Tag Archives: Fantagraphics

May 21, 2024 · 7:41 am

Mark Twain’s War Prayer, Illustrated by Seymour Chwast book review

Mark Twain’s War Prayer, Illustrated by Seymour Chwast. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2024. 96pp, $22.99.

Guest review by Paul Buhle

The literary-political Establishment fairly well managed, for three or four generations, to hide or to minimize Mark Twain’s later-life antiwar devotions. The beloved writer, considered by readers and critics alike as the creator of the singular US classic, Huckleberry Finn, devoted much of his prose energy in later years to denouncing wars in general and the vastly murderous American assault on the Philippines in particular.

It was no doubt the Vietnam War, with the vast military assault and chemical warfare sidebars against large parts of Southeast Asia, that brought to light Twain’s writings previously considered marginal, old age ramblings. Twain knew what he was writing about, and he knew how to say it in painfully funny ways.

“The War Prayer,” actually written in 1905 but unpublished, remained in family archives after his death in 1910 as dangerous for his literary reputation. It reached readers rather obscurely in 1916, tacked onto another Twain essay, and took on a new relevance when narrated for PBS viewers in 1981. It has emerged repeatedly in short films since then, but most notably as an animated short in 2007, narrated by actor-activist Peter Coyote and starring no one less than the Beat poet and bohemian antiwar champion Lawrence Ferlinghetti, as the war-mongering parson.

Chwast is a fascinating and formidable artist to take on the task of illustration, in what must be regarded as an act of devotion to Twain. A mainstream illustrator publishing in the “slicks” while still in his teens, Chwast did work for the New York Times and Esquire among other places, also creating a plethora of commercial designs from packaging to magazine covers to Broadway show posters. He and a sometime workmate at Esquire, Edward Sorel (himself later a Nation magazine regular) started their own operation, Push Pin Studios, in 1957 along with rising stars Milton Glaser and Robert Ruffins. It would be too much to say that Push Pin transformed exhibit advertising, but not too much to say that together with other artists, this team moved commercial art into new zones, more playful, more interesting than before.

Ever on the progressive side, Chwast took on the present task without adding a single comment of his own. All Twain Text and not so much of that. After an excerpt from the famous caustic essay “The Lowest Animal” (a date of the essay might have been helpful but might artistically intrusive,  and anyway remains uncertain even to scholars), we have a hundred pages of quotes running from a few words to a short paragraph.

Chwast has evidently thrown himself into the work with abandon. Early pages look like circus posters, announcing wars proudly like the American war posters of old, with wordless, cartoony facing pages. Later, he passes heavily into pastels, the voice of the prophet (seen bearded) in suggesting what the “voice of the prophet” means for those who pray for military victory.

What follows, for almost the rest of the book, is Chwast’s drawings of war and destruction, predominantly in stark blacks and whites. Then more color pages of war’s victims looking to the heavens, “imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it—for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord. Blast their hopes, blight their lives…” (pp.72-77) and so onward.

This is Twain’s explanation or exploration of religion as basically a cheat, especially Judeo-Christian religion for the reason that he knew it best. A cheat in many things, but above all in the praises of war, the warriors, humanity in war, and so on. We could add, into the endlessly terrifying night of our present world, as a particular kind of Jewish artist might see the misuses of religion now.

This is something new for Twain-illustrated books, despite the many earlier illustrations of his works. We see again, in Twain’s spare prose that no better American writer has ever emerged. A novelist who still makes  vaunted modernists like Saul Bellow read like amateurs, and whose caustic attack on falsities finds an equal only in the best moments of Kurt Vonnegut.

Chwast has a past dossier of recaptured and reworked images from a thousand sources that have crossed his eyes. Never has his political energy been on display so clearly and with so much concentrated energy. Mark Twain’s War Prayer is a book horribly relevant, horribly significant in its art and for today’s world.

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November 29, 2023 · 1:40 pm

MONICA by Daniel Clowes graphic novel review

Monica. By Daniel Clowes. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2023. 106pp, $30.

Guest review by Paul Buhle

This has been quite a year for determinedly offbeat comic artist Dan Clowes. An interview in the New Yorker followed by a strong review beginning on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, not to mention an NPR interview, nailed down the point: Clowes has hit the big time.

Is this as far as “alt-comics,” somewhere beyond the comic strip and the comic book, can go in becoming “mainstream”? It’s a good question, first raised properly by the reception of the comic art of R. Crumb, then of Art Spiegelman (whose looming presence remains above the scenery somehow), of Alison Bechdel, Joe Sacco and others. The work of Ben Katchor, who is now designing comic-like images for Paris Metro lines stretching into the villages of the countryside, might remind us that in France, comics can be art. Back in the US and despite the rising prestige (and commercial success) of some artists, their work remains….comic art! If, admittedly, viewed very differently from the comic art of old: fewer readers but more prestige, as cynics would say.

