March 31, 2008
Jim Mooney, RIP
posted 8:45 pm PST | Permalink
Missed It: Trump Collection Canceled; Humbug Collection Due Summer 2008
Here's something I hadn't noticed: Fantagraphics was at one point by this time going to have a collection out of the Harvey Kurtzman-edited, Hugh Hefner-published Trump in addition to its much-anticipated Humbug collection. That collection has since be canceled, and word of the one-time announcement is slowly working its way out of the various databases that serve newly-published books (it no longer has an Amazon.com page, for instance).
I asked Eric Reynolds at Fantagraphics about it. "Trump was cancelled because there was some question over who held the rights, and Playboy basically asked us not to do it because they had their own collection in the works. Since we have a relationship with Playboy that we want to continue, we acquiesced. He added, "Humbug is on for summer 2008; it's in production now." It's good to hear that Playboy has a collection in the works, and I hope it's as handsome and complete as what Fantagraphics would have managed.
posted 12:10 pm PST | Permalink
What The Siegel Case Should Mean
The legal decision last week granting partial copyright to the Siegel family on material appearing in Action Comics #1, including Superman, is a fascinating outcome with several real, potential implications for comics. However, the real issue here goes far deeper than one character and one set of creators. Truth be told, none of this should ever have come to an acrimonious lawsuit. And yet, the entire moral and legal foundation of the American comics industry demanded it. This recent court decision not only shines a light on comics' original sin, it exposes its ongoing, shameful failure to deal with the exploitation of creators then and now.
An industry where the caretakers of properties make far more money off of creations than the creators themselves due to legal circumstance and standard practices that greatly favor corporate ownership should be an intolerable one to every single person who has even a half-measure of interest in the comics they read beyond the initial thrill of looking at the ink on paper. That any creator should head into old age suffering financial hardship and perhaps even relying on handouts from good-hearted fans while someone who served on a corporate board lives in great comfort from money made on their creation -- if rumor is to be believed, sometimes from a creator royalty applied to an ancillary product -- should set every single person's teeth on edge. That corporations trafficking in icons of moral instruction can hide behind legal constructions rather than taking the point to seek out, acknowledge and then generously and publicly reward the creators that helped made those empires what they are should be an embarrassment to every person who has ever filed a tax return with income earned from the comics industry.
Shame on every stupid-ass, morally ignorant fan out there who has expressed even the slightest opinion that this course of legal action in any way reflects an agenda of greed on the part of people not directly involved in the act of creation, or worse, has articulated as their primary concern the potential interruption of their monthly four-color fantasy intake. Part of me wishes we lived in the might makes right moral universe that supports such a piggish outlook, because then I could quit my job and drive around on a motorcycle punching people in the face until they penned a formal apology to the Siegel family.
Hooray for Joanne Siegel, for fighting a fight that despite last week's positive outcome may eventually be lost.
And still, I'm not certain any legal outcome can represent a win for the entire industry. Not at this point. The infection goes far too deep for a single operation to make it all better, even using a scalpel as powerfully symbolic and profitable as Superman. Later law that restricts mainstream comics' exposure to this kind of lawsuit doesn't absolve the industry of the moral implications of that exploitation and abuse. Nothing does. There's a long-running rumor that the instigation of this lawsuit in 1999 sent DC into scramble mode that involved shoring up avenues for similar legal actions. In other words, DC tracked down the families and surviving creators and offered them deals for a firmer legal standing on the ownership issues. That's a rumor, mind you. I don't know if it's true. But I hope it is. I like the thought of older creators and their families receiving attention and money for their profitable creations, even though I loathe the privacy of it and wonder if press exposure may have put greater pressure on equitable compensation.
The comics industry needs to rectify its historical abuses as best it can, no matter if a court makes them or not. It needs to do this right now. It needs to do it publicly. It needs to do it in a way that honors the creative process. (Perhaps it could make this a goal by 2011, the 50th anniversary of the Marvel Comics revolution.) And then, when this is done, it needs to make an unrelenting, industry-wide commitment to the notion that these matters have moral force and that exploitation is intolerable no matter what a legal construction allows. Because there are just as many horrible people out there right now who want creators' movie rights or who come to the table offering little more than a small advance in order to put their name on someone else's work, and just as many if not more apologists for same. In a way, it's hard to blame them. After all, for 70 years, Superman said it was okay.
posted 8:30 am PST | Permalink
Students in Utah Protest Fun Home
College campuses tend to be seething cauldrons of stupidity and acting out, twin impulses that appear to have teamed up in the latest comics pseudo-controversy whereby a few students at the University of Utah have objected to the use of Fun Home in a college course because of its pictorial depiction of nudity and sexual situations and are now chasing it up the college agitation hierarchy. The book was assigned as part of a course to introduce people to different literary genres and approaches, which one might think is a sure sign you have a chance to see something that doesn't fall directly into your comfort zone. Seeing as the university has a drop-without-penalty policy and an alternate-assignment policy, this should probably only go so far as the stale, hot wind generated by people complaining about the book can muster despite the actual situation's sensible resolution. Let's hope it's not much. The fact that they're so casual in both calling this award-winning book pornography and throwing out the leads-to-children-being-abused idea as if they're givens and not acidic, horrible, super-serious things to say about anyone's work makes this whole matter difficult to blog about except to in every way express my derision and contempt for that point of view and the spectacularly childish way in which it's being expressed.
posted 8:05 am PST | Permalink
Bart Beaty Vs. Jeet Heer On The Legacy of Dr. Wertham's Comics Crusade
Prominent writers about comics Bart Beaty and Jeet Heer go toe to toe in the Globe and Mail on their very different interpretations on the comics crusade of Dr. Frederick Wertham. Very much worth reading, particularly if you haven't been exposed to Beaty's counter-cw position before.
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
Comics In Context News Round-Up
Three comics stories that aren't exactly comics, but have huge, potentially industry-altering implications for various aspects of the comics business.
* Amazon.com is pressuring print-on-demand publishers that are listed with the Internet giant to use their subsidiary BookSurge or have their buttons disconnected. This is interesting from a big-bully standpoint, but Pete Ashton notes a different point of entry, as a sign of a move towards MP3-like distribution of printed matter.
