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Happy Turkey time. Here are some hobo drawings, just to keep it real! Just kidding. Well, not sort of. Anyhow! I have already professed my love for James Sturm and Brandon Elston’s new book, Denys Wortman’s New York. It’s maybe my favorite book of the season. So I asked James if he’d be willing to share some drawings that didn’t make it in the book and he sent these 10 killers along with this missive:

“I love these hobo drawings. Wortman has an obvious affection for them. It’s easy to imagine Wortman, like most cartoonists, as a homebody, and to tramp around vicariously through his characters must have felt liberating. Mopey Dick and the Duke were at the height of their popularity, not surprisingly, during the great depression. The hobos were based on Wortman himself (the Duke) and an old sea captain, William Morris Barnes (Mopey). Hilda Wortman met Barnes in NYC in the mid-twenties and was fascinated by the old captain’s stories—so much so that she recorded his history that was published in 1929, “When Ships Were Ships and Not Tin Pots.”

Barnes was also a painter, creating canvasses of ships at sea which he would sell to the Wortmans. According to Wortman VIII, after a sale Barnes would disappear for weeks on end and go on a bender. When he ran dray he made and sold another painting. Wortman VIII still has a few hanging in his home. Below is a drawing of Barnes by Milt Gross himself.

Some of these drawings show off Wortman’s great feel for organic forms. He did rural as well as he did urban. In addition to the NYC work, He also did a lot drawings of New England, the country side, and documented trips to Europe and Central America. Most of these have yet to be scanned.”

So, dig in and enjoy on this lazy Friday. Then click over to the NY Times to read more about Wortman or just dive into the official site. My thanks to James for sending these along.

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Coffee and Conversation at DAP

An excuse: Well, it’s been a week of nothing but Brian Chippendale and CF for me. I just put the boys in a cab to JFK and tonight they will be at Floating World Comics in Portland OR, for a party and interview with Matt Fraction. Tomorrow night they’ll be at Family in Los Angeles. Let me say this: Their slide shows are pretty damn great, and not to be missed. It goes on… Just to keep the fun going, here are a couple brand new interviews with Chippendale at Inkstuds and Arthur. Compare and contrast and see if he contradicts or repeats himself. Try it at home!

An item: I direct your attention over to Same Hat, where CC pal Ryan Holmberg is doing some group research on Lone Wolf and Cub writer Koike Kazuo. Apparently he also wrote a Hulk comic book for the Japanese market in the 1970s. I would like to read that.

A recommendation: I love Denys Wortman’s New York. It’s a beautifully produced book of this forgotten cartoonist’s vivid NYC-observed cartoons. The drawings are nuanced and yet amazingly muscular and gritty. I’d never seen the work before and found myself completely absorbed in Wortman’s bygone world. Great drawings and a great historical presentation by James Sturm and Brandon Elston. Kudos to D&Q for supporting such a wonderful project. There is a an exhibition on now at The Museum of the City of New York, which I look forward to checking out asap.

End on a stupid note: A very brief “Dapper Dan’s SuperMovies Column”: Let me just say: The Green Lantern trailer totally blows, except for the monster dude that looks like the Elephant Man. That part is cool. But does everything have to be a wise cracking hunk who grows up and finds responsibility? It’s creepy! And why are ALL sci-fi sets seemingly designed by the same boring people? I want more architectural phalluses and glistening drops of liquid, not boring faux-cities. Well, the boys and I hold out hope for Darren Aronofsky’s Wolverine movie. That should be good.

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Say hey, we’re talking today!

Come see Brian Chippendale and C.F. release their new books into the world at 4 pm on Sunday, Nov. 14 at Ada Books in Providence, R.I. They will be inaugurating their almighty slide show talks in which they will reveal all of their secrets. I will be there nervously standing to the side, wondering what kind of vegan food I’ll be eating for dinner. The tour then rolls on, my friends, as you can see below (and yes, you’re reading that correctly, the boys will be interviewed by Matt Fraction in Portland OR).