Clowes, part of the alternative comics that followed the collapse of the 1960s-70s underground comix, saw Ghost World, his creation, become the basis for a film about teenage angst, with himself as one of the scriptwriters. It was a first for comic scriptwriters, even if comic characters themselves had appeared in dozens of older Hollywood films, with several series of low-production films dedicated to the sagas of Blondie, Joe Palooka and even Captain Marvel (a kids’ serial).

These three series actually happened to have been scripted by Lefties who would go on the blacklist (except for the Captain Marvel series, whose writer became an affable Friendly Witness testifying against his former comrades), and lose their careers. The films themselves, now totally obscure,  even have a curious, populistic social content, leaving one to wonder. What gives? Never mind. These ancient memories of comics adaptations are also buried beneath the tons of animated films from comics, seen especially at holiday times on television or via DVDs.

We are reminded, in an astute Comics Quarterly essay on Monica, that real-life artist Clowes was abandoned by his mother, and that “loneliness” is a continuing theme with a continuing expression in his aesthetics and a basis in personal life. Monica, the fictional subject of the comic is, to put it mildly, a troubled person. But Clowes is not telling anything so straightforward as autobiography. We experience the novel through her wavering consciousness, sometimes beyond her consciousness, which may be the most helpful of all hints.

“Foxhole,” the first of eight semi-discrete and separate chapters or episodes, goes back to the Vietnam War. A disillusioned GI from a poor background reflects on his disillusionment to his battlefield/jungle setting mate, who is from America’s wealthy classes, while they wait to kill or be killed. The trauma in these three pages is not going away. Indeed, the sense of apocalypse described is revisited, precisely, on the final panel of the book.

Other reviewers seem to run away from this particular as anything like central to the plot, and it makes sense. What we see through most of Monica is the results of the 1960s social breakdowns, the impossibility of a thriving counterculture measured in the broken homes and broken lives, crazed cults and children confused or, rather, disoriented for life. Cynical commentators have always viewed this human tragedy as a loss of traditional morals, socially enforced wage slavery, the dangers of drugs, etc. Clowes knows better, although he will not say so.

Our embittered GI returning, he thinks, to a quiet and happy life, is not. He’s the  fiancee  of our protagonist’s mother, but never her husband. His foxhole mate, a serious painter who has returned to the US first, turns out to be the actual biological father, or perhaps not. Monica’s mother Penny,  a counterculture burnout, stumbles along through life, although she actually launches a business that, much later, her daughter can revive and expand successfully, something that brings no pleasure. The book’s sometime narrator, a friend to Penny, relates and reflects on  a not-so-unusual confused single mom experience.  And Monica emerges,  episode after episode, not only damaged but keenly aware of being damaged. She a modern person, a modern woman, who does not accept fatalism, although to do so might have been a better strategy.

In the following vignette, the seemingly more fortunate one of the two GIs returns to his hometown, years later, and quickly realizes that crucial matters including his extended family and their small capitalist empire, have totally fallen apart. In this odd little world, Monica-the-comic becomes a perfectly recreated EC-comic horror story from the early 1950s, updated and upgraded artistically. And then the drugstore supernaturalism ends or perhaps drifts around, looking for a spot to land.

Monica the protagonist reemerges, alone in the world. Reviewers have found something special and intriguing, or at least narratively clear, in her listening to a radio left behind in a family cabin. The radio broadcasts, unbelievably but believably to her, feature the voice of her dead grandfather and allow her to have unsatisfied conversations with him. Although years dead, he is still an anti-Semite.

A few more vignettes and more than twenty years pass. Monica becomes a successful entrepreneur, but success only exposes the emptiness of her life. Her last-gasp effort finds her in a remote cult that manages to somehow be utterly boring, one more sixties offshoot full of conspiracy theories and compulsory collectivity. Successfully tracking down her mother is a total downer, as we might have expected.

That we find ourselves back in EC horror comics at the end is either the fulfillment of the prologue, one Vietnam vet to another predicting utter horror, or it is a general commentary about the average American life in the twenty first century. The consumer society drags on. Dreams of something different are apparently worse than confused. And we face the cosmos, on the cover of the book, searching for a meaning that is not there (on the back cover, more EC, but leaning toward the famed sci-fi series that borrowed heavily from Ray Bradbury.

The Vietnam War explanation to the book’s mysteries, to the mysteries in Daniel Clowes’s mind. Extraordinary crimes were done in our collective name, and someone must be punished. Then again, as mentioned elsewhere, the aesthetics, such as the darker tinting of pages treating trauma,  may work just as well.

Paul Buhle is an editor of more than twenty non-fiction, historical comics.