* the newspaper industry has experienced its worst drop in ad revenue in 50 years. There should be obvious repercussions, although whether they're directly linked is unlikely. You should at the very least expect some papers to cut back budget-wise, which could affect comics sales. I think this could also drive more papers into aggressive on-line/print hybrids where they only print on the major advertising days (Sunday, whatever pre-weekend day tends to see weekend-related ads in a given market) and goes on-line for the rest of it. This also puts a ton of pressure on web revenue models that might be useful for papers, and how comics content might fit into that. Please pay attention to this story.
* Comicsnob.com offers up potential outcomes for the credit-strapped Borders, a major buyer of comics and manga.
posted 7:57 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Noel Sickles, Illustrador
from Brian Moore
posted 7:47 am PST | Permalink
Go, Read: Graphoscope Wants Critics
posted 7:46 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: The Starving Ghoul
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Mortimer and Charlie
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Craig Thompson Roughs
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Paul Pope's Avengers
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Read: Little Neuro
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Read: Peter Bagge Covers The New Hampshire Primaries For Reason
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* Jeff Smith is going back to print on RASL #1 and argues that the Direct Market is moving more copies of Scholastic's Bone series than they're given credit for moving in a generally snappy write-up on mid-March's ComicsPRO meeting in Las Vegas. I like that Smith is so open and honest now about his sales figures -- he's never been shy about releasing that kind of information, but he seems to making more of a point to be explicit about figures these days. Given the manipulative paranoia that dictates how some big companies approach the public dissemination of those numbers, it's triply refreshing.
* speaking of refreshing candor, Carl Horn talks openly about disappointing sales figures for some of Dark Horse's critically acclaimed manga.
* great news for fans of obscure, comics-related art: Eric Reynolds is going to move his running art show off of the walls of his home and into his sketchbook.
* Jim Kingman wants to know what your favorite ongoing serial is.
* not comics, but industry watchers should make a note of this story about Oakley suing Marvel. My contention is that Marvel's post-bankruptcy success in managing successful and prominent licensing partnerships has been as big a key to their success as the movies and the general perceived vitality of the publishing line -- so anything that show them potentially fumbling the ball in that arena should be remembered.
* I happened to be in a Barnes and Noble in Albuquerque yesterday, and a few things stood about their comics section: 1) DC had a full shelf to themselves with books facing out; 2) there was a lot less manga than the in the Borders up the road; 3) strip collection like Fantagraphics' Popeye were with the other strip books in Humor rather than in the graphic novels section; 4) some books that aren't manga were shelved with manga if they were roughly that size -- like First Second's Three Shadows.
* extended comics discussion update #1: the comics and culture site Metabunker has some damning comparative scans featuring that huge Barks collection that's due to be published here.
* extended comics discussion update #2: the great Eddie Campbell continues to talk about what he feels is people unfairly maligning Vince Colletta.
* extended comics discussion update #3: an essay on the value of having work on-line with positions staked out by R Stevens and Ted Rall.
* extended comics discussions update #4: more on the value of comic book shops, the good and the bad ones, in a long and heartfelt essay by Charles Hatfield and a short, funny post about an awful comic shop by Charles Yoakum.
* the New York Times kicks in with a fine obituary on Dave Stevens. From the same august publication: love for the great Al Jaffee.
* the fact that DC Comics executive Paul Levitz is going to blog at Blog@Newsarama is kind of astonishing news in a sense until you remember 1) Levitz's fanzine-making roots, a historical comics movement from which comics industry trade news including sites like Newsarama and its blogging arm sprang, and 2) Levitz has occasionally written astonishingly long letters to comics-related publications on various issues. One of the more interesting things will be to see how his DC-centric view of the comics universe will sit with readers -- if this repeated kidney-punching over one of Levitz's claims is any indication, sometimes not very well.
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
Happy 5th Birthday, Girlamatic!
posted 7:15 am PST | Permalink
Happy 43rd Birthday, Steven T. Seagle!
posted 7:15 am PST | Permalink
Quick hits
Craft
On The Passage Of Time
Kevin Huizenga on Ben Katchor Statement
What Mike Manley Draws On A Weekly Basis
Exhibits/Events
The Magik Show Previewed
R Crumb In Eggers Exhibition
Report on London Web and Mini-Comics Thing
History
Great Old Flash Cover
More On Old DF Comics
They're In The Jailhouse Now
Lea Hernandez On Early US Manga Boom
Industry
Kids, They Love The Manga
Chris Butcher In The Newspaper
D&Q Likes New Comic-Con Magazine
Interviews/Profiles
CWR: Wesley Green
du9: Igarashi Daisuke
Projo.com: Jeff Kinney
Newsarama: Mark Millar 01
afNews.info: Eric Shanower
Sequential Tart: Alex Robinson
Thousand Oaks Acorn: Jim Thompson
Not Comics
Aww...
Best Blog Entry Headline Ever
Publishing
Comparing Slam Dunks
Dark Horse Launches Dayan
Warren Ellis Off Thunderbolts
Reviews
Paul O'Brien: Various
Jog: Comic Foundry #2
Don MacPherson: Various
Katherine Farmar: Various
Rob Clough: Paul Goes Fishing
Katherine Farmar: Tell No One
ADD's Favorite Current Comics
Gavin Ford: The Ten-Cent Plague
Paul O'Brien: X-Men: Legacy #209
Johanna Draper Carlson: Real Love
Greg McElhatton: Otto's Orange Day
Paul O'Brien: X-Men: First Class #10
Paul O'Brien: Wolverine: First Class #1
Don MacPherson: Noble Causes #32-33
Shannon Smith: Mayflies & Slide Guitars
Shannon Smith: Bug Infested Comics #5
Johnny Bacardi: North World, Blue Beetle
Byron Kerman: Watching Days Become Years #4
March 30, 2008
CR Sunday Interview: Patrick Rosenkranz
*****
As much as this decade's boom in bookstore interest in comics has famously worked to benefit certain cartoonists, we may sometimes forget that there's also been a mini-boom for writers about comics. Patrick Rosenkranz not only saw his Rebel Visions published in coffee table, hardcover form after years of waiting to make such a book; a second, paperback edition that's out as we speak actually expands on his authoritative treatise with increased attention to those comics' visual allure. Rosenkranz has gone on to write a biography of Greg Irons in You Call This Art?! and has just turned in a manuscript for a book about Rand Holmes that should see publication from Fantagraphics sometime in 2009. It may be hard to believe, but the taboo-shattering, personally expressive undergrounds are now further in our past than the beginning of the comic book itself was in those cartoonists' collective rear view mirror. I greatly enjoyed the following exchange and urge you to check out Patrick's work. The new edition of Rebel Visions we talk about here should be available for pre-order at your comics shop or local bookseller even as we speak and should hit shelves well before Memorial Day. -- Tom Spurgeon
*****
TOM SPURGEON: How was the experience of having the book out that first time? I know that it was long time coming.
