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Dark Horse has recently published two fine and nicely obscure reprint volumes. The first I’ve been neglecting for a while, but not for lack of love. It’s the complete John Carter of Mars by Jesse Marsh. Yep, 114 pages of Mars action by the Dell master himself. The three 1952-3 comic books reprinted within are among my favorite Marsh works, since the material so readily lent itself to Marsh’s obsessions with modernist forms and contemporary art. (more…)

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In the 1972  fanzine Sense of Wonder #12, Russ Manning published an enigmatic “see if you can guess” essay on Jesse Marsh. Without naming the artist, Manning takes the reader through the progression of the mystery artist’s style, beginning with Four Color Comics and ending with Johnny Mack Brown. Manning situates Marsh’s style from first-hand knowledge of Marsh’s influences, but goes further by describing the difference between an artist like Gould and an artist like Foster: design versus composition. It’s a quick theoretical detour, but one Manning would come back to later in interviews about his own work. Over halfway through the piece he declares Johnny Mack Brown #2 (featured in its entirety in Art in Time and chosen—I swear—before I even read this article!) a masterpiece, and then explains why in as close an analysis of artistic style as I’ve read from that period. Manning gets inside the work like a fellow artist but with the enthusiasm of a fan. And Russ Manning was, in fact, a fan. He began as an Edgar Rice Burroughs fanzine artist and, via Tarzan, made the acquaintance of Jesse Marsh, who got the younger artist his first job at Dell. Eventually, of course, Manning would succeed his mentor on Tarzan. By the end of the piece, Manning, with rhetorical flourish, reveals his subject to be Jesse Marsh. Anyhow, these two men, so different in style, were closely linked as artists and friends. It’s a study in contrast and lineage, and also a somewhat opaque subject, since both men were very private and possessed full lives outside of comics. Maybe this independent streak, something common to the handful of comic books masters on the west coast, was recognized and respected by the two friends. In any case, here is some fine evidence of an unusual artistic friendship.

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As Art in Time gets closer to the big reveal I thought I’d begin to post some extra images I have by or of the cartoonists included. Here’s a rare photo of Jesse Marsh (with pipe) out for a day of sketching with animator Tom Oreb sometime in the late 1940s.

On another note, I stopped by Thirty Days NY, the space/shop that David Kramer and Sammy Harkham are curating in Tribeca (sponsored by Absolut Vodka and TBWA/Chiat/Day) opening April 8. It’s going to be a knock out.

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Russ Manning, one of the great California cartoonists whose work, like his mentor Jesse Marsh‘s, stands apart as a West Coast alternative to the more chaotic New York-based artists, made a case for Dell as a key 20th century comic book publisher in Richard Kyle’s brilliant Wonderworld #9, (1973). The two-page article is below. One thing I enjoy about Wonderworld is that it offers an entirely different point of view on comics history — mostly avoiding superheroes and advocating for other genres and approaches in comics. Some of the artists who loomed large for Kyle, like Dan Spiegle and Hermann (whose two-volume Survivors album series was an early Fantagraphics project), seem largely forgotten today, but the samples published in Wonderworld offer a look at another course for character-based comics in the 70s. By the way, you can see an entire early issue of Wonderworld, when it was called Graphic Story World, over at the Jack Kirby Museum. Look closely for the amazing photo of Jaunty Jim Steranko.

Russ Manning text copyright Estate of Russ Manning.

Russ Manning text copyright Estate of Russ Manning.

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Jesse Marsh drawing for a Tarzan coloring book, circa early 1950s.

An exciting artifact popped up on Golden Age Comic Book Stories yesterday: The only interview with Jesse Marsh published (and perhaps the only one conducted?) in his lifetime. It’s from a 1965 issue of ERB-Dom. Most of this information has been absorbed into his biography, but I didn’t know that he worked on The Flintstones! I’ve been looking for this interview for a long, long time and didn’t even get it before Art in Time went to press. Alas. Anyhow, here it is. Enjoy.

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George Wunder

In a vague attempt to try to write about comics more frequently, I’m going to start a series of posts wherein I detail my daily trips through the library, the storage bin, other people’s libraries, and, of course, the internet.

I spent a good chunk of yesterday messing around with George Wunder. First I read his obituary and then I read his wife’s. Then I read his sister’s. And man, it was like watching the whole family escape me one by one! Down they went, click by click. I took some notes and thought about contacting his nephews or grandnephews. I ought to. Then I discovered a cache of original art at Syracuse, but apparently no papers. I can’t find an interview with him (though my index to Cartoonist Profiles is in storage — there’s probably something in there) and am intrigued by the dearth of info. He had no children. Where are all the letters and such? Where are the diary entries that explain his inky grotesques? He had a way of depicting giant craniums that verges on abstraction. Wonderful, odd stuff. But who was he? Caniff we know, right down to his shoes. But Wunder? I dunno. Wood assisted him at one point, I know that. And he apparently was in the military sometime. But what else? Ah well.