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August 7, 2023 · 12:00 pm

ALISON by Lizzy Stewart graphic novel review

Alison. By Lizzy Stewart. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 168pp, $24.99.

Guest Review by Paul Buhle

This quite wonderful comic is a match for Armed with Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carringon (also published this year, by SelfMadeHero). Both books are by British artists/scriptwriters. They belong together for at least one intriguing reason: the young women artists in question find their fate, at least in the first phase of creative effort, by hooking up with famous middle-aged fellows who take them as lovers/mistresses but also urge them to practice their developing craft.  In the end, the women need to make their own way.

Armed With Madness is a real-life story, with rich-girl Leonora Carrington both aided and exploited by the famous surrealist painter Max Ernst, during the 1930s.  Carrington leaves England for Spain, suffers multiple breakdowns as the Spanish Civil War explodes around her, and ends up in Mexico, an elderly lady re-discovered by new generations. Alison offers us a fictional version two or three generations later. A young woman growing up in Devon takes and then abandons a husband, at the invitation of a visiting, also romantic and famous, middle-aged painter. She goes on, with his sponsorship, to her artist’s life in London.

Lizzy Stewart, a professional illustrator of children’s books, would not have been considered a comic artist a few decades ago. Walls have broken down since then, obviously, and the use of sequential panels to convey a story easily makes the grade as comic art. Actually, the result here looks more than a little like the drawings of Jules Feiffer in various recent works by the veteran artist. But I digress.

The story is drawn and told quite wonderfully, with the occasional, stunning color page or pages set off from the grey wash of most of the book. It is easy to be convinced that this young woman is flattered to be asked to sit for a portrait, first clothed, then other portraits unclothed, as a relationship develops. It is equally easy to be convinced that she is one of a considerable line of young women falling into the waiting arms of an academic painter at the peak of his BBC-level respectability. He had promised to guide her development as an artist, and for all his drawbacks, he remains determined to do so. He also pays her rent.

Throughout, and this is certainly the feminist angle, Alison is seeking—fumbling and stumbling along the way—to realize herself in every sense. That she had been a hopelessly bored (and childless) housewife in Devon, became a frustrated if developing artist in Bloomsbury and a woman making her own way step by step, is all wonderfully conveyed. Born in 1959 and gone to London in the early 1980s, she finds herself in the midst of radical politics, anti-war, anti-nuke and anti-racist movements, not long before Margaret Thatcher comes to power, ruthlessly crushing all opposition. Worse, Thatcher so successfully converts the political system that even future, corrupted Labour Party leaders accept “privatization” and the practical eclipse of the caring social state as a finality. What can art mean here?

The brevity of the young artist’s wider, militant political commitment may offer insight into the artist-in-progress. Or perhaps we see Lizzy Stewart’s own observation of changing radical politics at a certain moment of time. Serious commitments to art, including the teaching of art to younger generations, merge into the critical concerns in the era of AIDS. She watches as disease and death march through her new milieu. A desperate politics of caring emerges as a considerable portion of the London art world literally finds community through the  struggle for life.

It should not give away too much about Alison to reveal that she finds her own companion in a same-sex relationship that is also interracial and global in its connections. Perhaps our protagonist was going in that direction all the time, without realizing her own path. All this is conveyed by Lizzy Stewart with such painstaking care that we find ourselves flowing along, discovering and rediscovering the narrative as the artist discovers her talent and herself. Near the end, she is the learner who has become the renowned teacher.

Alison’s return in something like middle age to her own Dorset is wonderfully visualized and narrated here. Temperamentally a million miles from London, she experiences a return to the natural beauty that she now appreciates afresh, within her own sense of art in the world and in her world.

There is a great deal more to be said here about the young artist’s path. We learn at one point that her older lover, for instance, had the upper-class background to have his talent recognized in childhood, to be trained in formal terms all the way along. By contrast, Alison must undertake a crash course and find another path to realize her talents. Perhaps this detail offers us the secret of Lizzy Stewart herself, a children’s book illustrator, using comics for story telling. Like others today, she is struggling to create something fresh through a merger of forms that become recognizable through the work of the new generations of artists and comics.

Paul Buhle’s latest comic is an adaptation of W.E.B. Du Bois’s classic Souls of Black Folk, by artist Paul Peart Smith (Rutgers University Press).

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August 6, 2023 · 10:50 am

BUILDINGS ARE BARKING: Diane Noomin Remembered in Comics Tribute by Bill Griffith

The Buildings Are Barking: Diane Noomin, in Memoriam. By Bill Griffith.

Seattle: F.U. Press, Fantagraphics,  2023. 23pp, $7.

