OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM (21)
By:
June 16, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… Seventies (1974–83) sci-fi novels and comics! Series edited by Josh Glenn.
JIMBO | GARY PANTER | 1977–present
“A hounded man may discover another universe.” — Jimbo
It’s a stellar achievement to just be your most honest self. Gary Panter’s steady openness to himself and the world around him has given us the cosmic, tender-hearted adventures of JIMBO.
Jimbo is on a quest in Dal Tokyo, a surrealistic city on Mars. Along the way he meets futuristic techno-robots, pugilist pals, giant cockroaches, and prehistoric versions of himself. Jimbo’s wanderlust is drawn in gorgeous, ever-shifting art styles which deftly meld the history of comics and art. Jimbo feels welcoming, an invitation to stumble along, find our best selves, be absolved of our screw-ups.
“It’s either them or me and I’m not sure which.” — Jimbo
JIMBO began in short installments in the punk fanzine Slash (1977) and Raw (1981). The stories are collected in Jimbo: Adventures in Paradise, with further adventures in Jimbo in Purgatory and Jimbo’s Inferno. In some ways Jimbo is a fulfillment of Panter’s 1979 Rozz-Tox Manifesto, a riveting series of short prompts urging artists to bust past the manufactured consent.
“We declare society as an amusement park and one to be dead reckoned with.” — Rozz-Tox Manifesto
In one tale, Jimbo wanders into Feedomat, a space-age fast-food joint. Snaky bots tell him to “Please think me your desire.” Jimbo wonders, “Isn’t that against the law?” They hand him his silently desired cheeseburger. “I didn’t hear me think anything!”
Gary Panter drew from what he was born into — a Texas horizon, a father who painted Western landscapes and ran dime stores, a home across from movie theater, his grandmother’s Choctaw blood. He painted his own DNA life map of the world.
“Jimbo, the hero & idiot who dares to fall in love at the end of the 20th Century.” — Jimbo
Crowned a “Punk Everyman,” Jimbo’s tender hijinks unfold as existential science fiction of the soul. His celestial searching collapses time and telescopes space, with an ever-deepening undercurrent of empathy and love. Gary Panter’s stories are primal poems that seep into the brainpan, take hold, resonate, help guide your own meander.
Jimbo tries to tell us something, and it’s up to us to listen.
OMAC YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on RIDDLEY WALKER | Carlo Rotella on THE FACE | Sara Ryan on DREAMSNAKE | Matthew Battles on THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST | Ramona Lyons on HIGH-RISE | Adam McGovern on SHADRACH IN THE FURNACE | Deb Chachra on THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY | Tom Nealon on DHALGREN | Michael Grasso on FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID | Stephanie Burt on BRIGHTNESS FALLS FROM THE AIR | Nikhil Singh on SABRE | Gordon Dahlquist on VALIS | Miranda Mellis on THE DISPOSSESSED | Marc Weidenbaum on SOFTWARE | Peggy Nelson on THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER | Josh Glenn on ENGINE SUMMER | Mimi Lipson on A SCANNER DARKLY | Douglas Wolk on THRILLER | David Hirmes on ARZACH | Anthony Miller on THE SHOCKWAVE RIDER | Annie Nocenti on JIMBO | Seth on MR. MACHINE | Alex Brook Lynn on JUDGE DREDD | Joe Alterio on THE INCAL | Jason Grote on JOSIE AND THE ELEVATOR.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!