PATRICK ROSENKRANZ: My first book on comix was Artsy Fartsy Funnies, originally titled Komix Kountermedia, which was supposed to be published by Crown Publishers in 1973, but instead it ended up getting thrown together sloppily by Dutch comic book publisher Paranoia in 1974 under that title. The whole experience was a real disappointment, except for getting to know the underground cartoonists. In 1998 I got a call from an editor at Kitchen Sink Press who said he was holding a copy of Artsy Fartsy Funnies in his hand. He asked me if I could make a bigger and better book about underground comix, and I said I'd been waiting 25 years for someone to ask me that question. I told him yes. I revisited all my research materials and renewed contact with the underground cartoonists who were still alive. Of course, as you probably know, KSP went out of business a year later.
Then I got a call from Gary Groth asking if Fantagraphics could publish it. I said yes again. The summer of 2002, when we were putting Rebel Visions together in Seattle, was a very exciting time for me. I was high on life. It was supposed to come out two months before Christmas, but there was a dock strike on the West Coast and shipments from Asia, including my precious cargo were stuck out at sea for the duration. The boxes of books finally made it to the Fantagraphics warehouse about two weeks before Christmas 2002 and I had my first book signing at CounterMedia in Portland on December 20th. It was a real thrill to see it as a large coffee table hardbound book.
SPURGEON: Why a second volume?
ROSENKRANZ: We planned to release it in paperback after the hardcover sold out, which took a while. When Gary Groth offered to redesign the book for the soft cover edition, I jumped at the chance to correct some errors and improve the presentation.
SPURGEON: How much material was added to the second volume? Were there any changes to the text?
ROSENKRANZ: When they assigned Greg Sadowski to be editor/designer of the second edition I began to understand how effectively good design can enhance and reinforce the content of a book. Sadowski took a very different approach than Carrie Whitney who designed the hardcover. First of all, he knew something about the subject and was a fan of the undergrounds. He asked me to rewrite some sections to clarify points or add additional information. He moved chapters around to give a better flow to the story, and talked me into dropping the endnotes to make it seem less like a textbook. I substituted a Recommended Reading List instead, which retains the links to full interviews. We had many fruitful discussions on the phone during the process. He was very particular that the text and images relate to each other on every page and challenged me to carefully re-examine my theories and interpretations of events during the comix movement. I was willing to spend the necessary time to chase down facts and find appropriate illustrations and write captions because I saw this as a great opportunity. Fantagraphics was very generous to make the offer to redesign my book. They could have just slapped on paper covers and re-issued the same book, but instead they chose to invest time and money on this project to make it better. I think this demonstrates their integrity and professionalism and I love them for it.
SPURGEON: The major difference that I can tell between the two editions is that this one is a lot more visually aggressive in terms of its layouts and the number of graphics included. Are you happy with the way the new edition looks? Was part of the appeal of doing a new edition showing off a lot more art?
ROSENKRANZ: Do you realize that the paperback edition has more illustrations than the hardcover, but fewer pages? There was very little white space left over when Sadowski was finished with it. The pages are packed with visual and written information. It contains 30 percent more calories and cheap thrills. I am very happy with its new look. Some illustrations made the crossover from the first edition, but many were dropped and replaced by others. I also tried to represent additional artists who don't appear in the first edition. The best thing about all the new illustrations is that people who bought the hardcover will now also have to buy the paperback or they'll miss all the rare and interesting drawings. The index is really much better now, too.
SPURGEON: The more I read, the more I was impressed by the range of work on display. Was this material from your personal collection?
ROSENKRANZ: Much of it came from the Rosenkranz Archives, but there are several other comic collectors who were very generous with their assistance and eager to contribute to the historical record. They include Denis Wheary, Eric Sack, Glenn Bray, Pat Brown, Dave Moriaty, and Charles Boucher.
SPURGEON: One section of the book I greatly enjoyed was how you traced the roots of some of underground comix publishing to college humor magazines. Patrick, what eventually happened to those magazines, and is there a reason they didn't to contribute to comics as greatly as they did during that one time? What I mean is, I don't know of any non-underground cartoonists who got their start there, and I don't think most of them are around anymore.
ROSENKRANZ: Monty Python member Terry Gilliam edited Occidental College Fang when he was at UCLA and later became the assistant editor at Help! magazine. Harvey Kurtzman offered his job to Crumb when Gilliam left. Then there are all the guys who worked on the Harvard Lampoon who later formed National Lampoon. So there's some crossover.
I think the big appeal of college humor mags in the 1960s was that they were slightly subversive and that's exciting when you're on your own for the first time. Students were always trying to get around university censors and push the limits of polite journalism. At UT Austin, the entire editorial staff of the Texas Ranger was fired in 1961 when they slipped the F-word into an illustration. Plus, being on the Ranger staff meant having big parties when the money from sales of new issues came in. What could be more attractive than that? When Bill Killeen started Charlatan, the college humor mag with no college, he had the advantage of no faculty advisors. He rapidly rose to the challenge by posing his circulation manager Pam Brewster totally naked in the centerfold of the Renaissance of Croquet issue. Charlatan was sold all across the South. When the underground press began around 1966, college humor magazines became obsolete. They didn't go far enough.
SPURGEON: Is there anyone in the core group of underground artists that you feel has been unfairly neglected by history? I was interested that you wrote a lot about George Metzger, for instance.
