Issue #3 of the Ahoy comic series Project: Cryptid packs another double creature-feature based on the more obscure critters of the world of monsters. The subjects highlighted in this issue are the Loveland Frog(s) and the Gumberoo. If you’ve never heard of either of these, don’t feel bad. The Loveland Frog is one of those monsters that are so far into the fringe that they often make a useful shibboleth for weeding out the truly weird from the poseur at cryptid cocktail parties. Which brings us to the Gumberoo.
Gumberoos are part of a menagerie of mythical monstrosities that emerged in the early 20th century as part of lumberjack lore. William Thomas Cox’s Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods (1910) and Henry H. Tryon’s Fearsome Critters (1939) in particular are good, short primers for the fantastical wildlife said to have accompanied lumbermen of the Pacific Northwest in their lonely work felling the primeval trees that helped build millions of structures in America.
These are not the kinds of creatures people normally report bumping into in the real world, but you’ll find their analogues in these fanciful frontier gazetteers, as well as the works of writers who hybridized folklore and fiction in their horror stories, like Manly Wade Wellman. You can get a good feel for where these writers were coming from when Tryon starts his description of a typical Gumberoo by providing the source of his zooillogical expertise: “Paul Bunyan often met them in the Upside Down country. His description, given to me personally, was as follows …”
Ahoy Comics
It’s clear that the Gumberoo falls much more into the realm of folklore than cryptozoology, and the clarity of that distinction makes storytelling around the animal much more liberating than a tale entrenched firmly into historical accounts.
In Project: Cryptid #3, writer Paul Constant and artist Peter Krause bring us a story of a New England couple who’ve decided to make the exhausting trip from Maine to the Pacific Northwest. A bit reminiscent of the lonely outcasts in the 2015 film The Witch, “Demon in the Pines” centers on the struggles of the couple to start their homesteading and mining efforts without a support network. Their only close human contact is a tribe of indigenous people, who the patriarch of the pioneers — Carl — comes to mistrust. His wife, Edith, tries to be supportive as Carl’s sanity slips away under the stresses of the harsh environment and bad luck.
As Carl becomes more violent and vindictive, Edith befriends the herd(?) of mysterious creatures that wander into the homestead’s acreage. These are the titular Gumberoo, and they become key to both Carl and Edith’s plans for how to move forward with their respective goals. “Demon in the Pines” is reminiscent of some classic EC Comics, where a couple’s violent disagreements get settled with supernatural intervention. Only in this case, there are no shambling corpses. Only the peculiar Gumberoo is there to exploit.
The Gumberoo is very similar to a bear, only its hide is impenetrable by conventional weapons. In some lore, merely shooting at it will guarantee your doom, as any bullet is returned to its sender COD — corpse on delivery. But its most unusual feature is the Gumberoo’s susceptibility to flame. A spark will send one of these creatures up like the old celluloid explosions that made 20th century film storage so fraught with peril. If you imagine that’s a property that might be exploited for narrative possibility, then you’re on the right track.
Project: Cryptid #3’s “Demon in the Pines” is evocative of old-school monster-mags, and a breezy introduction into a fanciful beast most readers have probably never heard of. The art is solid and emotionally grounded. The characters, despite being thinly drawn in prose, come across as clearly recognizable people you can feel for, even when they’re sliding into madness and desperation. This is efficient, evocative storytelling and I enjoyed the ride.
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AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.
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