[Pop Culture] Cockroach Comics

While many PCOs might not think a plot by bugs to take over the world is all that far fetched, it isn’t often PCOs see their daily efforts to control cockroaches chronicled in the pages of a comic book.

“I kind of started with the idea of doing a book about pests. Then I just started to spin off in different tangents,” said Simon Oliver, who created “The Exterminators” comic.

Those tangents include a fair amount of ink dedicated to ancient Egyptian scarab mysticism, a PCO who wrestles rats in his spare time, and the development of a new cockroach gel bait that also is a highly addictive and deadly narcotic, among other subplots.

“I kind of weaved it together, and eventually I’m going to start bringing a lot of these plot points together,” Oliver said. “It’s a lot of fun to write the book.”

And “The Exterminators” — published by a subsidiary of DC Comics, the same family of books that includes other do-gooders the likes of Superman, Batman and the Green Lantern — also is a lot of fun to read.
 
PECULIAR PCOs. The story centers on ex-con and former drug dealer Henry James. To satisfy the requirements of his parole, he gets a job at his stepdad’s pest control company, Bug-Bee-Gone, in Los Angeles. Readers learn about his love interests: Laura, a high-level executive at Ocran, a shady multi-national corporation that developed DRAXX, and Page, who leads Henry closer to discovering the meaning behind a mysterious scarab that keeps turning up.

Readers also get to meet the colorful characters who work for Bug-Bee-Gone: Slim, a Buddhist cowboy who takes IPM to a Zen-like level; Kevin, a chubby, quiet evangelical with the more-than-unusual nightly hobby of hand-to-hand rodent combat; and A.J., a rough-around-the-edges PCO with a giant scarab tattooed on his back and a seeming addiction to the latest formulation of DRAXX. 

IT'S A BUG'S WORLD. But besides his ability to create vivid and interesting characters, Oliver’s true master touch comes with his highly detailed description of cockroaches and the way they breed and behave. He ultimately draws out some philosophical links between humans’ interaction with the insect world.

“It’s one of those things you never really think about: the relationship between pests (and humans). It’s where nature and mankind collide,” Oliver said. “We’re kind of in their world. The cockroaches have become the predominant species.”

Oliver moved to Los Angeles with his wife, Alexis, in 1996, adding television camera man to what he described as a “long and varied career” — including a SCUBA instructor in Thailand and Egypt.

He started writing about four years ago, and came across a newspaper article about exterminators. He realized then that few members of the mainstream media, and even fewer people in general, seemed to have ever given more than a passing thought to PCOs — seemingly ubiquitous characters in Los Angeles.
Fortuitously, Oliver lives near the headquarters of Western Exterminator Co., and took a ride with one of the firm’s technicians to gather as much information as he could about a job that still holds a certain amount of mystery for many people

“I did a lot of research before going into it. (PCOs and cockroaches are) such a rich source of information, I tried to get in as much as possible,” he said. “You see the trucks everywhere. I tried to focus on this job that everyone takes for granted and never really thinks twice about.”

And with all the research that Oliver has put into the comic, he said he identifies with the plight of a PCO: fighting a seemingly unending battle against bugs.

“It must seem like an endless game of ‘whack a mole’ when it comes to dealing with pests,” he said.

The author is assistant editor of PCT magazine.

For more information:

For more information on “The Exterminators,” and to find out where you can pick up this month’s issue, go to www.dccomis.com/vertigo. Fair warning: the books have some explicit dialogue and sex scenes, so leave your kids with the Archie comics.