ROSENKRANZ: My first reaction to that question is, does any artist inherently deserve recognition? The lessons of the past clearly demonstrate that talent and success do not always go hand in hand. Plenty of hacks have achieved great success in cartooning while geniuses go broke. So if you throw your hat in the ring, you take your chances with fickle fate and concentrate on doing your best work.
A prominent critic recently wrote that Robert Crumb is the only artist from the underground who achieved real success and continues to produce meaningful work. I cannot agree with that point of view, but I do recognize that underground art has a limited audience. Even Crumb's books only sell an average of 10,000 copies. You can still buy first-run comix from the early 1970s on eBay for five bucks or less. Despite a few exceptions, they haven't really gone up in value like Marvel comics from that same period.
I admire many of the underground artists who chose to create highly personal work for their own reasons. If their names are obscure now, that doesn't diminish their work. It just makes it harder to find. That's why I write about them -- so they won't be forgotten by history.
Rebel Visions names over 175 cartoonists, and has detailed information about 60 of them. I sometimes get complaints from people whose participation wasn't mentioned, but I chose to concentrate on those who had the most influence, in my opinion.
SPURGEON: Is there anyone that was more peripherally involved in underground comix that you wish had done more work or that you think had promise that wasn't quite fulfilled?
ROSENKRANZ: James Osborne, now known as the Black Prince of the Underground, was a prime example of an artistic path not followed. He drew some incredible stories before he dropped out of the underground and became a menial laborer, working as a longshoreman, espresso machine repairman and finally as a gas jockey just before his death in 2001. I wish Richard Corben had done more work in underground titles, but the money wasn't there. They offered him better rates in New York and he went that way. Joel Beck and Roger Brand succumbed to the sauce and drank themselves to death. Speed and junk took out a few others. Greg Irons was on the cusp of great success as a tattoo artist when he got struck by a bus in Thailand.
SPURGEON: One thing I liked about your book is that you deal with Art Spiegelman fairly early on instead of how he's usually treated, as figure the underground's late period. Spiegelman was slightly younger than most of the underground cartoonists, but what do you feel his importance was during that period? Was there a difference, do you think, between the underground cartoonists based on age?
ROSENKRANZ: Art Spiegelman went down to the East Village Other while he was still in high school, but they told him his work didn't have enough sex or drugs in it. He said he didn't have any personal experience to draw on at that time, but made up for it a few years later. One of his important early contributions to the underground movement was his connection to Topps bubble gum. He had been designing confectionery novelties for them for years before he met Crumb and [Kim] Deitch and Spain [Rodriguez] and [Trina] Robbins and the other EVO artists. He introduced them to Woody Gelman, who hired them for assignments like Wacky Packages and Funny Little Joke Books, which paid a lot better than EVO.
During the early '70s, Spiegelman illustrated fiction stories under the name Skeeter Grant for Dugent, which published men's magazines Dude, Nugget, and Gent. He acquired additional assignments for some of his friends, including Bill Griffith, Jay Lynch, Justin Green, Trina Robbins, and Jim Osborne. Once more he helped provide paychecks. He did it again with Douglas Comix when he solicited work from his colleagues for this catalog of Douglas Communications records and books, which paid four times the rate Print Mint was offering.
Creating Arcade magazine with Bill Griffith was one of his finest contributions to the underground movement. They saw it as a life raft that would rescue comix from a rising tide of economic and legal difficulties. It was a desperate measure, but done nobly.
SPURGEON: Am I right in my assumption that very little underground work has been printed in archival form, especially when compared to the heavy reprinting of newspaper strips and American mainstream comics? Is there an enormous storehouse of material yet to be published, do you think, or are those comics better left to history? If you had a choice on what to re-publish, to re-introduce to the market, which comics would you choose?
ROSENKRANZ: Some of the underground cartoonists have been more diligent in keeping their work in print than others. The Complete Crumb volumes and the sketchbook series have sealed the deal for Crumb. Robert Williams has several big art books reproducing almost all of his comics and paintings. Everything Gilbert Shelton ever drew is still in print, in numerous forms and multiple languages. Every issue of Zap Comix is still available in comic book form. S. Clay Wilson and Victor Moscoso recently issued retrospective books, and Kim Deitch and Art Spiegelman have produced several fine art books in recent years. These guys are equipped to survive another century in art history, but I was surprised at how quickly some other names were forgotten. You are correct in assuming that there is a lot of unseen underground art out there. I brought Greg Irons back from the dead recently with his retrospective, You Call This Art?! and I’m doing the same for Rand Holmes, but I can't save them all. Dan Nadel put together a book about Rory Hayes that's coming out this year. I'd like to see paperback collections of work by Dave Sheridan, Willy Murphy, Jay Lynch, Jim Osborne, Jack Jackson, George Metzger, and some others, but as my publisher reminds me, "these second tier underground artists never sell."
Some underground-era comix can stand the test of time, but much of it looks crude in hindsight. A strong editorial hand would be required.
SPURGEON: Can you talk about your own experience with underground comix? You were around at least to take photos in 1972.
ROSENKRANZ: I got my first exposure to underground comix in the East Village Other in 1966, while I was a student at Columbia University. The SDS guys used to leave them behind in the cafeteria and I picked them up and read Sunshine Girl and Trashman. Pretty soon I was going down to the Lower East Side every weekend to buy the new issues. I lived in the Haight-Ashbury in February 1968 when Crumb came out with the first Zap Comix. After that I was hooked. The first thing I wrote about them was a pair of articles for an underground paper called The Fountain about two of my favorites, Kim Deitch and Skip Williamson. I heard from Jay Lynch shortly after that and he put me in touch with other cartoonists and publishers. In 1972 I decided to write a book and began doing interviews and shooting portraits. I went to Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, and San Francisco and looked up everybody I could find and talked to them. I still bought and read comix after my 1974 book came out, but started to lose interest in them during the 1980s. After that I kept track of my favorite artists peripherally, and only bought the books that I really liked. I don't draw comics, but I produced several photo funnies for Harpoon and Apple Pie magazines in the late 1970s.
