Fungus the Bogeyman
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| Written by: | Raymond Briggs |
|---|---|
| Central Theme: | Underground culture |
| Synopsis: | A day in the life of a working-class bogeyman. |
| First published: | 1977 |
Fungus The Bogeyman is a comedic graphic novel by Raymond Briggs, published in 1977. It concerns the daily routine of Fungus, a Bogeyman, whose job is scaring people. It begins when he wakes up, and ends just before he goes to sleep.
Bogeymen are portrayed as peaceful, sociable creatures who live underground in a society that looks oddly similar to the human world, though with many details reversed. Many bogeymen are employed to scare the people "up top", which is the only time they show any aggression. When not at work, they avoid human contact and take part in various recreational activities.
Fungus rides a bicycle along dark tunnels to get to the surface, where he spends the night scaring and Squicking humans in various ways. After work, he goes to a Bogey pub, talks to a friend about the reasons for their work, visits a library and returns home to his wife, children and cats. On the way he passes other bogeymen engaged in various pursuits. Numerous foot- and side-notes detail aspects of Bogey culture, including popular sports and the layout of Fungus' suburban house.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: The Bogey world is a bizarre inversion of the human world. For instance, Bogey newspapers display out-dated information, because Bogeys hate anything new. Bogeys have a love of all things wet, slimy and unclean, which puts them in stark contrast to "Drycleaners" (ordinary humans), who they hate because they value dryness and cleanliness.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Bogeys have long, sensitive whiskers growing out of their ears. They also still have their umbilical cords.
- Bogeymen cool down when they exercise.
- Cool but Stupid: Most of Bogey culture. The book points out that the tops of bogeymen's heads are not very big, limiting their intelligence and creativity, but they have some cool technology (literally, in the case of frigorific).
- None of them seem to know why they spend effort scaring Drycleaners.
- Footnote Fever: Much of the humour comes from this. The narrator is meticulous in noting the bizarre minutiae of Bogey life, ranging from Bogey slang, to Bogey sports and theatre.
- Functional Magic: The ability to engender boils can only be learned by some bogeymen and appears to run in families. The Great Big Book of Everything says it "borders on the magical".
- Great Big Book of Everything: Bogeymen have a large tome full of instructions for their work, described by the narrator as "the Bogey Bible".
- Hollywood Darkness: Bogeymen have cattle grazing in underground fields. The grass is sour, but how it gets enough light to grow at all is not clear.
- Hurricane of Puns: Much of the humour derives from this, in combination with the masses of footnotes.
- Peek-a-Boogieman: Fungus himself. His day-job is scaring ordinary humans.
- Super Senses: Bogeymen have extremely sensitive ears and noses. They hate loud or continuous noise, but love smells associated with decay.
- The Nose Knows: Bogeymen can recognise each other by their scent, which also pervades any object a bogeyman handles a lot. Theft of items is effectively impossible since everyone can easily smell who really owns them.
- Uncatty Resemblance: Fungus' pet cats are adapted to bogeymen's preferred conditions - like their owner, they have green skins, no fur and a high tolerance for damp.
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