underground comics
Exclusive Preview | Diane Noomin’s Glitz-2-Go
Our friends at Fantagraphics have provided us with another party favor for today, our last before we take a few hours to sleep it off and start again tomorrow morning. We’re pleased to present an exclusive five-page preview of Glitz-2-Go, which collects nearly 40 years of comic stories by underground comix legend and editor of the women comics anthology Twisted Sisters, Diane Noomin.
Noomin’s career in underground comix began in 1972 and included appearances in Wimmen’s Comix, Young Lust, Short Order, Arcade, Real Girl, Lemme Outta Here, El Perfecto, True Glitz, Aftershock, Mind Riot, Titters and Weirdo. The book stars her best-known character, DiDi Glitz, a “frustrated middle-aged glamour-puss and anxiety-ridden suburban Sisyphus.” This is the first time all of her stories are in print in more than 30 years.
Check out the preview after the jump.
- January 1, 2012 @ 05:55 PM by JK Parkin
Apple insists on edits to Underground Classics app
Warning: Pretty much every image in the linked article is flagrantly, joyously NSFW. If your eyeballs disintegrate and hair grows on the palms of your hands when you click the link, well, don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Underground comics are by their nature transgressive, so it comes as no surprise that the Comix Classics: Underground Comics app produced by Toura, an app platform often used by museums, and Comic Art Productions and Exhibits, ran afoul of Apple’s content guidelines. As Kim Munson, who designed the app, explained to Michael Dooley of Imprint Magazine, the app is not a digital comic but “more of an interactive art exhibit.” It’s based on James Danky and Denis Kitchen’s book Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix, and it contains all the comics from the book and the exhibit plus some new graphics.
Oddly, when the app was submitted to Apple, the iPad version was accepted as is (with a string of warnings to potential consumers about sex, nudity, etc.) but the iPhone version was rejected for “excessively objectionable or crude content.” Munson removed 16 images, which apparently shifted the ratio enough to make the Apple folks happy. (For those who like to skip straight to the good stuff, the deleted images are at the link.) Munson noted that “The deletions were plainly based purely on the visual representation, not the context of the pieces.”
- August 10, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
SDCC ’11 | Fantagraphics to publish Complete Zap Comix
As was revealed during today’s Fantagraphics panel at San Diego, the Seattle-based company plans to publish The Complete Zap Comix. The book, which will collect every issue of the seminal underground comics series to date, is tentatively scheduled to be released in the fall of 2012. It will be a hardbound, two-volume slipcase, similar to their collections of Harvey Kurtzman’s Humbug magazine and Bill Mauldin’s Willie & Joe series.
One of the most influential comics ever published, the first two issues of Zap were created entirely by Robert Crumb, who then invited other artists to contribute, including Spain Rodriguez, the late Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Gilbert Shelton and Robert Williams. The series quickly not only catapulted Crumb and the other artists to stardom (or a relative stardom at any rate), it quickly became seen as one of the more prominent symbols of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, along with LSD, rock music and head shops (where issues were usually sold). While it was not the first underground comic, it was viewed by many both inside and outside the counterculture movement as the lodestone for the underground comics scene, and its existence and influence directly led to the development of the alternative comics scene in the 1980s and 1990s.
Fantagraphics was kind enough to share today’s revelation with Robot 6 prior to the start of the San Diego con, and we took the opportunity to talk to publisher Gary Groth about the project, its origins and the comic’s significance.
- July 23, 2011 @ 01:30 PM by Chris Mautner
Comics A.M. | Asterix family feud heats up; WonderCon’s Hollywood appeal
Asterix
Publishing | In the latest twist in a bitter, and prolonged, family feud, the daughter of Asterix co-creator Albert Uderzo is seeking to have her parents declared mentally incapable of running their affairs. Uderzo’s only child, Sylvie, accuses her parents’ advisers of “pillaging” and “destroying an entire family.” Albert Uderzo, 83, fired back by accusing his daughter and her husband of “legal harassment” stemming from his 2007 decision to remove them from senior positions in Editions Albert-Rene, the publishing company he founded in 1979, following the death of Asterix co-creator Rene Goscinny. The family quarrel erupted into the public eye in 2009, when Sylvie Uderzo criticized her father’s decision to sell his stake in the company to Hachette Livre and authorize the publisher to continue Asterix after his death. [The Independent]
- March 30, 2011 @ 07:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Binky Brown Meets the Blogosphere: Underground comix pioneer Justin Green’s new website
"Expressive Markings" by Justin Green
Great catch by Jeet Heer of Comics Comics: Underground comics legend Justin Green has launched a blog, with three comics up so far and counting. Green is credited with more or less inventing the autobiographical comic — a staple of alternative comics ever since — with Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, his exceptionally and hilariously frank 1972 comic chronicling his adolescent battles with sexuality, Catholicism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. I first saw his work back in the ’90s, when his Justin Green’s Musical Legends strips graced the pages of Tower Records’ late, lamented Pulse! magazine. (You might also know him as cartoonist Carol Tyler’s on-again, off-again husband from her own autobiographical comic series, You’ll Never Know.) Whatever he’s selling on this thing, I’m buying.
(via our own Chris Mautner)
- January 26, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by Sean T. Collins
What do women want? Part 2
Having looked at what women want in superhero comics, let’s examine their attitudes toward poop jokes.
Sean Michael Wilson, the editor of the alt-manga anthology AX, didn’t do a scientific survey, but he did read the reviews of his book and noticed something interesting:
However, one aspect has surprised both myself and Asakawa, the Japanese editor – quite a few female American reviewers have taken issue with the large amount of scatalogical toilet humour and also the sexual content of the collection. Somehow they seem to find it offensive, or unpleasant, or immature. It was surprising to me to see this kind of reaction, as it never occurred to me at all – as a British person – that these could be seen as negative.