SPURGEON: Some of Denis Kitchen's statements I found really interesting -- was there a regionalism to underground comix? It seems like there was a big difference between undergrounds in San Francisco and New York and undergrounds emerging from everywhere else.
ROSENKRANZ: Comix came of age in New York at the East Village Other. They had the best cartoonists. The Berkeley Barb and the LA Free Press had comix too, but EVO had them beat in the funny business. Kim Deitch and Spain Rodriguez comix appeared most every week from 1967 through 1970. Crumb drew covers and strips whenever he was in town. Same with Gilbert Shelton, Jay Lynch, John Thompson and others. When EVO published the tabloid-sized comic book Gothic Blimp Works in 1969 everyone of note in the underground and even a few renegades from the overground eagerly submitted work. There was never a rivalry between the New York and California contingents of cartoonists, because before long they all moved to San Francisco.
Yes, there was some Krupp bashing in San Francisco. Some sniping came back from the Midwest, too, but eventually everyone made nice and became best friends forever. What really happened was that Kitchen agreed to let Print Mint publish the second edition of Mom's Homemade Comics #1 but then he didn't like their bookkeeping, so he decided to keep his work in Wisconsin. Pretty soon he was putting out more titles, like Smile and Deep 3-D Comics and Mom's #2. Krupp Comic Works, soon to be renamed Kitchen Sink Press, became one of the few and proud underground publishers, joining Rip Off Press, Last Gasp Eco-Funnies, Print Mint, Apex Novelties, and the San Francisco Comic Book Company. When you put them side by side, the Krupp stuff looked kinda tame in comparison to Zap and Snatch. Eventually that changed, but for a while the boys in the Midwest were the occasional subject of scorn. Bizarre Sex, Homegrown Funnies, Dope Comix and other Kitchen Sink titles soon closed the gross-out gap.
When work became scarcer, any port looked good to ride out the storm. Some hard core cartoonists made fun of Comix Book, the underground hybrid comic magazine for Marvel, but they submitted work. Bill Griffith wrote a letter that was printed in issue #3, in which he describes their content as "watered-down, feeble (no -- crippled) underground comix," and yet his Claude Funston strip appears on the back cover in color.
SPURGEON: How do you feel about the shots Bill Griffith took at a lot of later underground artists, concerning their adherence to an EC model of doing stories. Do you feel he had a point? Would the undergrounds have been better off with a more rigid aesthetic range?
ROSENKRANZ The Slow Death/Skull Comix core cadre included Jaxon, Dave Sheridan, and Greg Irons. Spain Rodriguez, George Metzger, and Rand Holmes were also frequent contributors. They staked out these two titles as their turf to reinvigorate the horror and science fiction genres, that were personified by the EC Comics titles of the 1950s, only this time they would go much further in the gore and include a lot more sex. Was this a bad thing? Hell no! They drew some great comic and even pulled Richard Corben into their clammy bosoms. Up From the Deep, another horror title from Rip Off Press, was one of the first underground comic books with color pages.
Bill Griffith wanted to define underground comix in his own terms. Nothing wrong with that either. The problem arose when he tried to impose these standards on his colleagues and take them to task. Griffith was comfortable being judgmental and critical, and willing to escalate a Balkan-style warfare. He pictured a more intellectual future for comix, where some thought was required of readers to interpret the subtext of the work. He didn't think much of the funny hippie dope comics either and superheroes were just thinly disguised homoerotic fantasies. And the idea that the Air Pirates would dare to ape Herriman and Sterrett and Disney just steamed his clams.
SPURGEON: The notion that in the mid-1970s there was too much bad stuff coming interests me because it suggests that there may have been two different values to the overall publishing output of that period: value as a kind of literary movement, and value for the culture represented by those comics, good or bad. Do you agree with that conventional wisdom that there were too many bad comic book coming out? What didn't work about the comics that were the bad ones?
ROSENKRANZ: It was the too many rats in a cage syndrome. By 1973 there were 200 people calling themselves underground cartoonists and competition for pages in popular comix increased dramatically. New titles appeared to meet the demand but they glutted the marketplace. There was disagreement on which ones were good and which were bad, but a lot of them really were stinkers. And yet some of the worst titles sold so poorly at that time that they now fetch high prices from collectors because of their rarity. Baloney Moccasins for instance, or Googiewaumer, or Suds. Someone sitting on a pile of Googiewaumers today might think they're pretty good comics, but if you apply the high standards of innovation, draftsmanship, and audacity that defined the Zap group, too many newcomers were coming up short.
SPURGEON: Do you think underground comics would have lasted a while longer, as argued, if Zap had opened wide the doors to publishing more cartoonists' work? In general, did the underground comix era end before it had to?
ROSENKRANZ: Zap Comix was where everybody wanted to be published, but by issue #4, the collective had closed its rolls. Crumb, Wilson, Griffin, Moscoso, Shelton, Rodriguez, and [Robert] Williams didn't want to slice the pie any thinner. After Zap #5 came out in 1970, production of new issues slowed way down. It was three years before the appearance of Zap #6, and a full year between Zap #7 and Zap #8. Zap #9 didn't came out in until 1978. Some theorists point to this period of time as a missed opportunity to extend the underground by producing Zap, its best-known title, on a more frequent schedule. I think that treating Zap as a gravy train would have quickly lowered the quality. I remember looking forward to each new issue of Zap because I knew it contained only the masters. Crumb got a chance to try out this "more inclusive" theory with Weirdo magazine in the 1980s, and he had a hard time finding ten thousand buyers for each issue.
SPURGEON: It struck me recently that it's 40 years since these comics started coming out, longer than that in some cases. Do you think that the legacy of underground comix has been fully established by now, or do you think that there's still a greater or different appreciation yet to come? In your own legacy section, with whom do you mostly agree?
ROSENKRANZ: Underground comix will have a limited legacy because they're just too dirty for most people. They're often brutal, obscene, seditious, and extreme, which is both their crowning glory and their bane. Their influence on relaxing censorship in other media was more obvious in the 1970s and 1980s, because today people are sheepishly handing over those same hard won freedoms for magic beans in the so-called War on Terror. There will always be someone trying to repress them because they might have a bad influence on the kids.
