Manx Media imprint: 9 books

For Ralph Rojas, be-bop drummer supreme, it's a tale of two “pretties”. Should he stay in Oaktown with the sultry temptress Clarise? Or return to Bugtown and the embrace of longtime squeeze Liz? Ralph, make up your mind already! They're both hotties. Clarise, she's a sly minx, but Liz is tough as nails and she don't give up!

Set in a 'bug noir' Manhattan of the nineteen-fifties, Bughouse weaves the story of an ensemble of characters who are essentially human beings with bug-like features, as they dance on the edge of the abyss. Steve Lafler brings alive a lost era of jazz and drugs that evokes a range of emotions and experience rarely seen in comic books.

Jimmy Watts and his BugHouse band are the toast of the town, as the red-hot Bebop jazz band takes the stage of the storied Club Savoy. But lookout, sleazy purveyors of the highly addictive substance “bug-juice” flock around Jimmy. In no time, Jimmy takes a slug in a back-alley drug deal gone sour!

Is he an affable, good-natured fellow, or a flat-out Scalawag? Dennis is the new piano player for BugHouse after the untimely death of Slim Watkins. He seems like a great guy! But come night fall, he becomes Dennnis (yes, with three n's), an unrepentant reprobate gambler, thief and womanizer. But he sure can play his abdomen off!

Bones the bass player for the BugHouse jazz band flees indictment and heads to Mexico. In Mexico, he becomes bewitched by a sultry young bruja who also happens to sing R&B like a true diva. Jimmy Watts, genius tenor sax man for BugHouse, had his run-ins with the mob in his drug addict days. He's...

On the road again! Jimmy, Bones, Slim and Ralph Rojas take their band of Be-boppin' bugs on the road. Sparks fly at the Fox Theatre in Oaktown, where our boys luck their way into a wild jam session with the McKinley Blues Band, crossing Bop with the electric blues for a historic meeting of musical...

Julie Watts is the boom-boom bombshell manager of the BugHouse be-bop jazz band. And Julie has some serious blues, mourning the accidental death of Slim Watkins, the beloved, inspired piano player for BugHouse. Compliments of an archaic volume found in a mysterious book shop, Julie takes an other-worldy trip to visit Slim in the great beyond.

Finally! Our hero, Jimmy Watts the tenor sax genius, is clean & sober! No more “bug-juice” for Jimmy. Too bad no one told Slim Watkins, Jimmy's piano-playing bandmate. Can Jimmy stay clean when he drops in on Slim for a jam session? Or will it be more bugs on drugs?

Piano man down! Slim Watkins checks out behind “bug-juice”, just as Jimmy Watts, tenor sax avatar, has truly achieved sobriety. Could drummer Ralph Rojas have prevented Slim's demise? Maybe, but he's too busy with sexy Clarise, the leggy jazz fan with a penchant for boffing drummers.