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Hold on to your hats!

Item the first: Dan talks about Rory Hayes with Comic Book Resources here.

Item the second: PictureBox will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival this weekend, and Frank Santoro, Gary Panter and Lauren R. Weinstein will be signing their books. (Other notable cartoonists—Adrian Tomine, Gabrielle Bell, Miriam Katin—will be at Drawn & Quarterly’s table at the festival, too.)

Item the third: Lauren was interviewed by Bookslut this week, and her Goddess of War was reviewed by Richard Gehr at the Village Voice last week.

Item the fourth: Sometime soon, I will attempt to write a substantive post!

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The esteemed Richard Gehr has some nice words about two Comics Comics faves: Ogden Whitney and (shameless plug here) Rory Hayes on the Village Voice site. This is apparently going to be a weekly column, which is good news for us. A few little updates: PictureBox is going to publish a collection of Ogden Whitney’s romance and sci-fi comics in late 2009 or early 2010. Co-edited by Frank Santoro, Bill Boichel and little ol’ me. We are scouring the earth for any and all Whitney material. We aim to solve a few mysteries with this one and should get down to work on it as soon as Mr. Santoro stops blogging for a minute and finishes Cold Heat! Ha! Just kidding. Sort of. No, but seriously, Frank is very close to finishing and we will send the book to the printer in December in order to have the books in stores everywhere in April.

ALSO: I have heard a rumor from an original art dealer that Ogden Whitney had a son. This is news to me, as none of the info I’ve turned up indicates he had any children. If you have any info about this, please email me at dan [at] pictureboxinc.com.

Ok, PSA concluded. Back to normal programming.

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Here’s yet another event (Tim & Frank, can I go home yet?) for you to fathom. Come join us tomorrow. This should actually be awesome.

Join us for a book release party and panel discussion featuring:

KIM DEITCH
BILL GRIFFITH
GEOFFREY HAYES
and moderator
DAN NADEL

Listing information:

WHAT: Book Release Party for WHERE DEMENTED WENTED: THE ART AND COMICS OF RORY HAYES, with panel discussion and Q&A
WHO: Dan Nadel, Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith & Geoffrey Hayes
WHERE: DESERT ISLAND • 540 Metropolitan Ave., Brooklyn, NY • 718.388.5087 • desertislandbrooklyn.com
WHEN: Friday, August 8, 7PM (discussion begins at 8PM)

FREE ADMISSION
An exclusive, limited-edition Hayes silkscreen will be available for this event.

The controversial cartoonist Rory Hayes was a self-taught dynamo of the underground comics revolution. Attracting equal parts derision and praise (the latter from the likes of R. Crumb and Bill Griffith), Hayes emerged as comics’ great primitive, drawing horror comics in a genuinely horrifying and hallucinatory manner (some have called him the Fletcher Hanks of the underground). He has influenced a generation of cartoonists, from RAW to Fort Thunder and back again.

On Friday, Aug. 8, on what would have been Hayes’ 59th birthday (Hayes died of a drug overdose in 1983), Desert Island and Fantagraphics Books will celebrate the life and art of Rory Hayes with a special evening celebrating the release of WHERE DEMENTED WENTED, the first-ever collection of Hayes’ legendary comics and art. Editor Dan Nadel (Gary Panter, The Wilco Book) will moderate a discussion of Hayes’ work with three men who knew and worked with Hayes: Kim Deitch (creator of Waldo the Cat), Bill Griffith (creator of Zippy the Pinhead), and Geoffrey Hayes (brother of Rory and author of the recent Benny and Penny from Toon Books).

WHERE DEMENTED WENTED: THE ART AND COMIX OF RORY HAYES is the first retrospective of Hayes’ career ever published, and features the best of his underground comics output alongside paintings, covers, and artifacts rarely seen by human eyes — as well as astounding, previously unprinted comics from his teenage years and movie posters for his numerous homemade films. The Art and Comix of Rory Hayes also serves as a biography and critique with a memoir of growing up with Rory by his brother, the illustrator Geoffrey Hayes, and a career-spanning essay by Edward Pouncey (a.k.a. Savage Pencil). Also included is a rare interview with Hayes himself.

“Rory Hayes was the real thing; a genuine ‘outsider’ artist. His work retains its raw, primitive power to this day, teetering precariously between chaos and control, madness and oddly endearing teddy bears.” – Bill Griffith

“A great American primitive.” – R. Crumb

WHERE DEMENTED WENTED:
THE ART AND COMICS OF RORY HAYES
Edited by Dan Nadel and Glenn Bray
Essays by Geoffrey Hayes and Edwin Pouncey
$22.99 Paperback Original
144 pages, black-and-white (with 48 pp. in color), 8” x 10”
ISBN 978-1-56097-923-4

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Courtesy of the Fantagraphics blog, here’s a nineteen-page preview of Where Demented Wented, the first comprehensive collection of the work of gonzo underground genius Rory Hayes (co-edited by Dan himself).

I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.

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Well, Tim brought up an interesting point in his Monday post. He is quite right that I may have overshot with my comments and is also correct that Barry could stand with Spiegelman and Ware (as could, I would argue on a better day, Aline Kominsky Crumb and easily Julie Doucet). Any converstion about women-in-comics has to basically start with 1968 and move forward. There wasn’t much before then that rises above good, solid cartooning. And nothing on par with the likes of Herriman. But there is a ton after that. Of course, that’s the problem with exhibitions that arbitrarily settle on a number like 15. I understand the desire to want to create a canon (though I disagree with it–canons are so last century.) in order to provide a focus, but I think being a little loosey goosey with the numbers and adding Barry and the Hernandez Bros would have vastly improved the curators’ credibility.

History is a funny thing, yes. Melville and all that. Or Frank King and Tatsumi, for that matter. What’s fascinating about today’s history-making is that so many choces are guided by knowledgable cartoonists, not historians. Ware for King and Tomine for Tatsumi, for example. This has often been the case in other media, but what’s so interesting in this case is that there simply aren’t any historians or critics who command the same respect as Ware, Tomine, et al. I think that is changing, but slowly. And for now, I’m thrilled to have such pro-active (and wise) cartoonists leading the way into the past. And yes, who is to say who will pop up later? I think, for example, that in future years Rory Hayes will emerge as a definitive influence on the 90s and 00s and Gary Panter’s influence on visual culture in general will equal (if not surpass) Crumb’s. And along the way, some long lost female cartoonist from the 50s might emerge. I doubt it, but maybe.

Anyhow, the most interesting thing about the Masters show reaction was found in Sarah Boxer’s Artforum essay, in which she astutely pointed out that it wasn’t only the absence of women in the show but the way women were presented in all of the work in the show. That is, if I remember correctly, women were either absent or villains or cypher, which is an astute observation about comics in general. I wish I could remember a bit more of the argument…Anyhow, it’s an interesting point, and once that should be pondered a bit more.

Ok, over to you, Tim.