I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this since Snagglepuss is longtime fav from my childhood years. I found this to be a smart story with unexpected touches. Highly recommended.

At first glance this seems like it’s going to be something light, but instead it is a subversive look at what it’s like when you are living a life that has been declared illegal. An absolute must for any pride month display.

ARC from Netgalley.
Back in 2018, when DC put out comics surrounding the Hanna-Barbera characters, I jumped on Flintstones (which was excellent) but somehow missed this one...
Exit Stage Left imagines Snagglepuss as a New York playwright for Broadway in 1953. Deep in the Cold War, and being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, our pink panther, is being labeled as a "subversive" for his plays. But the writers take this a step further and confirm what we all knew from his cartoon days... Snagglepuss is gay. This allows the writers to get him involved with the Stonewall community and really immerse him in historical events.
Extremely well written, and very timely, Mark Russell takes this more minor character (at least to my memory) and elevates him to a wonderful status..
I really enjoyed this. Strong Recommend.

This was a wonderfully, uniquely drawn graphic novel with an equally unique plot. Snagglepuss and other characters were well-rounded, the storyline was appealing, and the gay and homophobia elements were handled well.

This is a graphic novel (comic series) that totally reinvents a kids'tv cartoon character from the 1960's and 70's, and it is a fascinating reboot. I'd only vaguely remembered Snagglepuss, the bumbling theater-loving big pink cat who says silly catchphrases like "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" and "Exit, stage left!", from occasionally watching some Hanna Barbera cartoons now and then. But I remembered him fondly, although I think I also remember confusing him in my mind with The Pink Panther. Well, this Snagglepuss (or S.P. as his friends call him!) is first of all, meant for adults or older teens. It's serious, not slapstick. In this very realistically painted noirish 1950's world (I loved the artwork! Beautiful!), humans and animals live together as if there's nothing unusual about that. Some "people" are dogs, others are cats or horses, but they all walk on two legs and wear clothes and talk to each other in English. Er, *mostly* wear clothes-- I did wonder why none of the animals wear pants. It really looked odd until I got used to it (don't worry, they're not anatomically correct in all ways). So, Snagglepuss is a closeted gay playwright living in New York City in 1953, with a human boyfriend, about to premiere a new semi-autobiographical play--in which human actors wear dog ears and fake tails to portray canine characters! Again, sooooo weird! Gotta love comics!!--when he is called up to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (yep, the McCarthy hearings). His character has a lot of similarities to the playwright Tennessee Williams, which is so weird to say about a pink mountain lion! S.P.'s best friend from his Mississippi childhood, Huckleberry Hound, is a novelist (loosely based on William Faulkner) who's come to NYC to try to get over having to leave his wife and child because she found out he was having an affair with a man. But when Huckleberry is caught up in a raid on the Stonewall restaurant and his reputation now ruined, the prosecutor of the HUAC hearings wants to use this against Snagglepuss to force him to reveal other "un-American" acquaintances in the arts. Both he and Huckleberry are going to be "blacklisted." This story is really well done; telling the anti-Communist and anti-homosexual McCarthyism story with animal characters gives it a whole new twist, and hopefully will find an audience with people who don't know this particular part of American history. The afterword explains the historical facts and real-life people who populate the book, such as Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, and playwrights Arthur Miller and Lillian Hellman, and where the comic deviates from the facts (for example, Faulkner and Williams weren't childhood friends; McCarthy lawyer Roy Cohn is not in the book at all, instead there's a woman character who serves as his stand-in). And the ending gives a perfectly plausible way for the comic book Snagglepuss to become the TV cartoon character; I loved that part best! A merging of the two worlds, "realistic" comic and two-dimensional cartoon. It also won a GLAAD Award, I learned. It wasn't the laugh riot I was expecting, but instead, a very well done comic about an important part of American history. With, you know, a big pink cat.

A comic that recasts Snagglepuss, of all characters, as a playwright sucked into the machinations of Cold War paranoia?? I was initially interested in Exit Stage Left out of a sense of curiosity and was expecting something more of a spoof or satire. Rather, this was a surprisingly dark and emotionally resonant story and much better than I could have anticipated. It takes real talent to make such a ridiculous character meaningful, and Russel does it.

This comic was not what I was expecting...very serious subject matter appropriate for older teens and adults. This is definitely hard to categorize. I enjoyed it despite, or maybe because of, the unexpected commentary on censorship and blacklisting, and the fanciful retelling of the McCarthy era.

I wanted to like this but it was way darker than I was ready for. Snagglepuss as a social activist was pretty good but what happens to Huckleberry Hound was too much for me. I guess I was expecting more funny.

I didn't know I needed an anthropomorphic take on Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, and Quick Draw McGraw set in the 1950s against the backdrop of the New York theater scene and gay community, as well as the McCarthy hearings. Well worth checking out for the social commentary element (if you can get past some of the artistic choices when it comes to illustrating the anthropomorphic characters as a little more human than their original animal forms).

