Pay Attention: National Lampoon
by Jeet Heer
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
In a recent (or recent-enough) interview, the invariably insightful Lynda Barry noted that, “There was a group right before Matt and I started who were in the Village Voice — Jules Feiffer, Mark Alan Stamaty, and Stan Mack, who did Real Life Funnies. And I finally met him and he doesn’t look anything like he draws himself, which I thought was hilarious. There’s all these people who were in the early National Lampoon — but now it’s as if they do not exist…. When people say, ‘You’re one of the first women cartoonists,’ I say, ‘Nooo, there was Shary Flenniken and M.K. Brown and Trina Robbins.’”
Barry, as per usual, is dead-on about both the Voice and National Lampoon. For today’s posting I want to focus a bit on the Lampoon, a journal that played a big role in the history of comics especially in the 1970s, one that is now only dimly recalled.
In an essay for an upcoming book, I tried to place National Lampoon in a historical context: “In the early 1970s, the creative energies unleashed by the underground comics started to be assimilated by mainstream publications. National Lampoon magazine was a pioneer in this process. It was sold by subscription as well as on the newsstands and carried ads like a regular magazine, but it also featured a strong comics section giving prominence to such underground cartoonists as Shary Flenniken and Bobby London. Indeed, one way of defining National Lampoon’s editorial identity was to say that it combined erudite humor with the fearless irreverence of underground comics. During these years, National Lampoon served as a meeting ground for a wide variety of cartoonists, not just undergrounders but also artists like Neal Adams, who worked for commercial publishers like DC and Marvel but wanted an outlet for their wilder side.”
I’d add that of all the Lampoon cartoonists, the ones that are most regrettably underappreciated right now are M.K. Brown and Shary Flenniken. In this supposed golden age of comics reprints, why aren’t Brown and Flenniken in print?
There are signs here and there of a Lampoon revival, as evidenced by the appearance of Rick Meyerowitz’s handsome new book Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, which does a fine job surveying the major writers and artists for the magazine. Go here for Dennis Perrin’s smart and querulous account of the book launch and dissenting take on the on Lampoon history. Over at TCJ, Tom Crippen has been done a series of astute posts about National Lampoon, which can be accessed here.
These are welcome harbingers of a revival of interest in the old National Lampoon. If this renewed attention leads to a fresh book reprinting the best of the Lampoon comics and volumes devoted to Brown and Flenniken, then perhaps the universe is correcting itself.
Labels: Lynda Barry, M.K. Brown, Pay Attention, Shary Flenniken
My understanding — and I could be wrong — is that various publishers have offered to collect Flenniken for years, but she’s always taken a pass, for whatever reason. MK Brown, I’m with you on that one.
Also, I think the National Lampoon rights situation may be crazy, but that’s more a hunch than a statement based on me knowing anything.
I actually spoke to Shary about this once in New York. Near as I can tell, it was all about scanning all that big artwork; the whole thing seemed too daunting for her. The pages are big, need fixing, etc.
EVERYONE wants this book!
Shary’s originals are really large. Nonetheless, I selfishly want to read a Trots & Bonny book. Likewise an MK Brown book. (And while we’re at it, a “comics of Michael O’Donaghue” book.)
I agree there’s lots of gold in those early NL’s, unfortunately eclipsed by the T&A the magazine’s most known for. Most of the comics have a copyright symbol next to the signatures, so the rights would go to each individual author unless scanned from the magazine. The problem besides tracking down 35-year-old artwork is that Lampoon’s current owners don’t appreciate much of the material they have, choosing to concentrate on the toga party/food fight humor, which was ironically created to make fun of that sort of thing rather than emulate it.
I can confirm that Flenniken’s TROTS & BONNIE has not gone for a lack of publishers willing to bring the work back into print. I met her once while I was in Seattle, and asked her myself when we’d see a book. I got a vague “Maybe someday” in response.
I wrote about a release event for Drunk, Stoned… over at The Paris Review: http://tinyurl.com/6glhvfm
I suppose we’ll never see a reissue of “National Lampoon’s Very Large Book of Comical Funnies”. More’s the pity. A lot of the humor is dated, but it has some really spot-on comics parodies. A Winnie Winkle (!) parody sticks in my mind for its shear obscurity, but there were many others. I’ve still got a copy somewhere, but I think just about any reader of this blog would find something to like in it.
So glad to see people talking about these comics! National Lampoon was a big reason I started drawing comics again as a teenager. I graduated from Mad to NatLamp in the early 80’s and it still had lots of amazing comics, like Shary Flenniken of course (so good!), and one of my faves– Mark Marek’s “Hercules Among the North Americans.” These, along with Lynda Barry and Matt Groening in the Chicago Reader, were my first exposure to the notion that comics could do ANYTHING.
Somebody should get an intern or two to start scanning those “Trots and Bonnie” pages RIGHT NOW!
There was a Trots n’ Bonnie collection in France years ago. I’ve never seen it so I can only guess it’s either incomplete or the printing’s not of good enough quality. Flenniken also did a lot of color pieces in the magazine and there was a pretty good issue of COMIC BOOK ARTIST a few years ago devoted to the magazine as a whole. There’s also a copy of the complete run of the magazine (which suffers from being scanned from the printed pages) on DVD.