It was surprising to me that Sean would find this surprising, but maybe that’s because I’m a female American comics reviewer, and I have always regarded potty humor as the purview of seven-year-old boys. I haven’t been to Scotland since I was six years old; now I’m beginning to wonder what I’m missing. Do sophisticated people there stand around at gallery openings sipping Cabernet and cracking fart jokes?
- January 6, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes
Love & Rockets
Digital | Sean Kleefeld points out the launch of Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels, “the first ever scholarly, primary source database focusing on adult comic books and graphic novels,” the site’s home page says.
The site currently hosts 24,000 pages of comics and a small number of The Comics Journal issues — all with the permission of the copyright holders — with plans to eventually expand to 100,000 pages of materials. The site’s advisers and partners include Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth and Kitchen Sink Press’ Denis Kitchen. Access to the site is available for one-time purchase of perpetual access or as an annual subscription. [Underground and Independent Comics]
Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson rounds up reactions from the manga community on the recent layoffs by Viz Media. [Publishers Weekly]
Publishing | John Jackson Miller crunches direct-market sales estimates for April, comparing them with previous years. [The Comichron]
- May 19, 2010 @ 09:54 AM by JK Parkin
Dark Horse to publish ‘The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen’
The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen
Via press release, Dark Horse Comics and Denis Kitchen announced this week that the publisher plans to release a collection of Kitchen’s past work, including his comix, paintings, covers for underground newspapers and comix, rare strips and illustrations, and historic photos of Kitchen and many of his contemporaries. The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen is due in June.
While many probably remember Kitchen as the longtime publisher of Kitchen Sink Press and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, he was also a comix artist in his own right. He’s also currently working with BOOM! Town to distribute projects like Harvey Kurtzman’s The Grasshopper & The Ant and a set of Robert Crumb trading cards.
The complete press release from Dark Horse can be found after the jump.
- February 24, 2010 @ 01:30 PM by JK Parkin
Your video of the day: Bode on Bode
Here’s a lovely little documentary for you to enjoy, featuring cartoonist Mark Bode talking about his famous cartoonist dad, the late Vaughn Bode. (via)
- February 2, 2010 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Mautner
Thin wallets, fat bookshelves: A publishing news round-up
• That Freak Brothers Omnibus that came out last year must have done pretty well, because Knockabout Comics has announced Fat Freddy’s Cat Omnibus. Clocking in at 368 pages, cost $29.99 and will be available in North American stores early next month. Need a little bit more background? Here’s the press release:
Fat Freddy's Cat Omnibus
Fat Freddy’s Cat began life as a footnote strip to the Freak Brothers and later appeared in many comics of his own. He is often to be found sleeping on the unfortunate Fat Freddy’s head. His constant battles with the never ending army of roaches out for world domination drive him to distraction, as does Fat Freddy’s never-ending failure to feed him or empty his kitty litter box. As a result of this, his main hobbies seem to be shredding Fat Freddy’s water bed and any other items he can sink his claws into, and finding places to leave surprise poop packages for Freddy to discover. This cat has variously gone travelling to Mexico, saved the world from alien invasion, and worked as a government agent in Washington trying to save the world from the “hee hee hee” drug. He has 3 nephews of unknown origin. He tends to regard the Freak Brothers with a fair bit of contempt, but despite the odd separation he always seems to hook back up with his inept roomies.
• Tom Spurgeon pulls back the curtain on the table of contents for this year’s Best American Comics collection, edited by Charles Burns. That’s a pretty impressive line-up.
- August 13, 2009 @ 09:40 AM by Chris Mautner
Collect this now: Mickey Mouse Meets the Air Pirates
Mickey Mouse Meets the Air Pirates
To all those who have been enjoying this column and wondering where it went, I apologize about the long hiatus. I have no excuses other than it’s been a bumpy year. In any event I shall try to keep things proceeding from here on out at a more regular pace. It might not be weekly, but it won’t be bimonthly certainly.
Anyway, for the return of Collect This Now, the column wherein I pick long-neglected comics and make a case for them to be reprinted, I’ve picked the mother of all lost causes. You can pray to St. Anthony all you like but you’ll see gold-embossed Miracleman Omnibus with a foreword by both Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane before you’ll ever set eyes on the trade paperback of this puppy, thanks largely to the Walt Disney company.
Wherefore you ask? What possible reason could the Disney Conglomerate (Inc.) have to prevent this material from ever being printed again? And is it possible that if I click on the link below I will encounter images that are most definitely Not Safe for Work?
Mmmmmmmmm ….. could be.
- June 15, 2009 @ 02:56 PM by Chris Mautner
‘Jaxon’s Last Ride’
Author and comics scholar Patrick Rosenkranz pays homage to the late, pioneering underground cartoonist Jack Jackson in this short documentary film.
- June 4, 2009 @ 10:24 AM by Chris Mautner
Trust fund for S. Clay Wilson started
The Art of S. Clay Wilson
As you may remember, the famed underground cartoonist S. Clay Wilson fell and suffered a severe head injury last November. Now, The S. Clay Wilson Special Needs Trust has formed to help the artist get back on steady financial ground:
Although he is still recovering in the hospital and beginning to draw again, (in his signature dense-pack style) his ability to earn a living in the future is in serious question. a depleted bank account and mounting bills make it imperative that his fellow man (and woman) come forward now and donate what they can to help this iconic artist develop a healthy, independent quality of life when he comes home to Lorraine Chamberlain, with whom he has lived for the past nine years.
I encourage you to please at least take some time to consider donating whatever you can afford to give to help out this talented and influential artist.
- March 31, 2009 @ 12:15 PM by Chris Mautner