Exclusive: 'The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers' Comics Being Collected, Timed To New Animated Series

Long before Cheech & Chong and Jay & Silent Bob hit the big screen, the pages of comic books were filled with the stoner antics of The Fabulous and Furry Freak Brothers. Created by famed cartoonist Gilbert Shelton in 1968, the comics followed the drug-addled adventures of Freewheelin' Franklin, Phineas, and Fat Freddy around the world. Now, they're being rounded up for a new four-volume collection of their entire run.

But that's not all, because there's a Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers animated series on the way with quite an impressive voice cast. Get the details below.

The collection of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Follies from Fantagraphics will begin with The Idiots Abroad and Other Follies as the first volume. Here's the official synopsis of their first adventure:

The Brothers — Freewheelin' Franklin, Phineas, and Fat Freddy — embark on a trip to Colombia to score some cheap dope (their guiding principle) but, as always, things go awry, and they are separated and scattered around the world — to Scotland, Moscow, Africa, South America, and the Middle East — where they encounter nuclear terrorists, slavers, pirates, and religious fanatics, yet somehow never seem to make it to Bogotá.

That sounds like quite the madcap adventure, something that was way ahead of its time in 1968. This classic underground comic has been named one of the 100 Greatest Comics of the Century by The Comics Journal, and the artwork has been compared to that of Hergé, the artist behind The Adventures of Tintin.

This will be the first of four volumes, and you'll be able to find it in stores starting in January 2022. However, there will also be a whole new way to get acquainted with The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, thanks to a new animated series in the works.

Along with the return of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics, there's an animated series that's been in the works, simply titled The Freak Brothers.

The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers animated series will star Woody Harrelson, Pete Davidson, John Goodman, and Tiffany Haddish. Harrelson voices laid-back Freewheelin' Franklin Freek, Goodman plays man-child Fat Freddy Freekowtski, and Pete Davidson is paranoid Phineas T. Phreakerss. Meanwhile, Tiffany Haddish is voicing Fat Freddy's Cat, who had adventures tangential to the brothers in the comics.

Other cast members include Workaholics co-creators and co-stars Adam Devine and Blake Anderson, who play Chuck and Charlie, a couple of weed savants always looking for the next side-hustle with hearts of gold hidden beneath their unwashed exteriors. Andrea Savage is also on board as Harper, a no-nonsense tech badass who undoubtedly wears the pants in her household. As you can see in the artwork above, there are plenty of other characters involved, so we can probably expect a lot of guest voices.

Back in 2019, Daniel & Jeremy Lehrer (Highly Gifted) were slated as writers and producers with Mark Canton and Courtney Solomon are executive producing and King of the Hill alums Alan Cohen and Alan Freedland set as showrunners. Harrelson, Haddish, Davidson, Devine, Anderson, Shelton and Manfred Mroczkowski are all serving as executive producers, and Jeffrey S. Edell was also acting as co-executive producer, and Starburns Industries (Rick and Morty) and Pure Imagination Studios (The Simpsons) was set to handle the animation.

As of now, we don't know where The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers animated series will be debuting, but we know it will be set in modern day San Francisco, and Lionsgate TV is expected to release it sometime before the end of the year.