How did I never think to check Paper Rad‘s YouTube favorites before now? I should’ve done that a million years ago. Thanks, Bounty Farmer. (The video embedded there is even better, really.)
I know everyone’s excited about Punisher: War Zone Watchmen, but this is the comic I’d really like to see adapted into a movie. (Click to enlarge.)
Actually, it would present even greater adaptation problems than Watchmen does, but no need to get into that now. (And yes, I’m aware of The Jazz Singer. Why do you ask?)
(The above cartoon nicked from O. Soglow‘s excellent out-of-print collection Pretty Pictures, by the way.)
Also, a few links:
1. A David Heatley interview, for Frank’s reading pleasure.
2. Charles Hatfield has written the most in-depth review of The Goddess of War I’ve seen to date.
3. Probably 90% of Comics Comics readers have already heard this, but Sammy Harkham (perhaps best known as a CC cover artist) gave a predictably great interview to Inkstuds.
4. Not many of you will find it as train-wreck entertaining as I do, but I can’t keep myself from linking to The Comics Journal‘s go-to superhero guy Tom Crippen, and his hilariously prolonged quest [more (!) here, here, and here] to get other people to read and explicate an essay by the legendary Donald Phelps for him. (I won’t speculate on why Crippen can’t read it himself.) No real point here. I just want to feed the beast so it keeps running, though a wiser man than I has advised me against it. In any case, the whole saga captures the recent flavor of the Journal quite nicely.
[UPDATE: No one has said anything to me about it, but upon reflection I think that posting #4 was a little juvenile. In my defense, I value Phelps’s writing a lot, and I didn’t like the way Crippen and his blogmate Noah Berlatsky were treating such an accomplished guy with so little of the respect he’s earned. I mean, it’s not like they didn’t deserve being slammed. But still. Bill Randall and Jon Hastings both displayed a lot more maturity and reasonableness in their responses. Anyway: lesson learned, and new leaf turned. Merry Christmas, everybody!]
KRAMERS ERGOT #7 TOUR DIARY
PITTSBURGH PA
FRANK SANTORO
The Pittsburgh stop on the Kramers tour was pretty awesome. Well, I mean, for me, it was just a thrill to see Pittsburgh represented on this tour. Bill Boichel, Copacetic Comics owner and comics guru, put the whole thing together over at this great bar called Brillobox. We had a Storeyville signing there last year and it went pretty well. So we figured why not go two for two? Sammy was like, “Why not do it at the Copacetic store?”
“Dude, the store can only manage like five people at a time. It’s as big as your kitchen.”
So, imagine a second floor bar with a big open floor and a stage at one end and a bar at the other. Wood paneling and Christmas lights and horror movies on the screen above the stage. The main bar is downstairs, so the upstairs isn’t crowded with tables and that let us spread out and accommodate the giant Kramers books. Plus Bill set up a bunch of local guys like Jim Rugg, Tom Scioli, the Unicorn Mountain and Encyclopedia Destructica crews, the master Budai, and myself. A family affair. I brought my Cold Heat zines and my boxes of back issues carefully selected for the discerning comics fan. Anyone need a Brendan McCarthy Paradax set? I got ’em cheap!
It didn’t feel awkward, like signings or openings usually do. We all just kind of stood around, sat around. John Pham and Ron Regé went to get pizza across the street. Thurber found his way from the bus depot and made it all the way from NY. Sammy and Kevin were already signing books. My dad was there. It was easy.
Slowly friends were showing up. Folks seemed really excited actually, nice. A vague air of respectability in Pittsburgh actually goes a long way. Hard to explain. We’ve been in a recession since ’82, the rest of the country is just catching up with us. So, like when something good actually materializes here, we enjoy it as best we can. There were kids who I never see smile smile. It was pleasant.
I think Bill pre-sold like 20 copies and, I think, every person who bought one came to the signing. It was pretty steady. Not the tables tho’—Kevin scowled a few times cuz I kept reaching for french fries and shaking the thin table. Whoops, sorry Kev! There was a personal connection between maker and reader, the readers, like I said, being genuinely thrilled to be meeting the likes of Kevin, Sammy, Regé, and John Pham, all of whom hadn’t been to Pittsburgh before. Jacob Ciocci, Matthew Thurber, and I are always around it seems, ha ha. We got respect, but damn, people totally stutter in front of Kevin. It’s kind of sweet.