Guest Review by Paul Buhle

We are nearly a year now since the passing of Diane Newman, who took on the comics moniker “Diane Noomin” as she began to publish her work in the Bay Area-centered world of Underground Comix in the 1970s. This is, then, a tribute booklet, but singular, in the way no one except her husband Bill Griffith could conceive and draw. As far as I can recall, no homage from a comics spouse has ever achieved this conceptual depth or intensity. It is a remarkable miniature, with a surprising depth that will please but fail to surprise the regular readers of Griffith, a master of the self-reflection that is also mass-culture-reflection.

The Buildings Are Barking might be compared, if comparisons are possible, to the many pages of Robert Crumb’s Biblical-adaptation Genesis in which Aline Kominsky Crumb’s physical self appears and reappears as the women of ancient Hebrew lore. Real-life Aline had a couple of decades ahead.

Within the last year or so, the artists of Underground Comix lore have been disappearing in haste: Justin Green, Jay Lynch, and Aline Kominsky-Crumb, to name only the most widely known. Spain Rodriguez and Harvey Pekar (not artist but writer/editor and self-publisher) passed a decade earlier, signalling how easily even the memories of a unique and vital development in comic art might slip away.

Griffith has seized the moment,  rather taken his time to seize the moment, perhaps as a yohrtseit (symbolic Jewish commemoration on an anniversary) to Diane and her ambiguously and also unambiguously Jewish identity. Urged on by Ko-Ko the Clown—Max Fleischer’s magical animated creation of the 1920s—Griffith gets around within a few pages to telling us about Diane Newman’s alter-ego, Didi Glitz, the soul of her comix or comics work. A teenage inhabitant of Canarsie of the 1950s, Didi had all the appealing/repellent qualities of adolescence seizing onto popular culture as a means of identity. Bouffant hairdos, garish clothes, garish crushes on boys (sometimes goys), clique-obsessions among girlfriends, above all a need for expression, no matter how embarrassing to the objective viewer.

Griffith (let’s call him Griffy here, as Diane did) enjoys his rumination on life in San Francisco of the 1970s-80s, perhaps not really the “idyllic city…before the Dotcom boom,” but idyllic for them and for many artists. Always badly overpriced, losing its architectural beauty decade by decade, their San Francisco was still arguably (with New Orleans) the most beautiful of American urbanscapes. Here, at any rate, Griffith and Newman moved past earlier long-term relationships to grasp each other, marrying in 1980. From there on, and no doubt connected to their mutual grasp of the varied icons of popular culture seen as “history” (her poodle pin collection, his vintage diner photos), they sunk or rose into each other.

Bill Griffith has famously been producing the near-daily strip Zippy the Pinhead since the middle of those San Francisco days, while Diane became part of a subset of women comics artists who ruthlessly delved into their lives and psyches. She aspired to draw a comic about her parents’ secret (and very Jewish) connections with the Communist Party in the McCarthy Era, but she didn’t live long enough. Griffith has found his own way to produce real history-based comic works as Zippy stumbles through time and space. In other words, and laughs aside, they were both serious artists.

The Buildings Are Barking is deeply personal in ways that this reviewer cannot describe adequately, and to which the reader is advised to proceed intuitively, that is, following Griffith’s own shifting moods of consciousness. At the end, we are with  Ko-Ko the Clown again. Ko-Ko always expressed a grimness behind the jaunty exterior: there is a bit of a Grim Reaper about him.

What any serious artist (or writer) leaves behind is the effort at expression, brilliant or less than brilliant but a striving with purpose. Griffith has captured Diane Noomin aka Newman, and thereby captured himself as well.

Paul Buhle’s latest comic is an adaptation of W.E.B. Du Bois’s classic Souls of Black Folk, by artist Paul Peart Smith (Rutgers University Press).

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July 19, 2023 · 10:30 am

Nudism Comes to Connecticut comics review

Unashamed Comic Nudes!

Nudism Comes to Connecticut. By Susan Chade and Jon Buller. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 175pp, $30.

Nudism (many prefer “naturism”) is more familiar than most Americans can now imagine. The omnipresent rural skinny-dipping probably did not draw much upon a rich and varied European (or other) nudist traditions among the respectable classes as well as others. Communitarian groups in the US developed a nudist ideology of sorts, as far back as the 1890s, but memories of Walt Whitman and even Benjamin Franklin “air bathing” had likely been forgotten by the time the Greenwich Village fashionable set disrobed in Cape Cod summers of the 1910s.

Nudism Comes to Connecticut, written and drawn by a veteran children’s book team, offers a convincing historical experience of free thinking Yankees during the 1930s. They make creative use of a real text, Frances and Mason Merrill’s Nudism Come to America (1932), a volume itself no doubt reflecting the free-spirited, short-skirted 1920s Flapper Era.