On the other hand, there is a rising academic interest in the comix movement, so their legacy may live on in art schools and English departments. I think they will also eventually transition from comic history to art history as their long-term effects on other fine artists are noted. I also think that original artwork will jump in value in the near future.
People who read them when they first came out remember the initial impact -- like getting whacked in the head with a two by four. After you recovered from their shock, you looked around for more. When those people die, we'll have to rely on the written record. When I read about all the fuss surrounding those Danish cartoons of Allah, I wonder, haven't these people ever seen S. Clay Wilson?
SPURGEON: Tell me about your Rand Holmes biography. When's it coming out? What don't we know about Rand Holmes?
ROSENKRANZ: I handed in my manuscript recently so I imagine it will be spring 2009 before it appears in print. Rand Holmes was a private and secretive man who was self taught in everything he did, which was more than comics. He also played the banjo, tamed birds, hunted with black powder rifles, and built his own house from logs harvested on his property on a remote island in British Columbia. He produced hundred of covers and illustrations for the Georgia Straight during the 1970s, drew comics for Death Rattle and Twisted Tales in the 1980s and painted in the style of the old masters during the 1990s.
His widow Martha gave me complete access to his artwork, personal papers, journals, and correspondence because she wanted me to understand him. I compiled his career spanning work from many sources to reproduce in this book, and interviewed his family, high school buddies, fellow cartoonists, wives and girlfriends, to assemble a very revealing portrait of a complicated man. I think you'll enjoy it.
*****
* cover to new edition of Rebel Visions
* Frank Stack drawing
* cover to Yellow Dog
* Checkered Demon/Wonder Wart-Hog "crossover"
* Charlatan cover
* George Metzger cover
* Joel Beck
* Art Spiegelman
* Spain Rodriguez
* one of the early Krupp/KSP efforts
* two in the EC/Underground tradition
* Zap
* S. Clay Wilson sequence
* a Rand Holmes gag cartoon
* R Crumb cover
*****
Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975, Revised & Expanded Edition, Patrick Rosenkranz, Fantagraphics, soft cover, 292 pages, 156097706X (ISBN10), 9781560977063 (ISBN13), May 2008,
*****
*****
*****
posted 2:00 am PST | Permalink
Siegels Get Action Comics Copyright
It looks like the stunning decision was issued on Wednesday.
"After seventy years, Jerome Siegel's heirs regain what he granted so long ago -- the copyright in the Superman material that was published in Action Comics Vol. 1. What remains is an apportionment of profits, guided in some measure by the rulings contained in this Order, and a trial on whether to include the profits generated by DC Comics' corporate sibling's exploitation of the Superman copyright."
Click through the image for the best early write-up -- probably the best later one, too!
Other Initial Articles:
* About.com
* Blog.Wired
* CNet
* Comic Book Resources
* LA Times
* Mark Evanier 01
* Mark Evanier 02
* Newsarama's Initial News Brief
* New York Times
* The Beat
* Tom Bondurant's Analysis at Newsarama
* Toon Zone
posted 1:50 am PST | Permalink
Five Link A Go Go
* go, look: The Uniques
* go, look: the new Le Sketch is out
* go, bookmark: Mike Rhode's flickr account
* go, bookmark: Kristy Valenti begins series on gender and reading habits
* go, look: British Cartoon Archive
posted 1:40 am PST | Permalink
FFF Results Post #115 -- Variety Pack
On Friday afternoon, participating CR readers were asked to "Name Five Specific Covers You Like, In This Order: One Post-1960 Superhero, One Alt-Comic, One Underground, One Golden Age, One From EC" Here are the results.
*****
Tom Spurgeon
1. Incredible Hulk #135
2. Hate #1
3. Arcade #4
4. Uncle Sam Quarterly #5
5. Crime Patrol #11
*****
Josh Blair
* Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4
* Hickee Vol. 3 #3
* Zap #0
* Jingle Jangle Comics #4
* Vault of Horror 19
*****
Jim Caldwell
1. Teen Titans 25
2. Love & Rockets 24
3. Young Lust 5
4. Batman 37
5. Frontline Combat 7
*****
Cole Moore Odell
1. Justice, Inc. #1
2. Or Else #2
3. Air Pirates #1
4. Frankenstein Comics #24
5. Frontline Combat #5
*****
Joe Schwind
* The One
* THB Circus
* Psychotic Adventures 3
* The Funnies 45
* MAD 2
*****
Elijah Brubaker
#1 Micronauts #46
#2 eightball #20
#3 yellow dog #17
#4 adventure comics #79
#5 psychoanalysis #3
*****
Eric Haven
1. Captain America #106
2. Black Hole #1
3. Air Pirates #1
4. More Fun Comics #61
5. Crime SuspenStories #20
*****
Jamie Coville
1. Savage Dragon #31
2. Eightball #11
3. Bizarre Sex #2, 2nd printing
4. Exposed #1
5. Crime Suspenstories #20
*****
Scott Dunbier
1) Wonder Woman #199 by Jeff Jones
One of the best covers of the last 40 years.
2) Heartbreak Comics by David Boswell
3) The Collected Cheech Wizard by Vaughn Bode
4) National Comics #26 by Reed Crandall
A stunning patriotic image.
5) Two-Fisted Tales #25 by Harvey Kurtzman
Doesn't get much more powerful than this one.
*****
John Vest
Here are five comic covers that I like:
1. Captain America # 127 (I love the paranoia in this cover)
2. Love & Rockets Vol. 2 # 17
3. Young Lust # 7
4. Captain Marvel Adventures # 104
5. Shock Suspenstories # 2
*****
David Jones
1. Spectre #8
2. Love & Rockets 24
3. Zap Comics #3
4. Venus #16
5. Tales from the Crypt #38
*****
Trevor Ashfield
1. The Hulk annual where he is holding up a stone shaped like a "Hulk" logo
2. The Love & Rockets cover (wraparound?) featuring all the characters dancing
3. Quack # 1 by Frank Brunner featuring his duck pirate character
4. Any of the Human Torch covers by Alex Schomberg (sp?) where the Torch is throwing fireballs at Sub-Mariner
5. The Two-Fisted Tales cover with the Korean War soldier in a snowstorm, by Kurtzman (or was that an issue of Frontline Combat?)
