{product_snapshot:id=1586,true,false,true,right} This book began by looking for something. More precisely, it began by sorting through flat file drawers filled with artwork, in an attempt to determine what pieces I should select for my first proper gallery show. I stacked the work in piles: these are probably good candidates, those are good, but don’t seem to fit the general feel of the show. I was looking for only thirty or so pieces of artwork. I was removing hundreds of pieces of Bristol board from the drawers. It slowly dawned on me that the “good but doesn’t fit” pile was quite massive….
Prince Valiant – “A History of Valiants” by Kim Thompson
{product_snapshot:id=1581,true,false,false,left}This Afterword is excerpted in its entirety from Prince Valiant Vol. 1: 1937-1938 from Fantagraphics Books. Terrifically popular from its inception, Prince Valiant is one of the most frequently reprinted comic strips of all time. Like many other classics, it was extensively collected in comic book form early on, but starting in the 1950s, it was also one of the first to graduate to bona fide book editions. Sadly, commercial and technical limitations conspired to undercut the true glory of Foster’s work, as the strips were recolored (inevitably to their detriment, as in the otherwise impressive 1960s Nostalgia Press editions)…
Sam’s Strip – “How Sam’s Strip Began” by Jerry Dumas
{product_snapshot:id=1551,true,false,true,right} All through the late 1950s, Mort Walker and I worked together three or four days a week, however long it took, doing the artwork for the daily and Sunday Beetle Bailey strips. The rest of the time I worked in my own home, writing gag ideas for both Beetle and Hi and Lois. At that time and on into the 1960s, we were the only writers for both strips. Each week we wrote ten gags apiece and on Monday mornings we showed each other our gags, graded them and discussed them. We never did rough sketches of ideas unless…
Sam’s Strip – “My Time with Sam’s Strip” by Mort Walker
{product_snapshot:id=1551,true,false,true,right} There were problems in doing Sam’s Strip. It was a satirical strip using characters from contemporary strips as well as old-time comic characters. Satire requires that readers have previous knowledge of the subject matter to understand what’s going on. With Sam’s Strip, the readers had to be familiar with the various characters we were satirizing before they could get the gag. It’s a tough sell. In show business the saying goes, “Satire dies on Saturday night.” {mosimage} An insurance salesman once asked me what I did for a living. I showed him the comic page for that day and…
The Wolverton Bible – Foreword: “A Shot in the Liver, A Shot to the Soul” by Grant Geissman
{mosimage}{product_snapshot:id=1552,true,false,true,right} here are legions of fans of the work of Basil Wolverton, stretching across many generations. There are admirers of his earliest work in the comic books, including “Spacehawk” (which began to appear in 1940 in Target Comics) and “Powerhouse Pepper,” the wacky, off-the-wall humor feature Wolverton created in 1942 for Stan Lee’s Timely Comics. {mosimage} There are fans of “Lena the Hyena, the ugliest woman in Lower Slobovia,” the crazily hideous image that was Wolverton’s winning entry in the 1946 contest United Features sponsored on behalf of Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner” strip. There are enthusiasts of Wolverton’s numerous 1940s…
The Wolverton Bible – Introduction: “Wolverton and Armstrong” by Monte Wolverton
{mosimage}{product_snapshot:id=1552,true,false,true,right} asil Wolverton, my father (who I will respectfully refer to as Wolverton throughout this book), was a unique cartoonist and illustrator, known for his extreme, otherworldly creatures, spaghetti-like hair, smoothly sculpted faces and figures and insanely detailed pen-and-ink work. Born in Oregon in 1909, Wolverton pitched his first comic strip to a syndicate at the age of 16. But it was 13 years later before he would sell his first comic features to the new media of comic books. “Disk-Eyes the Detective” and “Spacehawks” were published in 1938 in Circus Comics. in 1940, “Spacehawk” (a different and improved feature)…
The Portable Frank by Jim Woodring – Introduction: “So Says Justin Green”
{product_snapshot:id=1486,true,false,true,left} A TREE STUMP REVEALS the exact number of years it was alive by its woodrings. But when you look closely at a Jim Woodring cartoon, you are lost in the eternal present. In Frank, he has melded the Olden Days horrific with the modern innocuous. He consistently does this with a seamless line, tracing a parallel universe which keeps unfolding in new visual allegories, as perplexing as they are down-to-earth. Like a woodring, his pen line is always concrete and simple. It circumscribes objects and landscapes with a Spartan clarity that reveals a deep appreciation of the natural environment….
Deitch’s Pictorama – Introduction by Gene Deitch
{product_snapshot:id=1500,true,false,true,left}{mosimage} OK, comics are in our blood. I grew up in the golden age of the American newspaper comic strip. My parents subscribed to Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner. The right-wing politics meant nothing to an 8-year-old kid; what meant everything was that it had the best King Features comics, an entire page of dailies and a huge Sunday color section with the mysterious name, “Puck.” From 1932 onward, I devoured the comics, and carefully copied the characters on my drawing pads. I loved to draw, and was good at it, so naturally I dreamed of one day drawing my own…
Pocket Full of Rain by Jason – Introduction by James Sturm
{product_snapshot:id=1484,true,false,true,left} MY FIRST INTRODUCTION to the work of the Norwegian cartoonist known only as Jason was a four-page story he drew for Comix 2000, an international collection of pantomime comics. Out of all of the works in this massive anthology (the title was also its page count and year of publication) it was Jason’s four pages that proved most memorable. The story begins with a bird/human hobo coming upon a bed in the woods. Though a bit surprised, the hobo nevertheless stops to sleep. As he slumbers, two death-faced humanoid birds construct a proper bedroom around the slumbering hobo then…
Rebel Visions – Multimedia Features (Video & Audio)
We are pleased to present the following multimedia features relating to Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 by Patrick Rosenkranz, now available in a new, revised and expanded softcover edition. All items are courtesy the author. Below, a promotional video trailer for the original hardcover edition, produced by the author in 2003, featuring video and audio interviews with Gilbert Shelton, R. Crumb, Rick Griffin, Spain Rodriguez, Robert Williams and Justin Green: The following video presents footage of a book signing and reading, in conjunction with an exhibit of original Underground comic art, held at the CounterMedia bookstore in Portland,…
