I'm putting together the 15th issue of MOME (Summer 2009) right now and it features the final three chapters of Tim Hensley's spectacular "Wally Gropius, Teen Millionaire" which has appeared in MOME since our fifth issue (Fall 2006). I can't even tell you how proud I am to have published this comic. Hensley is such a singular talent. He's so good I'm almost at a loss to explain why. There's something transcendent about it. It looks like old 1950s teenage humor comics, specifically Mort Walker's proto-Beetle Bailey strip, Spider, as Adam Grano recently pointed out to me while laying out the upcoming Walker interview in The Comics Journal.
Here's a page from Wally:
I find his work beautiful to look at. It's as attractive as comics get for me. But his work is so much more than that. It's a satire of teen comics and celebrityhood and modern culture, but it's also great Art. His dialogue is witty, lyrical, sampled, dada, and elliptical. It's all in the service of a very bizarre story, a mystery of sorts. There's sex, violence, rock and roll, intrigue, betrayal — but it's all told in Hensley's truly inimitable style. I've read each chapter many times and will be sorry to not have more coming in anymore. But not to worry, Tim's already hard at work on the Wally Gropious collection, which won't be out for over a year but will be well worth the wait!
And here's a sneak peak at the cover for MOME 15, featuring the end of Wally Gropius. This is an early treatment by Adam Grano, with art by Andrice Arp:
Oh, and read Tim's blog.