*****
Chris Beckett
* The Flash #123
* Mr. X #1
* Mean Bitch Thrills
* Captain Marvel Adventures #4
* Frontline Combat #7
*****
Michael May
1. Alpha Flight, Vol. 1 #3
2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Vol. 1 #22
3. Young Lust (Co. & Sons) #1
4. G-8 and His Battle Aces #5
5. Piracy #7
*****
Jamil Thomas
1. Mister Miracle #4
2. RAW #4
3. Witzend #2
4. Walt Disney Comics and Stories Vol 8 No. 6 (Issue 90, March 1948)
5. Mad #5
*****
Shannon Smith
1. Incredible Hulk Annual #7. (That giant hand and those puny helpless X-Men.)
2. Eightball 23 (So simple. So perfect.)
3. Weirdo #10. (Makes my brain hurt.)
4. Captain America Comics #1 (C'mon, he's punching Hitler.)
5. Incredible Science Fiction #33 (Just wow.)
*****
Will Pfeifer
1. FLEX MENTALLO #4
2. EIGHTBALL #20
3. WEIRDO #8
4. SUPERMAN #32 ("It tickles!")
5. CRIME SUSPENSTORIES #20
*****
Dave Knott
* Thor #337
* Love and Rockets #1
* R. Crumbs's LP cover for "Cheap Thrills" by Big Brother & the Holding Company
* World's Finest #7
* Shock SuspenStories #6
*****
Marc Arsenault
* Iron Man #80
* Raw #3
* Tales from the Leather Nun
* Detective Comics #31
* Piracy #6
*****
Sean Kleefeld
1. Fantastic Four #254
2. Weapon Brown #1
3. Raw #1
4. Green Lama #5
5. Piracy #2
*****
Michael Grabowski
1. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #141 ("Kirby Says 'Don't Ask, JUST BUY IT!")
2. Love & Rockets #31
3. Air Pirates Funnies #2
4. Donald Duck Four Color #199 ("Sheriff of Bullet Valley")
5. Mad #11 (Basil Wolverton -- LIFE parody)
*****
*****
posted 1:30 am PST | Permalink
Happy 43rd Birthday, Forg!
posted 1:15 am PST | Permalink
First Thought Of The Day
Steamed cauliflower, where have you been all my life?
posted 1:00 am PST | Permalink
March 29, 2008
If I Were In LA, I'd Go To This
posted 10:30 am PST | Permalink
If I Were In Minneapolis, I'd Go To This
posted 8:30 am PST | Permalink
If I Were In The Bronx, I'd Go To This
posted 8:30 am PST | Permalink
CR Week In Review
The top comics-related news stories from March 22 to March 28, 2008:
1. Court decision grants The Siegel Family the copyrights in Action Comics #1, including Superman.
2. Belgian industry giant Raymond Leblanc passes away.
3. Obe Ess assaulted in his home in nightmarish fashion.
Winner Of The Week
The Siegel Family
Loser Of The Week
Other comics on the page with Doonesbury, as its hiatus lets newspapers try out potential replacements and it ain't Doonesbury that's going to be replaced.
Quote Of The Week
"You look cheap and greedy if you start asking for review copies before you have a substantial body of reviews to show your ability and dedication." -- Johanna Draper Carlson, totally busting us.
this week's imagery comes from pioneering comic book house Hillman Publications
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
Happy 58th Birthday, Val Mayerik!
posted 7:15 am PST | Permalink
Happy 84th Birthday, Jack Elrod!
posted 7:15 am PST | Permalink
Happy 79th Birthday, Mort Drucker!
posted 7:15 am PST | Permalink
Happy 49th Birthday, Marc Silvestri!
posted 7:15 am PST | Permalink
March 28, 2008
Five For Friday #115 -- Variety Pack
Five For Friday #115 -- Name Five Specific Covers You Like, In This Order: One Post-1960 Superhero, One Alt-Comic, One Underground, One Golden Age, One From EC
*****
1. Incredible Hulk #135
2. Hate #1
3. Arcade #4
4. Uncle Sam Quarterly #5
5. Crime Patrol #11
This Subject Is Now Closed.
*****
Five For Friday is a reader response feature. To play, send a response while it's still Friday. Play fair. Responses up Sunday morning. Unless I've just pitched my first shutout.
posted 3:00 pm PST | Permalink
Friday Distraction: Today's Inspiration
posted 11:00 am PST | Permalink
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
* in a kind of King Kong vs. Godzilla face off of troubling-to-Muslims makers of speech, the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has announced his intention to support a lawsuit filed on his behalf by the Danish Union of Journalists against Geert Wilders for the use of his bomb-in-turban Muhammed caricature in Wilders' new, apparently anti-Koran, short film called Fitna. The Westergaard caricature and the Wilders film have been exhibits 1 and 1a in recent complaints and protests by Muslims in various countries against instances of provocative speech in European countries.
* however, this article simply has Westergaard seeking advice on the matter.
* incidentally, Fitna has gone on-line.
* a call for moderation and dialog from King Abdullah is just Saudi Arabia being Saudi Arabia, some articles suggest.
posted 8:20 am PST | Permalink
Sausalito To Hold Phil Frank Memorial
The town of Sausalito will celebrate the life and work of the late cartoonist Phil Frank tomorrow, one of the tribute organizers calling Frank "Mr. Sausalito." There's something poignant to the fact that Frank, one of the last great regional strip cartoonists and an artist whose forays into national syndication never quite stuck, has seen multiple memorials of this sort while many cartoonists with an ostensibly much wider audience haven't.
posted 8:17 am PST | Permalink
Zapiro Receives Honorary Doctorate
The cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, who works as Zapiro, is among five South Africans who will receive honorary doctorates at Grahamstown's Rhodes University today. I think this worth mentioning just because of the enormous reputation Zapiro has built both inside and outside the country where his cartoons are primarily published -- it's not even worth an aside or other written form of the raised eyebrow for him to be counted among this kind of company.
