George Hansen's one-man comic books are usually pretty similar and feature his unique, semi-Crumb, semi-George Herriman drawing style. His books are almost always printed by Adam's Apple Distributing Company, which was located in Chicago and sold both wholesale and retail head shop products, like bongs, incense, rolling papers and comic books. They published a few other books (e.g., Purple Cat, Hard Times) but Hansen comics were their specialty, and Tail Dragger Comix is one of them.

Tail Dragger has lots of Mr. Nobody strips, which is George Hansen's version of a Robert Crumb character who's very cynical about life. In the first one, a guy meets Mr. Nobody on the street and engages in small talk, saying that he's got it pretty good and is happy in life and what else could anyone ask for, right? But Mr. Nobody replies "A deeper understanding of the inner-self?" which just pisses off the other guy. That's the way these strips go, they're pretty one dimensional. Like the second one where Mr. Nobody declares he doesn't do much with his time but at least he's good at it!

The Wackoffs is another set of characters that Hansen revisits throughout the book. It's about a couple guys who live in the Bronx in New York, with thick accents and pretty boring lives. In one strip, they get out on a cruise boat but one of them gets seasick and throws up, and then the vomit flies into the other guy's mouth.

Tail Dragger is flush with these one-pager scenes that don't go anywhere, though Hansen's cartooning style is fairly likeable. There's also a lot of sketches in the book, sometimes in the margins and sometimes full pages, that don't do anything but decorate the book. There's only three of Hansen's trademark decorative illustrations, like the ones found in Like Nobody's Bizness. They are usually a joy to behold.

There's a couple of Judy Tunafish one-pagers too, but pretty blah. Near the end of the book there's an actual three-pager, the longest story in the book, called "The Stupids." It depicts a single argument and fight between two guys that raises no laughs and does little else until the end, when one characters asks "is there a doctor in the house?" and suddenly 10 people show up saying "I'm a doctor!" That's the high point, baby!

Well, except maybe "The Creeps," a one-pager about two unseen characters hiding in garbage cans who have a conversation about the down side of being a creep. It's amusing in a bizarre way. Tail Dragger Comix is likely Hansen's worst comic book and looks like something that was thrown together from a scrapbook of failed ideas.



HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:
It is currently unknown how may copies of this comic book were printed. It has not been reprinted.

COMIC CREATOR:
George Hansen - 1-28