PROVIDENCE, RI: ADA BOOKS: NOV. 14, 4 pm. Slideshow and signing

NEW YORK, NY, THE STRAND: NOV. 18, 7 pm. Slideshow and signing

PORTLAND, OR: FLOATING WORLD COMICS: NOV. 19, 6 pm, Signing, slideshow and special live interview by Matt Fraction

LOS ANGELES, CA: FAMILY: NOV. 20, 8:15 pm, Slideshow and signing

TORONTO, ON: THE BEGUILING: DEC. 2, 7 pm, Slideshow and signing

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In fact I am still recovering from last weekend’s NY Art Book Fair, which ran me more ragged than any fair before it. So this will be short. Never have I seen such voracious enthusiasm for books and printed stuff. I sold like half a dozen rolls of King Terry toilet paper! Who does that?! I dunno. And I sold a TON of Moebius books. Not to worry, Brian, I sold tons of If ‘n Oof, too. But Moebius… (more…)

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Been prepping for the New York Art Book Fair all week and it opened last night. So, this is to say: No damn post this week. However, if you care about heta-uma, King Terry (more Terry stuff than has ever been in North America at one time), psychedelic posters, Karl Wirsum, Moebius and other awesome things, you owe it to yourself (more or less) to come see the PictureBox 300 sq. ft. room at PS1/MoMA. Specially designed, fully immersion. 2nd floor, room 203. It’ll blow your mind. Pix here.

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Photo by another undergrounder gone: Clay Geerdes

I was saddened to learn of Don Donahue’s passing. Don was most famously the publisher of Zap #1 in 1968. According to Patrick Rosenkranz in his indispensable Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution, Donahue was a former typesetter and production man who hooked up with a printer named Charles Plymell. “Donahue was visiting friends who wanted to introduce him to a cartoonist they knew,” Rosenkranz writes. “It turned out to be Robert Crumb, who had a comic book he wanted someone to publish. Donahue looked at the artwork and immediately agreed to do it.” The story of actually printing the thing and then selling it on the street on February 25th, 1968, is a classic one, and is also a reminder that Donahue was both printer and publisher and everything else. These days we publishers are vastly removed from what he went through. So much so that it’s kinda hard to imagine. But there it is. (more…)

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Neglected Masterpiece?

Last Saturday at APE I mercilessly grilled Dan Clowes on Don Martin, Curt Swan, Wally Wood, and other pressing topics. No summary can do justice to the gravity and seriousness of this discussion. Clowes was wily and wise and took the day. Evidence is here:

mp3

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What do you do when you know the subject of your book is both a good man tied to an important event, and a good—but not great—artist? If you’re N.C. Christopher Couch, you actually don’t know that, and instead prime the pump and inflate, inflate, inflate. Jerry Robinson is responsible for some rare good deeds in comics. Great, even. He helped Siegel and Shuster get (some of) what they deserved. He was a friend and supporter of Mort Meskin. He has worked for international free speech and successfully campaigned to free a jailed cartoonist. He even set up an international political cartoon syndicate. By all accounts, this is a nice man. A thoughtful man. Even a righteous man. And this book, Jerry Robinson: Ambassador of Comics, like a well-meaning award ceremony (come to think of it, kinda like how the comics industry treats most of its grand old men), is a slap in the face disguised as a pat on the back.

Here’s the first line of the Couch’s preface: “Few American artists can claim to have worked in as many media as Jerry Robinson, and with such success in all of them.” Here is a short list of artists (alive, dead, young, etc.) I can think of who have worked in as many or more, with more success: Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Dave Eggers, Charles Burns, Stephen King, Gary Panter, Milt Gross, Matt Groening, Jules Feiffer, Robert Crumb… I could do this all day). This sort of jive hyperbole is doing no one any favors. What it does is make you stop and doubt the rest of what follows.

