I fell somewhat reluctant to write about the indie comic we recently got called “Tales Of A Hippy Kid,” because it might perpetuate the myth that I myself was once a “Hippy Kid.” With my shaggy, long hair, vegetarian diet, and musician parents, I could easily fit the stereotype of a former hippy kid, but I never really identified with the hippies. I like to take showers. I never wear tie dye. I hate the Grateful Dead. However, I do love 60s counter-culture figures, psychedelic, garage-rock, and paisley. Hhmm. I think that makes me more of a flower child. Right? Now wait a minute, is there really a difference? Oh Gawd, I hope so. Let’s just say when I flipped through “Tales Of A Hippy Kid” I did identify with the teenage angst and the critique on the commodification and esoteric, new age-isms of hippy counter-culture.

“Tales Of A Hippy Kid” is based on the real life experience of writer Jon Kroll. Beside his formative years as a hippy kid, Kroll’s biography boasts he has also been an NPR radio producer, Hello Kitty theme park builder and Non-Stick Frying Pan demonstrator. With the help of illustrator Dave Bohn, he is can now add indie comic creator to his multi-faceted career, for whatever that’s worth. Though I would personally like to also see a comic based on the life of a Frying Pan demonstrator, I think he made the right choice documenting his hippy upbringing instead.

He divides the comic into four separate, all entertaining stories. The first is based on hippies naming their kids after nouns. The best gag is when Bohn illustrates a reluctant high school hippy named Peace getting beat up by the school jocks. The narrator looks over and quips, “C’mon, give peace a chance!” Between other tales of the forbidden love of an older woman and outlandish, hippy idealism (Placenta Helper anyone?) my favorite short story is about Kroll’s first Acid Trip. In his drug induced state, the poor, country hippy kid is found chancing sheep who he thinks are talking to him, stealing buses, and canoeing across a dangerous river. Bohn’s thinly inked, line drawing are best served with the more outrageousness illustrations of this death-trip. The most “mind-warping” part is the revelation that at the end of his trip he’s reading a copy of “Tales of a Hippy Kid.” That’s the perfect, paradoxical hippy mysticism you associate with bad teenage acid trips and that you also hear old hippies brag about for the rest of there lives. For many, myself only partially and reluctantly included, Kroll’s comic is an ironic sense Déjà vu.

-Jon

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