Here are two pages from Gothic Blimp Works #2 (1969). Above is an ad for an Allen Ginsberg LP on Douglas Records with artwork by John Thompson, who briefly lived in New York in 1969. Scroll to the bottom for Thompson's background on the creation of this ad.

Below is another of my Gothic Blimp collaborations with Larry Hama. Ron Haydock wrote the page, and I inked Larry's pencils. Haydock, screenwriter for Ray Dennis Steckler, also arrived in New York in 1969, and he wound up crashing at my West 12th Street apartment. He seemed in a near catatonic state. Since he had no money, no job and was incapable of contributing to the rent, I suggested he begin scripting. I would leave each morning to work in the Product Development department at Topps Chewing Gum in Brooklyn, and when I came back in the evening, Ron would show me what he had written. Two of these were scripts for stories I packaged as finished art and sold to Jim Warren for Creepy: "Valley of the Vampires" (#28) and "Spellbound" (#29).

Ron soon returned to the West Coast, and in 1977, after a failed attempt to raise some cash by selling a script to Steckler, he was killed by an 18-wheeler while hitchhiking back to LA from Vegas. Miriam Linna, who interviewed me about Ron in 1990, has written extensively about his career as a writer and rock musician in Sin-a-Rama and elsewhere. Her Norton Records label offers a CD compilation of his recordings, 99 Chicks: Ron Haydock and the Boppers.

John Thompson recalls: "In the Oxford University Press History of Berkeley in the Sixties, I'm mentioned as one of the two leading graphic artists in that Scene. In the Summer of Love 1967, at 21, I graduated in Art History from UC and found myself at the center of a countercultural whirlwind. Thus, I'm also mentioned in The History of the Haight Ashbury with those poster artists, though I was part of a group of aspiring poets in Berkeley.

"During the next couple of years, Ginsberg and his lover Peter were often a strong part of that scene. But my favorite poet/artist was Daniel Moore, who was close to Allen (to see his writing and art google danielmoorepoetry.com). So that's how I met Allen and saw him at EVO in 1968 and again when I lived near EVO in 1969. As much as I enjoyed 'some' of Allen's poetry, he was taking too many drugs at that time and was a sex addict. So because I was good looking with long, long hair, he often hit on Lin and I and tried to get us high. Aside from that aspect of his crazy persona, he was very kind to me.

"Allen and I knew record producer Alan Douglas (later Jimi Hendrix producer), so Allen sang some songs of William Blake's for me. I was a Blake scholar, so Allen's jubiliant over-the-top voice didnt really capture Blake's intentions. Nonetheless, Alan and Allen asked me to design, pencil and ink art to promote their album. They liked the compostion I penciled, but I inked Allen's profile that resemble his profile and beard and glasses but made his skin look older (because at my age Allen seemed like some old guy).

"Thus, Douglas liked it, but Allen was troubled that his profile didnt look younger and cuter. Douglas paid $100 to me to use it on the back page of EVO (or Gothic Blimp), and it would take several pages to decode the symbolism in that image."

Labels: gothic blimp, john thompson, larry hama, miriam linna, norton records, ron haydock

  ¶ 9:58 AM 2 comments

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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.

Labels: gothic blimp, kim deitch, larry hama, topps

  ¶ 8:56 PM 0 comments

  Wood Chips 23: The Rejects Below is "The Rejects" from witzend 4 (1968), script and layouts by me, pencil art by Wally Wood, lettering by Bill Yoshida and inking by Wood with some inks by Dom Sileo.

Here's the story behind the story: At the time, a half-hour animated TV series concept of science-fiction humor seemed ideal for Wood. Such a show would have been unique then, and his juxtaposition of diverse, bizarre, funny characters made the idea appealing. Paramount was interested. As Wood requested, I took his individual character sketches and pencilled a presentation, grouping them together (much like "The Rejects" splash). Wood inked the board, added a b/w wash and delivered it to Paramount. Right on cue, Paramount chose that same month to close down its cartoon studio (December 1, 1967). End of brilliance.

