Visit the Cracked Plaster Archive to read some of the strips.
Click here to see a site that actually has a poem with the words "Cracked white plaster" in it; or click here to read a Zen story that mentions "cracked plaster." Hey, we didn't write this stuff...
Cracked Plaster ran in the Concord College student newspaper, The Concordian, from 1988 until its timely demise in 1992. Click on the image below to see the list of Cracked Plaster dramatis personae.
 | Cracked Plaster was the collaborative product of six revolutionary young men who decided that the era of "cutesie comics" in college newspapers had to end. Their four-year struggle to overturn the "saccharin syndicate" has been well-documented in literary journals, underground newspapers, and supermarket tabloids. Success eluded them until the Perisan Gulf War Protests of 1991, when the young men stormed the Concord College Fine Arts Building to stage a sit-in at the water fountain near the ladies' restroom. The story of this epic seventeen-day struggle against "the Man" (and the women who used "his" bathroom) has been told and re-told in print, photography, and police artist sketchery. Although the boys' triumphant march through the school gymnasium ended when they were brought down by National Guard troops armed with cheerleaders bearing malt liquor, the damage had been done. The iron grip of the "saccharin syndicate" was broken forever. Scenes of the revolt can be found in the four-page coloring book opus Social Movement Protests of the Nineties, available in used bookstores everywhere. |
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Many fans have asked about the significance of the name Cracked Plaster. As one literary critic put it, "Perhaps it was meant as a revelation--a revelation of the cracks in the plaster of the walls of our souls." Perhaps, but no. The name actually emerged from much more mundane beginnings. After hours of drinking and brainstorming while smoking the scrapings of a banana peel, these six youths--Kevin, Dave, Flem, Ace, Mick, and Card Boy (code names of the revolution)--decided to give the appellation "Cracked Plaster" to their dull, drab "inside-the-box" existence. After the hangover wore off, they made a blood pact to get together from time to time to put their lives in comic strip form so they could buck the "cracked plaster," if only for a little while. (Click here to see the other names they considered before the "revelation.")
From that point on, the impact of Cracked Plaster has been immeasurable. As Ace Brewsky-Smythe once wrote, Cracked Plaster "seems to convey a whimsical and satirical examination of the basic middle class ethic--the tearing down of Authoritarian walls while advocating mindless, blinding violence." Such examination, you must agree, should be the goal of all art created by white teenaged college men. Chants of "More whimsical and satirical examination!" certainly became a rallying cry in the heyday of Cracked Plaster's run. |
To find out more about the strip's impact on Western society, read Mr. Brewsky-Smythe's excellent review of Cracked Plaster's meaning in today's world. To discover more about the strip's impact upon campus living during the turbulent "Turn of the Decade," visit the second stall in the Concord College Administration Building third floor men's bathroom. To find out why the comic strip Piranha Republic won more awards, turn to the account of the award committee's twisted culture of sexual deviance in the Concordian expose.
There is no doubt that Cracked Plaster touched many of us in ways and places too deep to express, even with the help of hand puppets. We sincerely hope that you, too, will be moved to a healthier, happier life by exposing yourself freely and completely to this comic's spiritual healing power over and over again. Of course, on the surface Cracked Plaster was a smarmy and adolescent load of crap. One must be a Ph.D. in the humanities to get a sense of what the strip was really all about. However, for those of you unable to peer on art with "eyes of awe," we have not forgotten you. For a glimpse at the bottom-feeder/mouth-breather mentality Cracked Plaster usually catered to (what college professors would call "the lowest common denominator"), take a look at the Cracked Plaster archive. The strip has always been a bit pungent, but so are flowers if you leave them sitting out long enough. Long live the revolution. |
This page last updated June 7, 2003.
Comments about the comic or the site? E-mail me at crackplast@yahoo.com.