Somewhere around Lyme, Connecticut, not far from Manhattan by train,  a Hungarian immigrant hatches a plan for rural land use. A few years earlier,  an American diplomat unhappy at his job in Budapest shared with a friend some of the current German magazines extolling nudism’s many healthful benefits. Back home in the US in 1915, the American and his wife, a native Estonian, take over a defunct hotel in a pleasant landscape, near an underused lake.

Here, somewhat embroidered fiction really does more or less coincide with fact. The idea of “cooperative colonies,” guests and residents doing most of the maintenance and in turn owning shares in the property, was very much alive in the European middle classes of the pre-fascism days, and even philanthropically extended, for periods of the summer, to groups of urban slum dwellers. Before Stalin’s rise to power, a nudist culture of Russian “Proletcult” also seemed to take hold: it was considered especially good for workers to get naked in the countryside, when possible. By the later 1920s, these experiences even gained a pedigree of American scholarly interest.

No surprise, then, that out in the Connecticut woods, not far from a lake, a “cabin colony” sprung up, built on loans and the wishful thinking that it might pay for itself. Takers seem to enjoy themselves thoroughly, even with husbands and wives understandably nervous about their own mates in the buff. As in real life nudism, nude  versions of barely competitive games like volleyball seem to be the mandatory accompaniment to swimming. The comic portrayals of nudes here are tasteful and charming, if not quite realistic to sagging flesh.

The community thrives for a while, never quite overcoming the resentment and hostility of some neighbors, and then runs into the economic collapse of the economy in the Depression. The quasi-utopian adventure ends. As the author/artist team concludes, “most of this actually happened.” (p.173).

It is a footnote, perhaps not so far from this realistic comic, that by the 1960s, bohemian-minded American readers of Bertold Brecht, Georg Luckacs and Wilhelm Reich would draw the conclusion that nudism had to be, was indeed inevitably, political. The bohemian-radical tradition had already been revived after the Second World War in other parts of the world including both Germanies. Although this detail has been largely forgotten, the East Germans, the most proportionally nudist population in the world, actually resisted Russian edicts and took pleasure where they could under a repressive regime. Just as amazing, the bureaucratic class joined them.

Spending their summers on the Cape, American veterans of antiracist and antiwar activism staged dramatic nude-ins at the National Seashore during the middle 1970s. This political action would lead to decades of lobbying politicians for more “free beaches,” an idea that has come, gone and perhaps come again in parts of the US. Today’s nudists should enjoy the innocence of Nudism Comes to Connecticut, so deftly defying the hostility of religious conservatives and  lawmakers right up to the present. “Naturism” seems to have escaped comic art otherwise, save for a few brief, wry commentaries in underground comix. Perhaps the subject has only been waiting for its comic art re-creation.

Paul Buhle

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February 23, 2023 · 9:00 am

Indie Bookstores and Comic Book Shops Unite!

Comics and Books Do Mix!

There are so many wonderful independent bookstores and comic book shops and, with your support, they will survive and thrive. I have had some of my best memories in bookstores and in comic book shops. So, can we include both of these outlets in the same discussion? Do comics and books mix? Well, I should hope so after all these years. A bookstore and a comic book shop are two very different scenes with a good amount of common ground. It’s even possible to blur the distinctions. Any opportunity to work together is a good thing: the promotion of literacy; crossover business; nurturing community.

Kramers in Washington, D.C.

The market demands that all retail business adapt or die. The internet taught us that long ago and Covid has brought home the point in ways that we’re still dealing with. But, no doubt, business is picking up with in-person activity having made a resounding comeback. Over the years, bookstores and comic book shops have borrowed from each other in order to remain attractive and relevant to customers and that just needs to continue. Even full-on cooperation is possible! For instance, it’s not totally uncommon for one shop owner to refer a customer to a competitor, be it bookstore or comics shop, when a shop owner does not carry a title but knows of some other place that could. And conversations between local business are always a good idea.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle

Let’s break this down a bit. I can better describe to you what is going on with a prime example of how you can combine it in one venue, the boutique comics bookstore! We can compare two Seattle landmarks here. First, let’s look at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. Fantagraphics Books has been a publisher of alternative comics, zines, books, and graphic novels since 1976. In 2006 they opened their first retail space, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in the heart of Georgetown. Stop in and pick up the latest offerings from comic heroes like Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, and Chris Ware and peruse their impressive collection of old, new, weird, rare and out-of-print publications. This retail space takes it all to a high level of excellence with a very tidy and inviting atmosphere, truly a world-class selection, and consistently high caliber art shows. Any indie bookstore would love to try to emulate this amazing store. Yes, it is a comics shop but it’s just as much a bookstore. What you won’t find here is your latest issues of comics singles as you would in a traditional comics shop. Nor will you find a big stash of vintage comic books. At least not what your typical comic book collector is hunting for. As I say, this is a boutique comics bookstore–and one of the best!

Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle

The other great Seattle landmark is Elliott Bay Book Company, which is more of a big deal sort of thing you include when strolling along on an urban jaunt. This is a wondrous bookstore experience. From this bookstore, we could compare it to Powell’s Books in Portland or The Strand in New York City, or Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi–well, we could go on and on. These type of bookstores tend to be extreme in scale, either tiny and esoteric or monumental and gregarious–more often the latter. I’ll focus back to Elliott Bay as I have a long history with them as a customer and admirer going back to their days in the heart of Pioneer Square. One thing that they’ve always been great about, among so much, is a dedication to the comics medium. This store made it a top priority to be an expert on as many subjects as possible. Early on, before the book industry as a whole created a “graphic novel” category, Elliott Bay was hip to it. Fast forward to the present, at their new location on Capitol Hill, this bookstore can easily lay claim to being a prime location for readers to get in on the best in graphic novels at close to the same level of a dedicated boutique comics shop. Add to that a first-rate lecture space in the basement level with some of the best readings you will find in the city.

Local Heroes in Norfolk, Virginia

Finally, we can consider what it all means. Consider Local Heroes, in Norfolk, Virginia. Here is a shop that has many of the qualities of a higher end boutique comics shop while also very much a traditional shop with an impressive line-up of the latest single issues and its finger on the pulse of what is most current across a broad spectrum of options: everything from manga to superheroes to more niche graphic novels. It’s not easy to get this right and Local Heroes is, by far, one of the best examples of this you will find. From here, we could venture off to other exceptional venues, amazing spots like Isotope in San Francisco or Million Year Picnic off of Harvard Square or Quimby’s in Chicago. Back to focusing on Local Heroes, I can tell you that the staff are truly exceptional with their customer service and knowledge. It’s a pleasure to browse the finely-curated shelves. Nestled within the hip Ghent neighborhood, this comics shop offers something for everyone, mindful of a wide variety of potential readers. This is a store that appreciates the endless possibilities that comics and graphic novels have to offer. This is a store engaged with the reader, no matter who it is or what the subject or genre. Because, in the end, a good story can come from anywhere. That’s definitely something any bookstore or comic book shop can take to heart. No doubt about it, comics and books do mix–there is really no other way for the continued survival of independent bookstores and comic book shops. Go visit one today!

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December 23, 2022 · 3:00 pm

Hurricane Nancy: Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

We are ringing in a new year and coasting along a bit during the holidays, getting our bearings as we contemplate doing it all over again. What a treat to have Hurricane Nancy with us to share more of her work. This is what Nancy says about the above artwork: “If only life was this simple. I could dress up and be whatever I want for any occasion. Not get sick or worry about our future. Just dress up and decide to make a great holiday and bright future!”

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December 23, 2022 · 2:27 pm

MAVERIX AND LUNATIX book review by Paul Buhle

Artists of the Underground, Yet Again

Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of the Underground Comix. By Drew Friedman. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2022. $34.95.

Guest Review by Paul Buhle

Art Spiegelman

Some of the “Underground comix” artists themselves,  along with older generation savants including Harvey Kurtzman, predicted that the new, stunning and challenging genre of comic art of the late 1960s-70s would likely have a limited shelf life. They had a point. The UG comic was totally rebellious against existing standards, its sales depended significantly on “head shops” selling soft drug paraphernalia, and upon publicity generated by the ephemeral “underground” newspaper circuit. Artists, a few dozen of them, leaped into the breach because they  urgently wanted to express themselves without censorship or limits, and to have a copyright on their own creations. Such a phenomenon could no more likely survive a decade or so than  the $75/month apartment rents or $10 nickel bags of dope.

Aline Kominsky

And it didn’t. By the middle 1980s, a more modest version, “alternative comics,” seemed to mirror the pale version of the UG press, the local “alternative weeklies.” The Revolution had come and gone and left its artists largely stranded. A few made large names for themselves in new venues, Art Spiegelman by far the most famous and accomplished, along with Robert Crumb, who could be described as entering a slow fade. Others struggled to go onward. Among the artists still at it, Bill Griffith and a few others have continued to shine. In the end, the Undergrounds had sacrificed themselves, so to speak, for the birth of a large and diverse comic art.

R. Crumb

Galleries, scholars,museums and even collectors might have tried harder to document the UG phenomenon. From the beginning of the genre until the end of the century and somewhat beyond, any serious attention remained scarce for what had been accomplished in the burst of energy, and by whom. The advance of  something called “Comic Art” powered by the recognition of RAW magazine and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, seemed, perhaps not surprisingly, to leave the past behind. The handful of artists who managed in the following years to get recognition in the New York Times and elsewhere were mostly of younger generations, and if graphic novels blossomed as a genre for the under-30 reader, anything like official appreciation lagged when it did not reach the surface of recognition.

