Potrzebie
Sunday, August 21, 2011
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This is a page Larry Hama and I did in 1969 for Gothic Blimp Works #4, an issue I co-edited with Kim Deitch. There's a curiosity in panel eight. I pasted in a reduction of a Topps poster, "Wanted for Highway Robbery: TV Repairman", but only now do I notice that the Jack Davis cartoon of the repairman appears to be blacked over. Strange. But a lot of strange things were happening in 1969.
I asked Larry to identify the person in the fourth panel and anything else he recalled about our collaborations. Larry responded, "I can barely remember stuff I worked on 20 years ago, let alone stuff I did 40+ years ago! I also haven't seen those pages in probably more than 35 years. People from Marvel and DC are always calling me to ask about stuff I worked on in the 1970s and early 1980s, and 75% of the time I can't help them at all. But the guy in panel four is definitely the guitarist from Country Joe and the Fish. I think the pic I copied is on the back of Electric Music for the Mind and Body."
Actually, as we see below, it's David Cohen on the back of their second album, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die.
This is a page Larry Hama and I did in 1969 for Gothic Blimp Works #4, an issue I co-edited with Kim Deitch. There's a curiosity in panel eight. I pasted in a reduction of a Topps poster, "Wanted for Highway Robbery: TV Repairman", but only now do I notice that the Jack Davis cartoon of the repairman appears to be blacked over. Strange. But a lot of strange things were happening in 1969.
Actually, as we see below, it's David Cohen on the back of their second album, I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die.
Labels: gothic blimp, kim deitch, larry hama, topps
¶ 8:56 PM 0 comments
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Jack Kirby meets Jack Ruby
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The Comic Book Council was something I launched in Castle of Frankenstein in imitation of the film ratings in Cahiers du Cinema. When alternative comics began to appear in 1967 and 1968, there were no reviews of comics, so I decided to bring together a team of critics who could contrast commercial comics with the emerging underground. The effort was short-lived, as I stopped editing the magazine in 1968.
The ratings chart below displays widely divergent opinions, and the many blank areas indicate everyone had different reading lists. The only near-consensus and the highest rating went to Gilbert Shelton's Wonder Warthog.
To explain a few items: Play with Your Cells was a single sheet distributed randomly by Art Spiegelman, Phoebe Zeitgeist was serialized in Evergreen Review and Sunshine Girl was Kim Deitch's weekly East Village Other strip. As I recall, Kim killed off Sunshine Girl, so maybe the low rating reflects that. I'm not sure what happened when.
At bottom, from Castle of Frankenstein #12, is my Comic Book Council review of Jack Kirby's powerful "48 Hours and 36 Minutes in the Life of Jack Ruby". Kirby's three-page graphic nonfiction, inked by Chic Stone, was published in Esquire (May 1967). One or two balloons have apparent last-minute lettering corrections. Note a balloon fell off panel one in the b/w copy at bottom. The Comic Book Council is discussed briefly in this 2005 interview with Clark Dimond,
The footnote citations refer to the Warren Commission Hearings, and they can be read here. For instance, the first citation ("15 H 80") is from the Warren Commission's interview with newspaperman Seth Kantor, and one can click on Volume 15 and then go to page 80 to see the source for the meeting of Ruby and Kantor as shown in panel four of the first page.
The ratings chart below displays widely divergent opinions, and the many blank areas indicate everyone had different reading lists. The only near-consensus and the highest rating went to Gilbert Shelton's Wonder Warthog.
To explain a few items: Play with Your Cells was a single sheet distributed randomly by Art Spiegelman, Phoebe Zeitgeist was serialized in Evergreen Review and Sunshine Girl was Kim Deitch's weekly East Village Other strip. As I recall, Kim killed off Sunshine Girl, so maybe the low rating reflects that. I'm not sure what happened when.
At bottom, from Castle of Frankenstein #12, is my Comic Book Council review of Jack Kirby's powerful "48 Hours and 36 Minutes in the Life of Jack Ruby". Kirby's three-page graphic nonfiction, inked by Chic Stone, was published in Esquire (May 1967). One or two balloons have apparent last-minute lettering corrections. Note a balloon fell off panel one in the b/w copy at bottom. The Comic Book Council is discussed briefly in this 2005 interview with Clark Dimond,
The footnote citations refer to the Warren Commission Hearings, and they can be read here. For instance, the first citation ("15 H 80") is from the Warren Commission's interview with newspaperman Seth Kantor, and one can click on Volume 15 and then go to page 80 to see the source for the meeting of Ruby and Kantor as shown in panel four of the first page.
© Esquire, Inc.
© Esquire, Inc.
Labels: art spiegelman, clark dimond, gilbert shelton, jack kirby, jack ruby, jfk, kim deitch
¶ 6:08 PM 3 comments
