf at the shop, Massimo Mattioli’s complete Squeak the Mouse hardcover published by Fantagraphics a year or three back. Have you read this? I don’t know just how far these comics seeped into the awareness of comic fans. But, as you can see from the delightful cover pictured above, this is a knockoff on the dynamic between the classic Hanna Barbera cat and mouse characters Tom and Jerry. It basically answers the age-old question “what if Jerry could rip open Tom’s intestines with a chainsaw, and then go [EXPLETIVE DELETED] Tom’s girlfriend and all her buddies?” What I am saying is that there is a whole lot of explicit violence and, shockingly, explicit sex in these Squeak the Mouse comics. I first read these in a couple of paperback volumes from the late ’80s/early ’90s, which gave me a real sense of “…should I be reading this? I mean, is it allowed?” It was expertly done and lovingly drawn, with the occasional weird insert of a photo panel that is…