Woah... I'm just blown away at this adaptation of Snagglepuss

We see Snagglepuss and other Hanna Barbera characters living in NYC in the 1950s. This run takes on the Red Scare, the gay rights movement, and art as it was in the '50s, with many political and cultural icons of that scene. Many easter eggs did go over my head, but there is a briefing in the back of the comic that details the different figures and events talked about. The direction this comic went was hard hitting, and wraps up in a satisfying way that feels like it could have actually happened.

If you like historical fiction and Hanna Barbera cartoons, this is the comic for you.

Having previously read the first graphic novel volume from Mark Russell giving an entirely new (and wonderfully grounded) face to my favorite animated series as a child - "The Flintstones" - I was prepared for anything upon finding out he was tackling another Hanna-Barbera idol from my youth, Snagglepuss. Comprising of volumes 1-6 of the comics, this heavy-in-tone graphic novel re-imagines our stagestruck hero as a Tennessee Williams-ish playwright in the early 1950's, a southern gentleman and closeted gay male with a wife who has become a legitimate Broadway star and mentor ... and what happens when he and his friends are targeted as potential communists during the Blacklist era, when McCarthyism took the American population's fear of Russia and the bomb and used it to silence/destroy anyone they deemed unworthy. Even at his height Snagglepuss was never a laugh-riot on TV, exactly; here he's not only a model for the lives and careers ruined in the name of hate - but thanks to the incredible writing skills of Mr. Russell, also an all-too-familiar reminder of what this country is dangerously close to turning into again. Exit Stage Left, with one foot in today's world as surely as it's grounded in 1950's America, is a touching, heartbreaking, important warning against history's repeating itself. It's also, especially the last half, a damned riveting read, worthy of a tear or two, even. 4.5/5

Note: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

A very heartwrenching read, and a very different take on Snagglepuss. Huckleberry Hound makes an appearance as well. I never thought I would read something like this where the old Hannah-Barbara characters would be addressing societal and social issues. I hope more like this come out.

It's shocking that some of the best comics of the past few years are reinterpretations of Hanna Barbera cartoons. The story of a pink panther playwright in the midst of the 1950s red scare was funny, sad, and touching. Though its messaging is a bit overt, this volume is a good read.

I was very surprised that a book about Snagglepuss could be such a great metaphor for racism, sexism, homophobia, and other major issues still plaguing the United States. The cover does a good job of advertising this and the stories inside deliver.

The Snagglepuss Chronicles offers a unique perspective to understanding how one's beliefs can make them a target of investigation -- at any level. This book is timely, as a Country we are wrestling with what is appropriate and acceptable in light of the #MeToo movement. Are allegations enough to warrant an investigation? Snagglepuss lives through this and more.

Well, that was weird!

I'm not sure "The Snagglepuss Chronicles Has Something Important To Say About America," as the content-aggregation machine might put it. But Internet hype aside, that doesn't appear to be the author's intent. This is a breezy little history lesson that slips Hanna-Barbera characters into the McCarthy hearings and the Stonewall riots. And although I was a disappointed to read in the afterward how much the timeline had been altered to fit the story, who knows how history might have played out differently if Huckleberry Hound was there?

Also, that was a helpful afterward! It's been a long time since history class.

But the main draw here is seeing Snagglepuss looking all cool and dapper in a Mad Men milieu. That, and how incredibly disturbing other Hanna-Barbera characters might look living in the real world. At first I thought it was a mistake how nightmarish Squiddly Diddly looked in an early issue. Nope! Turns out he's just monstrous. It's the super weird choices like that that make this book fun.

This was not for me at all. I don't know what other kind of reviews it got, but no. Thank you though.

Better than it has any right to be. I'm not old enough to remember much of Snagglepuss from the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but I doubt he had this much depth or motivation.

Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles by Mark Russell is a collection of comics issues based on Hanna-Barbera characters, with a more realistic bent. This is a story about standing up for what is right, despite the consequences. It's about the place of the arts in society, as a constant mirror to the absurdity of closed-minded thinking. Snagglepuss is a playwright, during Nixon's era, faced with the Committee for Un-American Activities, an idiotic smokescreen for inflicting narrow-minded 'Christian’ values on the entire population, and deeming anything even slightly out of those bounds as a path leading straight towards dreaded Communism. One big trigger is being gay, considered ‘subversive’ and 'immoral’. Here, many of these well-known cultural icons are secretly homosexual. I grew up with these cartoons, so this collection intrigued me. This is certainly a dark, gritty lens to view them through. I loved the history bits at the end, tying everything together, and explaining where changes were made and what actually happened, and the historical figures that these versions of the characters were patterned after. Highly recommended!!

***Many thanks to Netgalley and DC Entertainment for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book is something really special, that I hope finds a much bigger audience in the years to come.