Out of print.

From the publisher:

"Trots and Bonnie is hilarious, poignant, raunchy, gorgeously drawn, and more relevant than ever. Shary Flenniken is an absolute genius." —Roz Chast

In the 1970s and 1980s, National Lampoon was home not only to some of the funniest humor writing in America but also to many of its best cartoons. One of the greatest was Trots and Bonnie by Shary Flenniken, a comic strip that followed the adventures and mishaps of the guileless teenager Bonnie and her wisecracking dog, Trots. Bonnie stumbles through the mysteries of adulthood, as Flenniken—one of the few female contributors to National Lampoon—dissects the harsh realities of American life. Dating, sex, politics, and violence are all confronted with fearlessness and outrageous humor, rendered in Flenniken's timeless, gorgeous artwork. After all these years, they have lost none of their power to shock and amuse.

This collection, handpicked by Flenniken and with an introduction by the New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake, is the first book of Trots and Bonnie ever published in America, a long-overdue introduction to some of the most stunning and provocative comics of the twentieth century.

About the Author:

Shary Flenniken is a cartoonist, writer, and editor. Her work has appeared in a variety of books and magazines including The American Bystander, Graphic Classics, and Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Writers and Artists Who Made the National Lampoon Insanely Great. After living and working in San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Florida Keys, and New York, she now resides where she grew up, in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Shary holds degrees in commercial art, computer technology, web design, and professional technical education and instructional design. She loves post-apocalyptic science fiction, the artist Charles M. Russell, and walking her dogs.

Norman Hathaway is a designer, editor, and curator. He is the editor and author of several books, including Electrical Banana: Masters of Psychedelia and Dorothy and Otis: Designing the American Dream, and has lead creative initiatives for the Outsider Art Fair, London's Design Museum and Royal Academy of Arts, and artists, including Paul McCartney. He has taught widely on the history of design and typography. He lives in Brooklyn.

Emily Flake is a cartoonist and illustrator. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time, and many other publications. Her weekly comic strip, Lulu Eightball, has appeared in numerous alternative newsweeklies since 2002. She lives in Brooklyn.

“Drawn in an exquisite pastiche on the classic comic strip style of George McManus (Bringing Up Father) and the like, [Trots and Bonnie is] a slyly whimsical take on feminism, hippies, the counterculture, and more. . . . Flenniken [is] . . . one of the best cartoonists of her time, full stop.” —Heidi MacDonald, Comics Beat

“A naïve 13-year-old girl named Bonnie and her wisecracking dog Trots star in this uproariously funny and bawdy collection of comics, which originally ran in National Lampoon magazine throughout the 1970s–80s. Much about Bonnie's life is typical of fiction about young teens . . . Yet Flenniken touches on these familiar tropes in order to twist and subvert them into a brutal satire of American culture from a brazenly feminist perspective. . . . An intelligent, uncompromising, and singularly candid chronicle of young womanhood.” —Library Journal (starred review)