Wood was immediately suspicious, believing that Ralph Bakshi, who had headed the Paramount cartoon studio, was secretly selling his animated sf concept elsewhere. He explained, "We have to copyright the characters, Bhob, so write a story that includes all the characters, and we'll publish it in witzend." I left and came back the next day with three pages of roughs. Before Bill Yoshida's son arrived to take the story away to be lettered by Yoshida, Wood made two changes. He deleted a complicated, labored pun on a line from the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". ("Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.")

In the splash panel, he added a simple, wonderful phrase spoken by the lead character, I.Q., directly to the reader: "There are Good Guys and Bad Guys and the job of the Good Guys is to kill the Bad Guys." Wood was enamored of such mirth maxims and philosophical aphorisms. He devised or recalled them constantly, proclaiming them (in his near whisper) as he worked at the drawing table. But his "Good Guys" line struck me then, and still does, as multileveled. On the surface, it is a satirical reduction of a basic premise in genre fiction. It served as an insightful self-commentary on Wood's encounters and conflicts with art directors--and it also stands as Wood's summation of the true nature of life on Earth.

Larry Hama liked my "who walks on four legs" gag sequence so much that he borrowed it and reworked it into the Sally Forth adventure where she goes to Mars. "L. Sprague de Freeb" was a name Wood had used previously, I forget where. Since I had once met L. Sprague de Camp and listened to him drone on in a somewhat pedantic manner, I thought the name was hilarious and worked it into the dialogue.

John Barth's 1960 novel, The Sot-Weed Factor, is referenced in the next-to-last panel; it had a Doubleday Anchor paperback reprint about the time I wrote "The Rejects" in 1967. Barth was himself referencing Ebenezer Cooke's poem, "The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr" (1708), which some consider the first American satire.

The character of Kenneth Banghead was Wood's amusing twist on the veteran NBC newscaster of the 1940s and 1950s, Kenneth Banghart (who had a slight resemblance to Jonathan Winters).

Labels: bakshi, dom sileo, kenneth banghart, l. sprague de camp, larry hama, pearson, sally forth, witzend, wood chips

  ¶ 12:38 PM 4 comments

 


On November 16, DC Comics is publishing two different reprints of the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (1978), one labeled "facsimile" and the other "deluxe". (These are already listed as Amazon pre-orders.) The 80-page hardcover facsimile edition reprints the comic at its original trim size of approximately 10 inches wide by 13.25 inches high. The 96-page hardcover deluxe edition promises unpublished developmental artwork and other bonus features. Neal Adams talked about the year-long creation of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali in this 2006 interview.

When I worked at DC Comics during the 1990s I used to walk down a hall where the framed cover of that comic book was displayed. I would stop and study the faces in the crowd scene. Some people, such as Flo Steinberg (#5), Archie Goodwin (#15), Vince Colletta (#113), Ralph Reese (#137) and Larry Hama (#138), I had met before I began at DC. Others, such as colorist Bob LeRose (#77), Julie Schwartz (#81), production head Bob Rozakis (#121) and Trevor Von Eeden (#139), I met while working at DC. One day I turned over my stapler and was surprised to see a typewritten name taped to the underside. The stapler had once belonged to DC editor Murray Boltinoff (#119).

The code with numbers was a fascinating device, and it gave me the idea of doing something similar when I edited the DC/Skybox Cosmic Teams trading cards (1993). To identify the individual characters in the various teams, I designed the card backs to show outline drawings with a match-up of identifying names and numbers. Further, these cards employed a triptych effect in which three cards could be butted together to frame one image. Of all the triptych cards, the best was the Justice Society of America. With remarkable atmospheric perspective, Joe Kubert drew the Justice Society winning World War II with what appears to be the entire Allied invasion of Normandy in the background.

The Potrzebie restoration of the Galaxy Science Fiction wraparound cover with the outline names/numbers map brought some favorable reactions, so I thought I would try this again. This time the problem is not only the huge size necessary to see all the names, numbers and faces but how to see faces/names/numbers simultaneously. It's awkward. One solution would be to open multiple windows. Another would be to print out the sheet with the names and numbers. At any rate, keep clicking. A series of three clicks will eventually expand these images so they are very large and legible.

Labels: cosmic teams, dc comics, galaxy, ident maps, kubert, larry hama, neal adams, ralph reese, skybox

  ¶ 3:08 PM 1 comments