That was the big difference between the Pittsburgh signing and the New York one. In New York, the books were mostly pre-sold, but New York being New York not everyone showed up to have their book personalized. I’ll get to that later (there being way more to the story), but I just want to point out that this kind of excitement, this book and tour like this does a lot for places like Pittsburgh. Totally different receptions by the general fans. There were plenty of folks in New York, don’t get me wrong, who were excited by the book and the makers in attendance, but it’s so much more reserved. It’s not the only event in town that night worth going to, y’know?
Regé split to hang with Jacob at his house around the corner from the bar. The rest of us went to find some decent grub and wound up at a busy college hangout that serves Mexican food. It was fun to see my comics friends, peers, who I usually only see at the same cons and festivals now hanging out in my town, doing something new. They can now appreciate how hard it is to get a good meal in around here after midnight.
Later we nerded out at my house a little bit when I busted out the stack of old comics. Most of them had never seen that Charlton “Children of Doom” one-shot by Pat Boyette. “Did you know it was drawn only slightly larger than the final print size and had these black-and-white panels in order to save time? It was drawn in like two weeks.”
Thurber and Sammy stayed up smoking cigarettes and talking most of the night on the back porch. I could hear them complaining about art supplies. The rest of us hit the hay.
The next morning I made coffee and eggs for everyone. We went and picked up Bill Boichel and then Regé and headed over to Copacetic Comics. I really wanted everyone to see the store before we left.
We all crowded inside and Kevin starting asking about old Captain Easy reprints: did Bill have any? I think he ended up buying the Speak of the Devil collection. Bill told Sammy about the Proper Box sets of CDs from England that are super-affordable collections of great jazz. Thurber bought that Gahan Wilson Classics Illustrated edition of The Raven. That’s it, the usual comic book banter. Bill just has so much good stuff stuffed into such a small space it is pretty amazing—and fun to watch people digging the store for the first time.
I’ll spare everyone the giant tangent riff that comes to mind, but it goes something like this: Bill Boichel was in his late teens and early 20s when he started doing shows, running comic conventions. Then he set up his first store in a run-down mill town part of Pittsburgh and that store saved my life. Now, twenty years later, something like this tour comes to town literally because he created this outpost in the first place. Twenty copies pre-sold? Of a hundred dollar book that could be bought somewhere else online cheaper? That’s a loyal customer base. That’s a business. And remember, this is Pittsburgh, not L.A.
Then we got on the road and headed to New York, Friday a.m. post-rush hour. It was a perfect sunny, snowy winter morning. There’s a great diner on Route 22 outside of town. It was Regé’s birthday, and he’d missed breakfast, so we decided to stop and have a good meal before we were deep in the Pennsylvania mountains with even fewer options.
We went to this little chrome railroad car, Dean’s Diner. We all squeezed into a corner booth and I realized how “L.A.” Regé and Sammy looked, how “NY” Thurber and I looked, and how we were a bunch of knucklehead cartoonists sitting in a diner along with hunters in camouflage and the like. Two hunters in fact, only three arms between them, tho’. Next to them, an old guy who looked like a mechanic in coveralls. Then three waitresses in powder blue uniforms and us, the cartoonists. Six of us. Talking about Moebius and Mazzucchelli’s respective line weights. Did you know Moebius drew straight in ink without pencils underneath? And Mazzucchelli did his layouts for Year One slightly smaller than the printed comic so he could see how his line would reduce?
Ah, finally. I’ve found some real friends in this life, ha ha.
