The largest fully completed sets of panels by Bill are a long complex action sequence involving most of the preceding people, placs and acts in a fully integrated way.
We find drum of course, wiith Daddy, in his work, the crew from the bar, leather and rubber, bears and hairy bellies. There’s a kidnap and rescue, danger and retribution, skyscrapers and a good workout, but surprisingly little sex, aside from forced sex – like the first pages of the this series.
The descent into a bar by drum, and finding his lookalike, who later angers the father, well that takes a lot of unpacking at some point. Death appears twice (and appeared several times in the Bear strip, published at the same time), a note quite somber at this conclusion of an almost two-decade single-character comic series.
Usually in heroic stories the son becomes the father, but I find uniquely in drum, the father has become the son, the original hero. He is the protector, the sexy man in the gym, the man confident in social life, with strong friendships. Likewise the introduction of the double creates a final happy threesome, a trinity.
The father, the son and an unholy ghost.
