Geekscape Comics: ‘Buffalo Speedway – The Deep Dish Omnibus’ Is Worth Ordering!

The comics industry has gone through a pretty big resurgence in the past few years. Sure, big budget superhero films like The Dark Knight and The Avengers has led to an increased popularity in comics merchandizing and previously smaller events like the San Diego Comic Con. And that’s just talking about the Big 2. But what about the smaller indie publishers? Image Comics leads the pack, with the explosion of all things Walking Dead, and Dark Horse, BOOM! and IDW aren’t far behind with their mix of licensed books and creator owned titles.

But does all this explosive growth in ideas trickle down to actual sales or are publishers finding themselves fighting each other over increasingly divided slices of the same sized pie? Or does the influx of new fans from the TV and big screen just mean that new people are buying The Walking Dead and Spider-Man while smaller titles are left promising something new to the older comic fans who’ve grown tired of the same old books?

And now that the indie comics publishers are shaking hands and making deals with Hollywood… are they still perceived as indie? More importantly, where does that leave truly indie creators? The ones who paid for their own books to be made with their own money or crowd funding campaigns? These are the writers and artists who toil in thankless jobs during the day just to create comics at night and on weekends in the hopes of breaking out! Does the popularity and sales of The Walking Dead and Avengers ever trickle down to them? Or do they find themselves further buried under the noise and attention that those properties generate, working even harder to find readers than they would have a decade ago, when indie creators like Robert Kirkman and Brian Michael Bendis were using their indie ideas to launch mainstream careers?

I’d like to highlight a book that reminds me of the days of discovering Powers or Scott Pilgrim early on in the comic shop shelves. It’s called Buffalo Speedway and is the creation of Yehudi Mercado, an artist and fellow writer that I recently befriended (because we’re both from Austin) who gave me his book at WonderCon with the stipulation ‘it takes place in Texas so just let me know what you think.’ And on a recent visit back to Texas, I brought Buffalo Speedway with me so I could tell Yehudi exactly that, you know, creator to creator. And I think is that Buffalo Speedway is fucking great.

This is a fun and surprising 6 part series that really charms the hell you in the same way that Scott Pilgrim did as a sincere love letter to video games and young love. With Buffalo Speedway however, the love letter is being written and delivered to those times in our lives that we’d probably rather forget: the hours spent wiling away at our first jobs. For some of us it was a Blockbuster video, a fast food restaurant or a receptionists desk. Buffalo Speedway revolves around a similar mundane location, a pizza restaurant and it’s team of unique pizza delivery drivers. But this just happens to be THE BIGGEST PIZZA DELIVERY DAY OF ALL TIME!

If I compare Buffalo Speedway to Scott Pilgrim it’s with good reason. It definitely has the same charm, manic energy and loud, unique characters that Scott Pilgrim did. Here, however, you get a story about being stuck in your mid-20s, on the fence between moving on from the safety of adolescence to the uncertain responsibility of adulthood… and you’re already in your mid-20s. This adds a level to desperation to Buffalo Speedway’s main character Figgs that isn’t present in books like early Spider-Man (or again, Scott Pilgrim). When the events of the book unfold, they really feel larger than life and with huge consequences. The fact that the book all takes place in one day, like a hyperactive, action packed version of Clerks, makes it all the more important.And the book is funny, really damn funny. I found myself laughing out loud a ton as the story bounces from character to character and through ridiculous situations like sabotaging rival pizza restaurant drivers, banging the hungry housewife before the husband comes home and escaping a high speed police chase. The events all take place back on June 17th, 1994 in Houston, while the Rockets face the Knicks in the Finals and OJ Simpson makes his high speed chase down the 5 in California. Yehudi does a really good job of laying these events into the backdrop but then having them resonate with each of the characters. Not only does having a home team in the NBA Finals mean that the pizzas will be flying out the door, but the pressure cooker situation on the freeway results in complete insanity for our team of drivers.

Most of the characters are loud and exaggerated, just like Yehudi’s style. If you’re familiar with his children’s book Pantalones Tex (and you don’t need to be an actual child to enjoy it) then you’ll know what I’m talking about. A talented cartoonist, the book reminds me of similarly bold and hilarious stories like Samurai Jack and (again) Scott Pilgrim. And even though the characters range widely in ethnicity (its as actually as diverse a cast of characters as I’ve ever seen in a book), they’re never drawn like insulting stereotypes. That’s not to say that race doesn’t play an issue here. One of the best things about the writing is how race is an issue and how the issues it creates resolve themselves, or don’t, through the course of the story. There definitely is a character who models his delivery car off of the General Lee and a Mexican character that’s more similar to a violent Luchador than a delivery guy. But all of this is just basis for some pretty smart Boondocks-style observations and celebrations of our differences.

This really is a book I hope you guys pick up. Again, it’s easy for titles like Buffalo Speedway to get lost in the hustle and bustle of the comics industry, where newer and exciting titles are released each week to big fanfare only to fade within the year after they suffer through the next crossover, event or retcon (or even worse: bad Hollywood mangling). Here, Yehudi has made something that is hilarious and exaggerated but never feels like it isn’t coming from the heart. We all remember those first jobs that we had and the issues of whether to stay or move on. But what we don’t always remember are those fun moments where dicking around at those directionless jobs could turn into a crazy adventure, a first love or a life changing event. Buffalo Speedway has all of those moments and more and celebrates them in a way that deserves a much bigger spotlight. Please take my advice and pick this up before… or have it delivered!

The ‘Buffalo Speedway Deep Dish Omnibus‘ is available for ordering now. If you live in LA, 5 lucky orders will be personally driven to you by Yehudi himself, complete with a pizza! Check it out!