INTERVIEW: Historian talks lost KID MAROON strips

By Zack Quaintance — Running your own comics blog is interesting. You invariably get a steady stream of creatives who want you to cover their work. Sometimes these are established creators who you’ve heard of, other times they are complete unknowns.

Recently, however, we got an email from someone calling themselves an historian, and this person wished to remain anonymous. Normally, we’d just move on, but the nature of this pitch was very intriguing — believe it or not, they had a long-lost comic strip they wanted to discuss called Kid Maroon, by someone named Pep Shepard. 

I read the strip (see below), and instantly agreed to conduct an interview via an encrypted chat app … the results were, um, well you can check them out below!

INTERVIEW: Historian talks KID MAROON

Q: So tell me about Kid Maroon, when was it published?
A: 216 Kid Maroon strips were printed in The Baltimore Companion during 1948. In this brief-but-iconic run, Shepherd drew inspiration from his own nihilistic worldview, his failures as a father, his long-lost brother Alva, and his obsessive need to prove that a slingshot could be a lethal weapon in the wrong (or right) hands.

Q: That’s so cool! I love quirky stuff like that lol. Aren’t comics fun?
A: Stop this.

Q: Sorry. What would you say the main legacy is of Kid Maroon?
A: Well, the strips have become very hard to track down, leading to an almost mythical reputation among collectors, as well as exorbitant prices. One- to two-panel fragments of The Baltimore Companion strips have fetched up to $275,000 at auction. Most recently, a complete — albeit color-stained and burned — strip was auctioned in 2006 for $1.4 million.

The strip I shared with you (editor’s note: see above) is an unauthorized digital scan, but we’re lucky to have it. You are all lucky to have it!

Q: I love a good comics villain. Did Kid Maroon have a rogue’s gallery?
A: Yes. Pep introduced a slew of iconic villains, including Blockhead, Ratfuck (printed as Ratfink at the time), Shit Cop (printed as Crap Cop at the time), Egghead, Woody Gunk, Freddie Flames, and the rarely-used Mister Knife. 

One character actually reflected Pep himself — and that was Billy Beans, the hapless but guileless orphan who saw the world in an almost beatific way. In my expert opinion, the character was aspirational for Pep.

Q: What can you tell me about Pep?
A: Not much. 

For all intents and purposes, Shepherd disappeared in the early ‘50s. There were sightings in Texas, Hawaii, and as far north as Winnipeg as late as 1968. Witnesses have described a destitute, transient man with cough syrup on his breath, who would sometimes draw a Kid Maroon sketch for an unwitting child, always saying ‘This is my brother Alva.’

Q: Finally, do you think the time might be right for a Kid Maroon revival?
A: …

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.

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