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You should stay inside this weekend and enjoy some nice, fun comics!

1) Brian Chippendale’s new weekly web comic, Puke Force, has launched over at PictureBox. Check it out, and remember, “read it like a snake”. Brian’s 800-page If ‘n Oof will hit stores and subscribers in early October!

2) Tom Kraft has just unleashed the new version of his web site, What if Kirby. It’s a massive collection of original Jack Kirby art, beautifully scanned and silhouetted, and viewable at various magnifications. Forthcoming features includes notes from scholars and inkers, as well as some text from yours truly. Congrats to Tom — a super generous dude and good company when we were at Fumetto. There are other sites with hi-res art (like Heritage), but this is the first dedicated to a single artist, complete with annotations, etc. To me, this is the beginning of an invaluable resource. A particular favorite of mine is this collage from 2001.

3) I’m pleased to pass along some Johnny Dynamite news: Movie interest in Johnny Dynamite has been stirred by a Max Allan Collins screenplay based on his and Terry Beatty’s graphic novel. Collins and Beatty are the kind copyright holders of the Johnny Dynamite characters and stories, including those featured in Art in Time. My thanks for their support.

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This isn’t normally the kind of thing we do here on Comics Comics, but there are less than 36 hours left for the great Jim Woodring to raise funds for an exciting project, and we would be remiss if we didn’t let our readers know about it.

More information can be found here. At the very least, watch the video, and pass the news along to anyone you know who might be interested. Thanks.

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Labour Day is coming up, so let’s talk about social class:

1. In the R. Crumb Handbook, the creator of Mr. Natural writes: “Some of the other comics that Charles and I liked, Heckle and Jeckle, Super Duck, things of that ilk, featured very primitive stories on the crudest proletarian level….The super-hero comics of the 1940s also had this rough, working class quality. A cartoonist like Jack Kirby is a perfect example. His characters – Captain America, for instance – were an extension of himself. Kirby was a tough little guy from the streets of New York’s lower east side, and he and he saw the world in terms of harsh, elemental, forces. How do you deal with these forces? You fight back! This was the message of all the comic strips created during the Great Depression of the 1930s, from Popeye to Dick Tracy to Superman.” Crumb as usual is right: I’d add that the anti-comics movement of the 1940s and 1950s had a class dimension as well. Genteel, middle-class Americans were shocked by the plebian violence, crude sexuality and general spirit of irreverence of the early comic books.

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