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Moebius has opened a career retrospective exhibition at Fondation Cartier and besides a catalog (which thus far I’ve not been able to import) there are some features on the dedicated exhibition web site that are so amazing that I needed to take an entire post to point them out.

1) Unpublished Drawings: Lots of them. Note: These are recent sketchbook drawings that possess the same unmistakable combination of rigor and flow that distinguishes his best work.

2) A frighteningly good video screen capture of Moebius drawing and coloring (wait for it to load, then select the video as it plays). What’s fascinating here is how at ease he appears moving between line and color.

That should be enough. I hope some sympathetic reader in Paris will send some photos of this show. If the web site is any indication, it must be amazing.

Meanwhile, actually coincidentally, the PictureBox store just got in three of his recent books. Check ’em out here.

See you at APE (go here for all the info)!

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A decade ago I worked in the same office as Steve Brower when he was the art director of Print, and got to know him a bit then. At the time Steve was deep into Jack Kirby, and I think we occasionally rapped about that. But since then, Steve has produced excellent books showcasing hitherto little known aspects of the work of first Woody Guthrie, and then Louis Armstrong. Now he’s published From Shadows to Light: The Life and Art of Mort Meskin, for reasons I’ll let him explain. As a Meskin admirer (I put a Golden Lad story in Art in Time) I am thrilled to have a beautifully made book that showcases his thoughtful, vividly executed and highly influential work. Steve takes a back seat to the images, which are often printed as original art, and elucidates a great deal about just what made Meskin tick. We had a brief but fun email exchange, which follows below.

Do you see a through line between the three artists you’ve published books about — Louis Armstrong, Woody Guthrie and now Mort Meskin? It’s a great American array you’ve got there.

The three of them have more in common than one might imagine. All were compulsive creators who led their fields into new paths. Yet somehow that didn’t seem enough. Armstrong created 500 plus collages while touring 300 dates a year. Guthrie wrote over 1000 songs and created drawings, painting, journals, plays, poems by the score. Meskin would take a break from drawing comics or advertising art to draw, paint, collage, teach art. Plus there’s the cross discipline music/art connection. That doesn’t immediately come to mind with Mort, but he not only loved to sing but would sing into a reel-to-reel he purchased, along with Jerry Robinson, and experiment with sound. He also was a ballroom dancer. Lastly, all three overcame great personal obstacles and persevered: Armstrong poverty, Guthrie tragedy and illness and Meskin emotional instability.

What drew you to Meskin, of all artists? Has this been a long process? And what was your goal with this book? What besides, awareness/appreciation of the work would you hope would result from it?

There were two things that drew me to his story. The first was the mystery of why someone who began so strong, influencing his peers, faded so quickly from view. The second attraction: his personal story. Mort was someone who suffered greatly at times emotionally and overcame his struggles. I felt there was a larger story to tell than just someone who was a very good artist. I should mention it was Jerry Robinson who really turned me on to Mort, and his more private side. All in all it took three years from the time I contacted Peter Meskin till the book was finished. My goal was to hopefully tell an inspirational story, the art speaks for itself. And while most agree about the high watermark of his 40s work I hoped to show that Meskin maintained a high degree of storytelling and design throughout his comics career.

You allude a couple times to Meskin having had a nervous breakdown. But what, exactly, happened there? Was he diagnosed with anything? Medicated? It seems like an important part of the puzzle and I wonder how much it affected his later work.

Yes, he did have nervous breakdowns. He had a terrible stutter, which worsened under stress. As for a diagnosis, I wasn’t privy to any medical records. But nervous breakdown is a catch all phrase. I don’t want to paint Mort as a victim, but working in comics for a page rate, long hours and demanding and unappreciative editors while trying to raise a family I’m sure was extremely stressful and by all counts Mort was a very sensitive person. At certain points he simply wasn’t able to function. Medication and therapy did help. As for affecting the work, the 50s crime and horror work in particular is quite claustrophobic compared to his 40s art. And then as things improved in his life his art simplified once again. (more…)