Here’s a didja know:
Apparently M. K. Brown is B. Kliban’s daughter.
Urgh. Sorry, I meant “wife.”
Wow. Mind blown.
“Apparently M. K. Brown is B. Kliban’s [wife].”
Kliban died in 1990. M.K. Brown was his first wife. He remarried after they divorced.
You mean ex-wife.
Never mind. Our posts crossed.
I’d second Sam’s recommendation of COMIC BOOK ARTIST #24–it’s a terrific survey of the LAMPOON’s comics history, especially Jon Cooke’s amazingly comprehensive interview with LAMPOON art director Michael Gross.
Are there enough Michael O’Donoghue comics out there to warrant a collection, especially since copies of PHEOBE ZEIT-GEIST are pretty easy to get through online used book sellers? Maybe a book of PHEOBE, stray LAMPOON comics, and those great ads–“Here’s Good News for Hemorrhoid Sufferers!” “J.P. Sartre, noted author, asks: ‘Buddy, can you spare a fin?'”–O’Donoghue and Frank Springer did for EVERGREEN REVIEW…?
O’Donoghue also did fumetti comics with Cloud Studios, who did the early deisgn work for National Lampoon. Some fumetti were for the Evergreen Review and then later for National Lampoon. You can (just about) read a couple at:
http://www.angelfire.com/comics/cloudstudio/EYES_ONLY/eyes_only6.html
Oh man, I am so with you all on this one.
There were some truly great comics in there, and so little of it has ever been reprinted. The “Very Large Book Of Comical Funnies” was, believe it or not, a seminal book in my comics education. As a teenager, it exposed me to whole ton of great comics by simply doing such great parodies that I had to seek out the originals. “French Comics (The Kind Men Like)” had a great selection of awesome strips, many of which received their only English translation to date in there.
As for the magazine itself… holy crap. Shary Fleniken, of course, “Trots and Bonnie” is one of the top five or so uncollected strips. Mark Marek was great, I treasure my copy of the “Hercules Amongst The North Americans” book and would love to see a volume of “Dirty Father Harry”. Rick Geary did a lot of great work in the Lampoon early in his career. Even the illustrations for text articles were great, with artists like Gahan Wilson and Drew Friedman showing up regularly.
Can I use the word “great” too many times in describing these comics? It seems not.
Having read the Michael Gross interview in COMICS ARTIST #24, somehow I get the feeling that Gross would describe the interview as the most brilliant and significant interview in interviewing history.
Slappy Snuzzle: Pay attention. Name of the magazine is COMIC BOOK ARTIST. Snarky you are, attentive you’re not, but you are right: it is the most brilliant and significant interview in interviewing history. Buy early and buy often!
http://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2009/04/tarzan-of-cows.html
I’m a bit puzzled by idea that the main problem holding back the reprinting of Trots and Bonnie is that “the pages are big, need fixing, etc.” Surely any publishing house that undertakes this would have access to 1) very large scanners and 2) interns.
I dunno. It should be doable. Someone with more persuasive powers than me should talk to Flenniken.
I’d KILL for a Trots and Bonnie collection… Id fly out there to SCAN the stuff..I don’t care..lol
I loved Nat Lamp comics and they for SURE inspired me!
I thing maybe Flenniken didn’t get offered enough money to make it worth her while?
Out of curiosity, how many T&B strips were published? There are only 5 in the old Nat Lamp anthology and then 3 in the new book (2 of which are in the old anthology). That makes 6. Anyone know how many more there were? There must’ve been tons more, because it ran for over 15 years. Anyone out there have a checklist or something?
I wrote to Shary a few months ago asking her about the possibility of a T + B collection, and she said that, at the time, she was “looking into” the possibility. So it could happen? I emailed her a link to this post, so I suppose it’s possible she’ll have something to contribute to the discussion… I first read her CJ interview a few years ago, and it was the first time I had seen any of her strips. The T + B stuff reprinted as illustrations for the article was great, even removed from its context. I’ve since read quite a few strips, but would love to have them together at last.
[…] Item: Jeet Heer on Sugar & Spike and National Lampoon. […]
Trots and Bonnie ran monthly for most of the run of the Lampoon Dan. Shary and Bobby both used to draw their pages at the same size as an early 20th century cartoonist did for a Sunday page. I think approximately 16×24 or so if my memory serves properly. She’s kept her art in good condition and still retains all of the originals. She’s not preventing publication. If a proper publisher comes along I would guess she’d happily agree to seeing them printed. She’s a wonderful person and am sure will be pleased to see all the interest in her work posted here.
I should point out that, despite using the the less-formal “Shary”, I don’t actually know her personally. Both times I wrote to her I did so via her website- http://www.sharyflenniken.com/ She seems very nice and receptive to her fans, so I would suggest that anyone interested contact her through there.
“The Large Book of Comical Funnies” shouldn’t be confused with “National Lampoon Comics”, though both came out around the same time. The former is a parody of history of comics books and the latter is the one collecting most of the material up until then, including ‘Trots and Bonnie’. I’m not sure if that appeared anywhere besides ‘National Lampoon’ other than in “Facts O’Life Funnies”. Again, the DVD of NL has the complete run despite not having the best reproduction.
I think it might be a little rose colored hyperbole to say that underground comics moved the publishing industry and had any hand in creating NL.