Read Comments (5)

It appears to be “year’s best” time, when people begin soliciting for one’s “top ten” comics of the year. In honor of that tradition, I give you:

The Outstanding Graphic Stories of 1967, as printed in Graphic Story Magazine #9, Summer 1968.

“Barbering”
Will Eisner
The Spirit 2

“Master Time and Mobius Tripp”
George Metzger
Fantasy Illustrated 7

“Kaleidasmith”
George Metzger
Graphic Story Magazine 8

“HIM”
Lee and Kirby
Fantastic Four 66 and 67

“The Aliens”
Russ Manning
Magnus, Robot Fighter 17-20

“Luck of the North”
Carl Barks [Heidi must be relieved–ed.]
The Best of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge 2

“The Gifted Cockroach”
Will Eisner
The Spirit 2

“Showdown on Hydra Island”
Jim Steranko
Strange Tales 156-158

“Project: Blackout”
Jim Steranko
Strange Tales 160-161

Prehysterical Pogo
Walt Kelly

“Who Has Been Lying in My Grave?”
Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino
Strange Tales 205

“Mr. A”
Steve Ditko
Witzend 3

Gee, times haven’t changed that much. Funny how most of this stuff is still considered classic– I gotta check out that Arnold Drake story. And, whatever else anyone says, that Steranko period is full of fantastic, retardo Kirby and Op-Art pastiches….man, I knew I shouldn’t keep my “collection” in the office. Ok, back to work. Honest.

Read Comments (14)

Well, Frank was certainly up early this morning. I also worshiped “The Studio” as a teenager. It was, for me, my first encounter with “art” that I took to be accessible and somehow applicable to me. Oh lord, looking back on it now it seems so silly. I’d feel much much worse about this if Gary Groth didn’t feel the same way when he was that age. Anyhow, the appeal of that stuff was to see somewhat baroque, overripe illustration in fine art trappings. It’s ironic, of course, because the illustration they were referring to was, by the 70s, eclipsed by Push Pin, Brad Holland and the like. The Studio was, if anything, thoroughly anachronistic. But charmingly so. And, in their avid production of portfolios, prints, and assorted “fine art” ephemera, unique for those days. In a way, they anticipated the Juxtapoz-ish illustrators-making-bad-fine-art gang. Another point of interest is that, with the exception of BWS, all of those guys contributed comics to Gothic Blimp Works or The East Village Other, their pages sitting next to work by Deitch, Trina, Crumb, etc. It’s funny to think of a time when those worlds (fantasy and underground) mixed. This was perhaps helped along a bit by someone like Wally Wood, who straddled both sides of the fence, albeit briefly. Then it splintered a bit, with guys like Richard Corben occupying their own niche in the underground scene, in opposition to Crumb, Griffith, et al, who disdained the EC-influenced genre material. In a way, what guys like CF and Chippendale are doing now is related to those early efforts at underground fantasy comics, except coming from a very different mentality.

Also, I think Tim is right that Crumb was the first to make fun of the dainty falling leaf-as-signifier-of-meaning.

Post Comment

Spend a horrific amount of money today in the PictureBox shop! We have a scary new Cold Heat Special, a frightening amount of new work by Brian Chippendale, and much more, detailed here.

Post Comment

Frank Santoro’s cogent post about SPX last week has the crowd cheering. Heidi likes it, and so do I. Now, for heavens sake, go out and buy Frank’s work. Besides being a great comics thinker he is one of our finest cartoonists, period. Storeyville is just out, and his other works, Chimera, Incanto and Cold Heat are readily available. He is the unique position of being the heir to both Roy Crane AND Alex Katz.

Frank rules. It’s time everyone knew.

Also, I promise no more of these little bite sized blog entries. I’m re-reading Arcade for inspiration to write something on that stuff.

Post Comment

Santoro popped up for a surprise blog entry! All right! Well, I had a good time at SPX and agree with Frank about two important things: Speak of the Devil is the best ongoing comic book in the world right now (only AYC and Raisin Pie come close) and Kevin H. should be featured in conversation with Ben Jones next SPX, or perhaps at MoCCA. The two most restless searchers in the medium. SPX felt pretty routine this year. I was thrilled to see the new Brian Ralph book, intrigued by Ken Dahl’s stuff, and psyched to see the Baltimore kids working hard, not to mention the debut of Panray, a pretty rad new silkscreen tome. No major surprises though, I suppose, and I agree with Frank: a pretty insular crowd. Was totally amused by the various “fight” threads over on the Beat and TCJ. And, um, that’s it. I gotta get back to work!

