Caterer

Described by Alan Moore as "the holy barnacle of failure", THE CATERER dragged the Pearl comics company into a legal hell when its hero spent the whole of issue 9 on a killing spree in Disneyland. The comic creation of SF author JEFF LINT, the smirking Jack Marsden became a cult figure and role model for enigmatic idiots in the mid-70s. His style and catchphrases were such an insider code that hundreds of people got beaten up by baffled and enraged onlookers. During its nine issues, the hero was never seen to cook or prepare food in any way.
"I button myself against advice and leave the house," smirks Jack Marsden, emerging into primary yellow sunshine. He was a singular character from Jeff Lint who, at a loose end in the mid-seventies, was hired by the fledgling comics company Pearl to come up with a launch title. Finding fewer compromises here than in his brief foray into Hollywood in the late sixties, Lint seems to have taken to the comics scene with the total absorption he had given his early books.
EXPANDED REPRINT ISSUE FROM FLOATING WORLD
The Caterer's wordless shooting spree in Disneyland in the final issue was as ill-judged as it was relentless, and its blithe use of certain copyrighted characters sank the publishers in legal defense costs.
The Caterer was Lint's main contribution to the short-lived Pearl Comics (he also wrote one issue of Rocket Trouble). Illustrator Brandon Sienkel worked with Lint in those heady days: "The Caterer was a strange one - he didn't have any special powers, he was this blond grinning college kid as far as I could make out. He sometimes pulled a gun. There just didn't seem to be [any rhyme or reason]... the character would fly into a rage about things. But it was strangely hypnotic, I must say. We had fan mail."
One such missive, printed in the "Your Yell!" letters page of issue 4, reads: "Dear Caterer, I love your adventures and want to be like you. How can I be the Caterer? I said to my friends your words 'Don't trouble me' and they beat me up on Monday. But I think this is all part of becoming The Caterer." The sign-off at the end reveals the letter to have been from a wide-eyed Martin Amis. All the more disturbing is that he would have been 26 at the time.
Another fan is Mark E Smith of The Fall, who has recorded two songs about the character.
BUY EXPANDED REPRINT ISSUE FROM FLOATING WORLD
CATERER DAILY ONLINE STRIP