posted 8:15 am PST | Permalink
Another Borders Prospect: Category Hit
This well-traveled post at Yaoi Press (I'm not sure who had the link first, but enough people e-mailed it to me somebody big had to have had it) notes that if a projected scenario of Barnes and Noble buying a credit-crunched Borders came to pass, and with it what many believe is a more conservative B&N graphic novel buying policy taking precedence over Borders' more aggressive comics strategies, then this might have a greater impact on certain types of books over others. Makes sense to me, although when you start putting together multiple ifs it becomes difficult to afford them the same import as an equally convincing A means B argument.
posted 8:10 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Hajdumania
Gene Kannenberg is collecting links to articles about David Hajdu's well-publicized The Ten-Cent Plague.
posted 8:05 am PST | Permalink
Jim Ottaviani On Orphaned Works Bill
The publisher and writer Jim Ottaviani wrote this site about yesterday's report that a new orphaned works bill is due to be introduced into Congress next week. He's smart, and I thought he had a take on things worth pulling out of the letters section."Without seeing the bill's new language, the phrase "reasonably diligent search in good faith" is probably still in there. It's imprecise, but for an important reason: Corporations aren't the only entities that want to use, re-use, or reformat orphaned works. Real people do to.
"So your 10 year old niece, writing an essay for a class, will be held to a different standard for what constitutes such a search than will Disney, adapting something for a movie.
"Further, the term "orphaned work" itself has a specific definition. Particularly for new work, it's not hard to make sure your creations don't and won't fit that definition.
"It is harder to deal with work you did long ago, didn't sign (perhaps because your contract specified you didn't get to), and maybe don't even remember doing. But the fact that it's old, unsigned, and forgotten does say something about whether you thought you got full value out of it then, and what its perceived value is to you now.
"Finally, and again relying on the existing language, even if a reasonably diligent search got done and a work was considered orphaned, if you later step up and claim it you can't sue for damages, but you're still entitled to 'reasonable compensation for the use.'
"If the new bill drops the notions of reasonably diligent search and reasonable compensation, then there is indeed a problem. But I'd bet those concepts are still in there."
The original post can be found here.
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
Get 'Em Cheap: Comics Sets Sale
to be honest, I have no idea if this person will sell to strangers or not, but the prices seem cheap enough it couldn't hurt to ask
posted 7:57 am PST | Permalink
Go, Bookmark: Blogshank
posted 7:47 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Cartoonist Photos
posted 7:46 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Matt Fox
Covers
part one; part two; part three
Comics
Chilling Tales #13 01, Chilling Tales #13 02, Mystery Tales #12
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: The Twisted Mr. Twisto
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: The City of the Dead
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Helen's Husband
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Count Screwloose Vs. Harry The Hoople Snake
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Go, Look: Rabbi's Cat 2 Preview
posted 7:45 am PST | Permalink
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* the newspaper industry bible Editor & Publisher takes note of a couple of recent comics crossovers.
* congratulations to The Jack Kirby Collector on celebrating its 50th issue in print. No matter how much you revere Kirby, this is a highly unlikely achievement. Buy them all.
* the prominent retailer Brian Hibbs talks up the recent ComicsPRO meeting in Las Vegas.
* as expected, here's a post about the Comic Foundry print issue #2 launch party the other night complete with multiple photos. It looks like most of these people went home and were immediately grounded for sneaking off to an alcohol party.
* the writer Clifford Meth offers a short and concise take on who exactly created Wolverine and how.
* Jacob Covey notes that the city of Seattle is making Ruth Bellthomaz clean up the property she owns next to Fantagraphics Books' office in Seattle. If you've ever been there, you know what I'm talking about.
* the writer Dick Hyacinth has more on superhero comics and their relationship to the idea of plot advancement as a primary inducement.
* the retailer and writer Chris Butcher provides major shelf porn with a stitched-together photo of all of The Beguiling's racked manga.
* Kim Thompson has more Krazy Kat tributes from kids.
* here's a single post from which you can access the TOON Books previews for their Fall 2008 line-up.
* finally, as I hope I closed my jaw long enough to at least mention the other day, there's some severe criticism about that giant Carl Barks set coming over here in an English-language edition; no surprise that Metabunker has the smartest, most concise article detailing those objections.
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
Happy 74th Birthday, Sixto Valencia Burgos!
posted 7:15 am PST | Permalink
Quick hits
Craft
Deadline Zombie
The Dead And The Dying
Exhibits/Events
Mo Willems at NYCC
Go Learn From Matt Madden
Drew Friedman Signing Previewed
Gurewitch/Millionaire Show Previewed
Report From Gary Varvel Presentation
Conference Call To Talk About Webcomics
History
This Could Be Your Head
Comics' Recent Ugly Past
Eddie Campbell on Vince Colletta
Remembering Donald Duck Comics
Happy 100th Birthday, Mutt and Jeff!
Industry
FCBD Tools Available
Graphic Artist Contest
Store Uses Bank Vault
New Major: Graphic Novels
Young Manga Artists Find Niche
University Chooses Persepolis For Reading Program
Interviews/Profiles
NJJN: Ben Katchor
CBR: Fred Van Lente
ComixMix: R Stevens
Indie Jones: Liz Prince
TOON: Geoffrey Hayes
Daily News: Robin Enrico
The Acorn: Jim Thompson
SFWeekly.com: Keith Knight
HeavyInk: Freddie Williams II
Word Balloons: Richard Starkings
The Daily Cross Hatch: Steven Tillotson
Not Comics
Where Is Larry Marder?
David Lasky Has Pluto's Back
Sof'Boy Calendars, 1998-1999
Shelf Porn: Tommy Lee Edwards
Playing Video Games With Your Kids
Publishing
Tokko Imminent
Free Sho-Comi Manga
LAT on Doonesbury Hiatus
Howard Zinn Comic Profiled
Growing Up With Comics Imminent
Reviews
Brett Warnock: Various
Don MacPherson: Various
Katherine Farmar: Various
J. Caleb Mozzocco: Various
Jog: All-Star Superman #10
Kevin Church: Wizzywig Vol. 1
Ed Sizemore: Gun Blaze West Vol. 1
Jack Fischel: Disguised as Clark Kent
Anonymous: Disguised As Clark Kent
Tucker Stone: Various Greg Rucka Comics
Sean T. Collins: Strangeways: M