Nancy Burton

And yet . . . a dramatically fresh art for its time: millions of readers (if we count the readership of the underground press), a lot of talent, all this leaves a record, somehow. The many collections published by Fantagraphics and others, reach readers seriously interested. Actual journals (mostly on-line) help to bring forward young scholars and help situate them in academic programs. Selected library collections consolidate holdings and provide guides. Beyond all that, there is an uncertain, informal but very real  record of the evolution of comic art at large, with the Underground Movement increasingly recognized as a legitimate and important art form in its time and place.

S. Clay Wilson

Drew Friedman is a self-described fan or even Fan Boy of Crumb and others in the day, drawn to them and their stories personally, and for that matter, helped along the way of his own career by Crumb among others.  Best seen, Maverix and Lunatix is an homage in the best way that Friedman can provide. And what an homage it is!

Richard Grass Green

He draws over, or redraws, photos taken from some past period in an artist’s life,  unpredictably from early in their careers or later on. Crucially, he has done the research to provide useful details (including birth and death dates) for nearly a hundred artists. More than a handful of them appeared with such brevity in the UG comix, remained so obscure, that Friedman’s’ work offers revelations of an unseen subculture. Other artists, who made quite a name for themselves in some brief moment before turning to other art forms, lifestyles, or simply collapsing into early deaths, find their stories helpfully here as well. Surprisingly, then, this is, in some limited but important way, a scholarly text.

Spain Rodriguez

Most readers will, naturally perhaps, direct their eyes to the drawings, which range from the spectacular to the plainly weird (well in keeping to the genre), then look across the page to the mini-biographies. Here, and perhaps also in the drawings, there is a lot of personal tragedy. Roger Brand among others succumbed to alcoholism, others died in road accidents in the US or abroad, some just turned up dead in apartments with no further accounting.

Denis Kitchen

Others, plenty of others, simply turned from comic or comix into sturdy careers in every corner of graphic design, or painting, teaching art, or even web design. What nearly all have in common is a hole in the personal saga: their life in comics was essentially over. Perhaps that life had been too brief, too early in most of their lives, for its eclipse to remain a bitter disappointment. But I wonder.

Evert Geradts

It is slightly amazing to me that so many, with wild and carefree (not drug free) lifestyles, lived so long and are in many cases, still alive! In their seventies. Not all, even of those depicted as alive in the book: we now seem to be losing the UG artists by the month if not the week,  Diane Nooman (aka Newman) and Aline Kominsky within the last six months, Justin Green passing just early enough for his death to be recorded here.

Harvey Pekar

For this reviewer, at least, the faces depicted by Friedman look out at us with an aura of innocence, even for those with the kinds of personal habits that would not come close to the usual description of innocence. They were on hand at the creation, they took part in one of the great, still unacknowledged leaps of comic art, and they watched it collapse, even if it did not collapse most of them. This is something that can be appreciated only by looking at the art and reading the capsule biographies, not once but repeatedly. Thanks, Drew.

Paul Buhle, publisher of Radical America Komiks (1969), has been an essayist in several of the volumes exploring the history of the undergrounds including Underground Classics, the exhibit book for a traveling exhibit of the art.

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September 1, 2022 · 4:27 pm

☀️ NOAH VAN SCIVER | Cartoonist Interview 💬

Noah Van Sciver is one of our great cartoonists. He’s been at his drawing table for as long as he can remember–and that has resulted in some very impressive work. It takes a lot to gain any traction in the world of comics and illustration. Van Sciver is one of the brave and persistent souls.

It is my pleasure to share this interview with Noah Van Sciver. We chat about his two new books, Joseph Smith and the Mormons (see Comics Grinder review here) and As a Cartoonist (see Comics Grinder review here). I think some applause and cheers are in order every chance we can get. Along the way, we end up talking about a great deal of Van Sciver’s career as a cartoonist. A lot of dots get connected. So, I hope you’ll tune in and feel free to leave a comment or like over at ye ole YouTubes.

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August 31, 2022 · 9:22 am

☀️ NOAH VAN SCIVER | As a Cartoonist review 💬

As a Cartoonist. Noah Van Sciver. Fantagraphics. 2022. 104 pp. $19.99

One thing you need to get straight is that a bona fide cartoonist, in the truest sense of the word, is someone with a certain way of moving about in the world. I’m a cartoonist, so I should know. Just about every word I write is somehow connected to the fact that I’m one of those people. Word choice is everything. Well, maybe it’s more like every line of thought but it can get right down to the granular level. It’s absolutely a way of life, and that’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It is what it is–and those among us who are part of this tribe, made up of so many groups and subgroups, understand that this unique ability to write and draw comes at a price. No one is born with this ability, although some people are definitely more predisposed to creating  comics than others. Sorry, but it’s a skill that demands a number of factors to fall into place if you intend to reach a certain level of excellence. You don’t see a short person agonizing over the fact that they will never be an all-star basketball player. And, yes, I know about Spud Webb, but he’s the exception to the rule. Anyway, most people don’t give a hoot about whether or not they will ever create comics of any form, let alone win awards and accolades for their effort. This is the story about someone who really cares about all those things having to do with becoming a masterful cartoonist. We’re talking about Noah Van Sciver. And he’d be the first to tell you that being a cartoonist is no walk in the park–and yet, there isn’t anything he’d rather be more.