Attention peoples:
Because I know Comics Comics is full of discerning readers of visual stuff, I want to point you all to a brand new PictureBox book: Overspray. Check out Norman’s blog about the subject of airbrush art. It’s a great, great read. For fans of imagery and illustration, this book is a must, in my humble opinion. It doesn’t fit into a NYC-centric vision of conceptual illustration or ephemera. But, perceived “depth” or “importance” in illustration has, for the last 30 odd years been calculated along the Steinberg/Push Pin conceptual illustration axis. I love this stuff, but there’s room for more. To me, what we’re dealing with when talking about the Overspray guys is astounding feats of image making. You sink into the images and explore their visual worlds. Things like Charlie’s Levi’s Splash image, or Lloyd’s Rod Stewart cover are unforgettably powerful IMAGES. They’re not tricked-out ideas, a la Glaser, but they are forceful and communicative. And the surfaces are compelling. Unlike so much concept-based illustration, these surfaces add a layer of meaning: the sheen, the sheer thickness of them gives them a life of their own. What they have is presence — something so much illustration lacks. This is more in the vein of contemporary work like Murakami or even Matthew Barney. Or, on a comics level, they harken to Richard Corben, Moebius, Macedo, and other late 70s/early 80s fantasy artists that we at CC love. Plus, there are some awesome images from Tron, which Peter Lloyd helped design. And, I think it could be argued that the Overspray work is more relevant to contemporary visual culture and 90% of the history of illustration. That’s not really an argument for its quality, but certainly if you take one look at magazines like XLR8R, galleries like Deitch Projects, artists like Jim Shaw, and on and on, you see that Overspray contains a huge chunk of stunningly relevant ideas. So, check it out! You’ll be very happy you did. Ok, promotion over.
Um, I’d, ah, really love to review this comic from the golden age of black and white alternative comics, but I, uh, think that this is enough. The pages inside are just painful. Funny, in a retarded comics way but… painful.
Found it today in the quarter bin at a store somewhere in Pennsylvania, driving back from NYC and the Kramers Ergot signing at Desert Island last Saturday. I’m trying to shape up my tour diary into something readable. Kevin Huizenga, Ron Regé, Sammy Harkham, Matthew Thurber, John Pham, and me all eating a late breakfast in a rural diner was a sight. Especially for the outfitted deer hunter a few booths away with one arm. He kept staring at us. Maybe he was a comics fan. Anyways, bear with me. Crazy week.
A message from Mark Newgarden & Paul Karasik:
Perhaps you can help us!
Paul Karasik & I are currently expanding our 1988 essay HOW TO READ NANCY into a book-length treatment. Our essay originally appeared in Brian Walker’s THE BEST OF ERNIE BUSHMILLER’S NANCY and is currently being used in comics lit curriculums all over the country.
As you may (or may not) recall one particular NANCY strip [below] is deconstructed in great detail. We are trying to determine exactly when this strip was originally printed.
Our source was the 1961 NANCY Pocket Book which obliterated the original publication date & © info on these strips. From studying a fair amount of period syndicate proofsheets it seems most likely that this strip appeared sometime between 1958-1960 as many of the other strips reproduced in this book did.
Unfortunately many of the likely sources (UFS, Walker, Kitchen, Ohio State) do not have complete runs of the strip for this period and neither do we.
We are circulating this request among NANCY lovers and comic strip collectors confident that someone has the info we seek.
Additionally we are hopeful that someone has high quality reproduction material for this strip (either a proof or the original) and would be willing to contribute a high rez scan.
Even if you don’t have any of this (but perhaps could point us in the direction of someone who does) your name will surely be enshrined in the golden roll of the Secret Bushmiller Society for all eternity!
Best;
… when a guy who’s known as the “Comics Reporter”* calls you a nerd. (Not that I really have an image consultant.) I mean, it’s obvious even to me that I don’t remind anybody of Justin Long. And Frank’s got such soulful green blue eyes. (I’m color-blind, by the way, and don’t really know what color Frank’s eyes are. That’s why you’ll never see me complain about a comic book’s coloring. And also maybe why I don’t get Mark Rothko.)
Strangely, I feel as if a great burden has suddenly been lifted from my shoulders.
*(Just kidding, Tom.)
Massive Visual Book and Magazine Sale
That’s right, there’s still more stuff to sell! More! I know plenty of you New Yorkers who have not been yet (Tim, you’re excused).
Come visit me in the store!
Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 6 and 7, 12 pm – 6 pm.
Huge collection for sale: Hundreds of books for sale at very low prices (most graphic novels $3-$5, fancy books no more than $10):
Graphic design, illustration, graphic novels, fine art, imported manga, vintage children’s books, silkscreened books and prints, tons of design and art magazines. Many rare and unusual collectibles. Credit cards accepted.
PictureBox
121 3rd St. (Corner of Bond)
Brooklyn NY 11231
Think of your family! Buy stuff for them!
Directions:
F or G train to Carroll St.
Exit at Smith and 2nd place.
Walk down 3rd St. to Bond.
Frank and I agreed to an interview with Vice magazine, and it’s been posted online. I guess it went okay.
