The Goodbye Family facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Goodbye Family |
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| Author(s) | Lorin Morgan-Richards |
| Current status/schedule | Running |
| Syndicate(s) | Tapas |
| Publisher(s) | A Raven Above Press |
| Genre(s) | Black Comedy, Weird West, Gothic Western, Western, Gothic fiction |
The Goodbye Family is a fictional family of undertakers created by author and illustrator Lorin Morgan-Richards. They live in the Old Weird West. The family includes Pyridine Goodbye, the mom and a mortician. There's also Otis, the dad who drives the hearse. Their child, Orphie, is a gravedigger and the town's self-appointed Sheriff. They also have pets: Ouiji the cat, a tarantula named Dorian, and their horse, Midnight.
Since 2009, the Goodbyes have appeared in both single panel comics and books. They are part of Richards' Great Mountain book series, which started with Me’ma and the Great Mountain. The humor in The Goodbye Family is often dark or macabre. It sometimes makes fun of new inventions and strict rules.
Contents
Meet the Goodbye Family and Their Story
Richards began creating the Goodbye Family in 2009. He made them into one-off cards after visiting France and Wales. He imagined Orphie, the daughter, sitting on the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral with gargoyles. He pictured her parents, Otis and Pyridine, doing unusual things. Otis tried to board a train with an unusual item, and Pyridine sewed a body in public. Later, more comics and merchandise were made for each character.
In 2012, Richards released his first novel, Me’ma and the Great Mountain. This book is about an Indigenous girl who fights ghoulish spirits to save her people. During her journey, she meets Hollis Sorrow. He is a friendly character buried in a casket made by the Goodbye Family. This was the first time the Goodbye Family was mentioned in a book.
By 2015, Steamkat, an online comic site, started featuring The Goodbye Family comic every week. The next year, Richards released more book collections about the family. He also shared his series on social media and through Tapas.
The Goodbye family lives in a giant tree. Otis used his woodworking skills to make it a comfortable home. Their first house was destroyed in a fire during a war.
Meet the Family Members
- Orphie: The daughter who loves to cause mischief. She is super strong, like 20 men! This strength helps her carry caskets and dig graves. She often acts as the town sheriff and trains her pet spider, Dorian.
- Otis: He drives the family's funeral hearse. He can smell bad news from a mile away. Otis is in charge of all the wakes. In his free time, he walks his hat and feeds their horse, Midnight, various pickled foods.
- Pyridine: The mom and the family's mortician. She enjoys working on bodies and going to social events with the undead.
- Ouiji: The family cat. People think she might be part Siamese because her eyes glow red.
- Dorian: Orphie’s pet tarantula. He is a Needlepoint Tarantula and loves to spin web accessories for the family.
- Midnight: This horse is most likely a Friesian horse. She is the Goodbyes' main way to travel, whether riding alone or pulling a carriage. She loves to eat pickled foods.
- Kepla: A mysterious sibling of Orphie. Kepla is somehow older than Orphie's parents.
- Lassie: A dangerous snake that appeared in the 2019 comics. Lassie helps Orphie catch bad guys, like a lasso.
Lorin Morgan-Richards once shared how he got ideas for the characters. He said Pyridine is a bit like his wife, and Otis is like himself. Orphie is based on his daughter, Berlin, and a friend's child, Heidi. He added that, like the Goodbye Family, his own family has a pet tarantula and a Siamese cat. Kepla is based on an older friend of Richards and his wife, whom they jokingly called their son.
The Humor of The Goodbye Family
Richards describes the humor of The Goodbye Family as "Weird West." He also calls it "Down West." This means it has a dark, funny, and western feel.
The Goodbye Family and the Great Mountain Novel
The Goodbye Family and the Great Mountain is a Weird West juvenile fiction novel by Lorin Morgan-Richards. It is the second book in his Great Mountain series. The story is about the undertakers Otis, Pyridine, and their daughter Orphie. Pyridine is a witch and mortician, Otis is a clumsy but brave hearse driver, and Orphie is super strong and helps dig graves.
This novel follows the first book, Me’ma and the Great Mountain. In that story, Me’ma, an Indigenous child, defeated a mining boss named Baron Von Nickle. After his defeat, the miners went back east, but a soldier named Frank Thorne stayed behind. He searched for the Baron's helper.
The Goodbye family, who are undertakers in town, hear about the Baron's defeat. They find his rattail hair on their doorstep. Business is slow, so the Goodbyes try to make money from the situation. They look for someone to inherit the Baron's wealth. But they discover the townspeople are turning into zombies!
Otis finds out that a new tonic is causing this. The family follows the clues to Nothom, the underworld. Thorne is close behind them. They find a factory that is pumping oil to the world above. This oil is changing Nothom in a bad way, which the Goodbyes don't like. Without the Baron, the oil is making the townspeople above, like Thorne, become living dead. They fall under the control of the Baron's helper, a wicked warlock named Zenwick Aldrich. The book mixes dark humor with adventure. It has been compared to authors like Roald Dahl.
The story includes a special introduction by medium Richard-Lael Lillard.
A common idea in Richards' stories is a message about the environment. Like his first novel, Me'ma and the Great Mountain, this book also offers a solution. In The Goodbye Family and the Great Mountain, relying on oil causes all the problems. The Goodbye family's actions save the day by stopping the chaos.
Collections of Comics
- Memento Mori: The Goodbye Family Album. 2017. ISBN: 0997319348
- Wanted: Dead or Alive… But Not Stinkin’. 2017. ISBN: 0997319356
- The Goodbye Family Unveiled. 2017. ISBN: 9780997319361
- Down West. 2018. ISBN: 9780983002079
- Nicklesworth: Featuring the Goodbye Family. 2018. ISBN: 9780997319392
- Gallows Humor: Hangin' with the Goodbye Family (2018) ISBN: 9780997319385
- Dead Man's Hand-kerchief: Dealing with the Goodbye Family (2019) ISBN: 9780983002086
- The Importance of Being Otis: Undertaking with the Goodbye Family (2019) ISBN: 9781733287906
- Yippee Ki-Yayenne Mother Pepper: Getting Saucy with the Goodbye Family (2019) ISBN: 9781733287937
- Pyridine's Fancy: It's a Grave Business with the Goodbye Family (2020) ISBN: 9781733287975
- Keeping up with the Boneses: Digging with the Goodbye Family (2020) ISBN: 978-1733287999
Comic Volumes
- The Goodbye Family Jewels: Volume 1 (2020) ISBN: 978-1733287982
Novels
- Me’ma and the Great Mountain. 2012. ISBN: 0985044799
- The Goodbye Family and the Great Mountain. 2020. ISBN: 9781733287913
Television Series
Richards has announced that he is writing a script for The Goodbye Family: The Animated Series.
Theme Song
Richards worked with the music group Heathen Apostles to create the Goodbye Family theme song, called Sew it Up. This song will also appear in The Goodbye Family: The Animated Series.
Other Appearances
- The Tiny Adventure of Hairball Man, a 2016 webisode that features Ouiji, the Goodbye Family cat.
