Tony Edwards in his studio (L) Pic Shorty. And the cover of the book (R).

Captain Goodvibes reputation precedes him. It’s been thirty years since he stopped appearing in Tracks on a regular basis but most of you will have heard of him and his habits. If not he’s but a Google away (yes, even The Pig Of Steel has his own website).

The Captain is a pig in every sense of the word. He farts, roots and spews indiscriminately and is full of high-spirited aggro. He’s rude, crude, abusive, obnoxious, hilarious and he inhales drugs and booze like they’re oxygen (ie via his enormous snout). As his sidekick Astro says: “He’s a yobbo, a Nazi, a glutton and a smoking ruin, but he’s my smoking ruin and that makes him special.”

Apparently plenty of Tracks readers felt the same way when he debuted in the mag in 1973.

Over his eight year reign there were numerous side projects with varying success. He had a regular gig on 2JJ radio alongside then Tracks editor Phil Jarratt, starred in his own animated short film (Hot To Trot), made a shithouse record and compiled three books of comic strips. How many drug-addled adventures can one surfing pig possibly get up to in a 100 plus episodes? Plenty, as his long-awaited anthology “Captain Goodvibes - My Life As A Pork Chop” demonstrates.

Hard core Vibes fans – presumably an aging and dishevelled bunch – will snap up this bright pink, large format, inch thick volume and relish revisiting the strips in all their profane, surrealistic glory. But there’s more to this collection than hazy nostalgia for aging stoners and reprobates. Teenage stoners and aspiring reprobates will get a mighty kick as well.

For me the wittiest and most engaging character in the book isn’t Vibes, Astro or the gorgeous lady-pig with six tits. It’s the man behind the pen, Tony Edwards. The comic strips are broken up with auto-biographical vignettes from Edwards about the early days of Tracks and his own misadventures as an artist and illustrator. The humour is bone dry, self deprecating and very funny indeed.

I found myself flicking forward to read more from the author partly because taking on the entire Goodvibes catalogue in one sitting is a challenging binge. Mainly, it was to cack at a story like My Kind Of People which concerns Edwards being run over by a kombi van. The van is festooned with clichéd hippy clutter including a giant scoob-smoking Goodvibes decal on its spare wheel cover, mounted on the front. “Why don’t you look where you are going, you stupid fucking prick!” yells the driver. I couldn’t agreed with more, dead pans the Goodvibes creator, who, it turns out, doesn’t surf and doesn’t exactly dig hippies.

– Kirk Owers

Buy the book HERE from Flying Pineapple Media