The Search for Smilin Ed - Softcover

Kim Deitch lives in New York, NY, with his wife, the artist Pamela Butler. His books include The Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Shadowland, Alias the Cat, and The Search for Smilin' Ed!

“Starred Review. The fun of the book is the way it constantly darts back and forth across the line between genuine show-business lore (a favorite Deitch theme) and delirious whole-cloth invention. There are stories within stories, unreliable explainers, secret passageways that lead from one part of the tale to another.”
- Publishers Weekly

“Maybe even more than fellow first-wave underground comics creator Crumb, Deitch has maintained his quality. Marvelous stuff.”
- Ray Olson, Booklist

“[A] complex universe of ghosts, aliens, demons, puppets, spiritual leaders, and complicated animal characters..., and in the tradition of Vonnegut, Deitch occasionally places himself in the middle of his own madness. If that sounds a bit meta, that’s only the barest tip of the squirmy, lascivious iceberg that Deitch has planned for you.”
- Collin David, Graphic Novel Reporter

“The story gets more twisted with every page, though it always makes sense in a Deitch-ian way. Deitch... retains an astonishing ability to tap into the deepest desires of pop-culture junkies, and to show how the satisfaction we seek from nostalgia can lead us to some dark corners of our collective showbiz past.”
- The Onion A.V. Club

“[C]losely resembles a bad acid trip I had several years back while watching Howdy Doody, old Fleischer cartoons and listening to Art Bell on Coast to Coast AM.... and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.”
- Chad Derdowski, Mania