Read Comments (2)

PictureBox will debut 6 new titles at SPX:

Books:

Powr Mastrs by C.F.
Maggots by Brian Chippendale
New Engineering by Yuichi Yokoyama
Storeyville by Frank Santoro

Newspapers:

Cold Heat Special #1 by Jon Vermilyea and Frank Santoro
Wu Tang Comics by Paper Rad

We will also have the new issue of Brian Chippendale’s Battlestack Galacticrap, a new mini by Frank Santoro and assorted other goodies.

C.F., Brian Chippendale, Frank Santoro and Jon Vermilyea will be on hand to sign books.

Signing Schedule

Friday:

4 pm – 5 pm: Jon Vermilyea, Brian Chippendale and Frank Santoro
5 pm – 6:30 pm: Brian Chippendale, Frank Santoro and CF

Saturday:

11:30 am – 1 pm: Brian Chippendale, CF and Frank Santoro
2 pm – 4 pm: CF and Brian Chippendale
4 pm – 5 pm: Jon Vermilyea and Frank Santoro

www.pictureboxinc.com
AND!

On Monday, Oct. 15 in NYC:

PictureBox and D.A.P. Present

A mega book signing featuring:

Frank Santoro : Storeyville

Brian Chippendale : Maggots

C.F. : Powr Mastrs Vol. 1

7:00 – 9:00 pm
Monday, October 15, 2007

Spoonbill & Sugartown
218 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Tel. 718.387.7322

Post Comment

Tonight, in Los Angeles, at perhaps my favorite store in the world, FAMILY, C.F. is doing a rare signing (and performance) at 7 pm! He will be signing advance copies of Powr Mastrs for one and all. FAMILY is located at: 436 N. Fairfax, LA CA 90036. Be there!

Read Comment (1)

Here’s some promotion for my obscure, marginal, and downright fringe-worthy little company of retarded books: PictureBox Inc. Over on the site we have images posted from our adventures in Athens and, just for you brothers and sisters in cyberspace, Brian Chippendale’s Maggots, ready to imbibed with just a click of your mouse.

Enjoy!

Post Comment

The show went up in Athens on Saturday night. Here are some pix of the installation.

And here’s the press release:

Andreas Melas Presents

Macronauts
Curated by Dan Nadel for PictureBox Inc.

Leonidou 15
Athens Greece
104-36

Opening reception September 8 12:00 pm-12:00 am.

8 pm, September 8: Live Performance by Blak Pus

www.firsthandsteroids.com
www.pictureboxinc.com

Andreas Melas presents Macronauts, a group exhibition in two parts:

The ground floor finds Brian Chippendale, Jungil Hong and art collective Paper Rad, all based in Providence RI, collaborating on a deep space travel adventure via autobus and mini buses. Accompanying them are a variety of earthly spirits and images which serve to delineate all-encompassing cosmic wonder.

The first floor holds an extensive works on paper exhibition by 24 artists from North America, France and Japan. Heirs to the 20th imagist tradition these artists have moved into the new century with a sly combination of word play, psychedelia, cartoons, and sheer chaos. What emerges is a comprehensive statement about the world of personal image making and expression today.

In these two floors Macronauts is a voyage into the pop underground: vibrant pictures, forms and populations hurtle forward, scrambling up the hill, trampling diseased boulders and half-assed scrawls, gaping and peeking, just below the Parthenon, here in Athens, in this September of 2007.

Two floors:

Ground floor: An installation by Paper Rad, Brian Chippendale and Jungil Hong

Mezzanine: A works on paper show featuring work by:

Marc Bell
Brian Belott
Rebecca Bird
Blexbolex
Melissa Brown
CF
Bjorn Copeland
Frederic Fleury
Leif Goldberg
Tomoo Gokita
Ben Jones
Sakura Maku
Eddie Martinez
Keith McCulloch
Taylor McKimens
Panayiotis Terzis
Gary Panter
Erin Rosenthal
David Sandlin
Frank Santoro
Patrick Smith
Matthew Thurber
Michael Williams
Andrew Jeffrey Wright

Post Comment

I’m in Athens, Greece with Brian Chippendale, Jungil Hong and Paper Rad for a show I’m curating for the Athens Biennial. The gang is creating a massive, mind blowing installation here in an abandoned Chinese grocery. We found some good old Italian (or Spanish?) comics–Serafino–translated into Greek. Good stuff. Anyhow, if you happen to be in Athens seeing lame stuff like, oh, I dunno, The Parthenon, come see the sure sign that the enlightened thought pioneered by ye ol Greeks has surely come to an end in this, our show. It opens Saturday, if we all make it that far.