Then I got distracted and went down a rabbit hole looking for more on Jesse Marsh. Ordered a copy of a fanzine with a supposedly long Russ Manning article about him. Marsh died unmarried, but he did have siblings — seven according to some reports. In all my research for Art in Time, I wasn’t able to turn up anyone still living who knew him first hand, though I imagine someone from Western must still be around, and the thought tweaks me a couple times a week. Marsh remains a mystery to me. There might be some info in the hands of E.R. Burroughs collectors, which is the rabbit hole I dove down yesterday, mired in ERB fan sites trying to find some new little morsel that might have recently appeared. Has someone from his family contacted Dark Horse, I wonder? What became of his paintings? Of his legendary reference library? Some of these West Coast guys passed before fandom really kicked in (though according to Alex Toth, Marsh most likely would’ve rebuffed any queries anyway) and so we’re left with lots of questions. Manning seemed to have known him well, but he’s not talking either.

My last stop of the day was a lengthy digression into my favorite comics web site, Comic Art Fans, on which I combed through the Jack Kirby holdings hoping to find material for the 1940s and 50s Kirby exhibition I’m curating for the 2010 Fumetto Festival. For sheer volume of incredible visuals, it’s the best site going.

On the not-comics-but-related front, went to see a buncha exhibitions yesterday, including the Mike Kelley show at Gagosian and the Robert Williams show at Tony Shafrazi. Best of all were the Hockney show at Pace and the Sister Corrita show at Zach Feuer, but man, seeing the Williams and Kelley shows in the space of a few hours was awfully fun. Couldn’t be more different artists, but both are insightful painters of male angst/worry/paranoia/obsession. Check ’em out.

Mike Kelley

And that, dear friends, was my “research” for the weekend.

p.s.: Our offer still stands: Comics Comics wants a good, serious article about The Studio, 30 years on. We want to know about shag carpeting and questionable wall hangings? We want to know where the work came from and where it went. We want to know the economics of it, and the relationship between it, comics, fantasy, and illustration. Contact us!

Barry Windsor-Smith

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I’m currently buried in Art Out of Time 2, making it as epic as possible. And I do mean epic. I have one word for you: KONA!!!!

Anyhow, here is some current reading with reviews to come:

-Brush With Passion: The Art and Life of Dave Stevens
-Parasyte vols. 1-3 by Iwaaki
-D.O.A. Comics 1 by Osborne
-A Drifting Life by Tatsumi
-Marvel Masterworks Atlas Era Heroes 3 by Everett and Ayers
-Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years Vol. 1

Book of the year for me, in terms of interest, if not quality, so far has been the Stevens book, for reasons I’ll cover in a future post. Is it art I like? Not really. But it’s a fascinating story for reasons that I don’t think the authors really fully understood. I haven’t gotten very far in the Tatsumi yet but I can’t wait.

And, an idle question for you people out there: Is there a Russ Manning estate somewhere? I can’t find much of anything.

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A few odds and ends here. I’m sure I’m the last person to know this, but wow, Dark Horse is releasing the first volume of the Jesse Marsh Tarzan series now! His work has an incredible arc to it, from early drawings that look carved from stone to mid-period, more fluid pen lines, to his last scratchy, near-abstract images that Russ Manning claimed was due to his declining eyesight. He was a great artist, and the Tarzan work is among my favorite work of his. There’s a great Jesse Marsh web site here from which I stole the gorgeous image above. Marsh will be in the second Art Out of Time, which I should be working on instead of doing this.

Also, been thinking about Victor Moscoso lately for another project, and friend Norman pointed out an amazing series of animated shorts Moscoso made sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. What I love about these is how it takes him out of psychedelia and suddenly he seems wonderfully in line with drawers like Milton Glaser and Heinz Edelmann. He had the same transformative impulses and shared with Edelmann a pen line of such urgency and clarity that it’s impossible to look away. It’s a sharpness — a tiny bit of grumpiness. Moscoso was certainly the best colorist and overall designer of his S.F. (and perhaps North America in general) contemporaries, but people sometime forget about that wicked penline. The thing that stood out for me the most in the recent Crumb show in Philadelphia was, in fact, the original jam pages Moscoso worked on. Where everyone else looks like they’re carefully cartooning a gag, Moscoso’s marks come on like brush-fire — just decimating the very formidable competition. Just brutal and immediate and delineating modern-psych design forms. Anyhow, enjoy these little films. I don’t know much about them but maybe someone can fill us in in the comments.

EDIT: Someone just did.