This book is about all the peculiar things about being a cartoonist. That’s really what it all boils down to. Being a cartoonist is peculiar. That, in and of itself, is a burden and yet it is also alluring. Essentially, it’s something special that envelopes the person seeking to master it. Just like any other creative endeavor, like starting up a band. Noah Van Sciver’s story is one of struggle, persistence, and ultimate accomplishment. This book, a collection of short works in comics, adds up to a portrait of the artist, perhaps his best set of portrait pieces to date. This is, you could say, an anthology all by one creator. In the world of indie comics, cartoonists are always scrambling to jump on board and join the latest collective effort, a way to promote each other and get one’s work out into the world. It’s all about getting people to read your work. A lot of Van Sciver’s auto-bio comics are about this ongoing pursuit of readers: courting them, wanting them, wondering where they are. For all the anti-social behavior that a cartoonist may engage in, at the end of the day, it’s all about the readers. Maybe the cartoonist isn’t exactly looking to spend too much time with any particular reader, but it’s nice to know that they’re still around.

Van Sciver wins over his readers without playing up to them. Far from it. In fact, he’s more than happy to speak the unvarnished truth byway of his social satire. He has a way of evoking authenticity. A real cartoonist, especially someone like Van Sciver who uses his own life for material, is always striving to be real and avoid any false notes. So, Van Sciver’s best work comes across as totally unfiltered. Of course, it’s a balance of artifice and reality. But a reader still ends up getting caught up in the moment as when Van Sciver is juggling an interview with a prominent reporter and his uncouth brother who has just crashed upon the scene. In this specific moment, a big event at an art museum featuring Van Sciver’s work, the hierarchy is easily hijacked. No sooner has Van Sciver begun to talk to the reporter than he’s put off by her obvious remarks. He even sympathizes with his train wreck of a sibling, if only for a moment.

In another more complex scene, Van Sciver is a visiting artist on campus and must find a way to tolerate those less fortunate but still quite annoying. A relatively young man, actually thirty and not so young, who loves to wear a top hat and read teen girl manga, is prime fodder for Van Sciver’s wrath. The guy in the top hat, it turns out, is easily triggered by what he sees as Van Sciver’s micro-agressions. Nevermind that Top Hat has a lot of arrested development to deal with. Now, Top Hat’s focus is to get Van Sciver into trouble by reporting him to a school administrator. There’s no winning for Van Sciver when he’s called in to explain himself. Later, he tries to turn the other cheek and be positive. But, ultimately, Van Sciver is right back to being underwhelmed by life on campus.

A wonderful companion piece to this collection is the 2018 graphic memoir, One Dirty Tree, looking  back on a childhood with eight other siblings in a less than ideal situation. This is a closer look at a ramshackle upbringing: living in squalor, an abusive and irresponsible father who is a Mormon zealot, and a young man with a very uncertain future–a young life miraculously held together by dreams of some day becoming a famous cartoonist! By force of will and determination, Noah Van Sciver turned his dreams into a reality beginning with his series of collected comics, Blammo. That would lead to his early masterpiece, his first graphic novel, 2012’s The Hypo. And, most recently, 2022’s Joseph Smith and the Mormons. This new book, As a Cartoonist, comes full circle with a collection of short works that feature comics from Blammo, among other sources.

In 1980, Woody Allen made Stardust Memories. He had already made two of his masterworks, Annie Hall and Manhattan, and he seemed to be at a crossroads: keep making funny movies or make more serious films. Perhaps there was a bit of a struggle. Just see Interiors. Anyway, a certain Woody Allen universe had been created and he was pretty much set and would go on to create a wonderful body of work. Van Sciver pays homage to that creative turning point in a moment in the book where he recreates Allen asking space aliens for advice. It’s a perfect opportunity for Van Sciver to insert himself and provide another take on the absurdity of it all.

Van Sciver is now at a point where he can look back and see significant milestones, including Fante Bukowski, which alone would thrill any cartoonist to call their own, and which Van Sciver can say confidently he brought into this world. Having recently become a father, Van Sciver honors his son, Remy, with a dedication and the final comic in the book. I think it’s safe to say that Noah Van Sciver is on the right path.

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