2014 what are you reading thread

I'm late to the game here but as the inheritor of a pile of undergrounds from my hippie dad, I am completely on board with the idea of the sixties underground comix revolution being epochal. I would also like to add to the necessary pantheon some names that Ctrl+F is not finding and that are more than just etc etc: Phoebe Gloeckner, Robert Williams, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Howard Cruse, Shary Flenniken, Jay Kinney, Dandy Dan O'Neill, Trina, Dori Seda, Snappy Skip Williamson, Joyce Farmer, Carol Tyler, Rand Holmes, Diane Noomin... and it's telling how many of those names are women and how many of those women are putting out still putting out strong work.

There are still many significant Comix that have never been reprinted in any form - yet deluxe hardcover volumes of Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom are available from Dark Horse. What a world.

but man is that EVER what torrenting was made for.

Some other random points:

The Spirit was among the first comix I ever read so yeah, I can think of dozens of individual great stories of the top of my head: various xmas spirits, sand saref on the pier, the little nerd who could fly (gerard schnobbel?), the parody feiffer recap of the year, carrion sand and denny marooned on the island, the kissing killer, the spirit as an outlaw, mayor dolan, sammy seduced, spirit on the el train tracks, the wood storylines... i could go on for awhile. I rate Eisner well above Kirby in terms of enjoyment and storytelling; probably a draw in terms of drawing ability. I've got about 22 of the 27 volumes of the complete spirit, really need to get around to ebaying the remainder. The Spirit doesn't translate well to movies or television; I saw the movie before Miller's and a bootleg of the tv movie. I will never ever see the miller one tho'.

Crumb is a god of course. I never "got" Binky Brown; I do have all the old Marvel COMIX BOOKS in which it was reprinted so maybe i should try again? I find Carol Tyler to be the more talented member of that family and chronically underappreciated as such.

Humble Bundle just did a big oni press collection that I bought for $15 bucks so I'll try those.

Been reading the Noto Black Widow on Marvel Unlimited; like it better than Hawkeye. Good take on the character.

Yeah, don't see the Miller movie unless you're really drunk or something. It is so bad as to be hilarious, but from a fan viewpoint sad

I haven't actually read Spain's Che GN, but flicking through my copy this morning, it doesn't look like any straight-forward hagiography to me (and in the back of the book there's a long essay that examines and punctures the whole myth of Guevara). Spiegelman's quote on the front simply says "Spain's take on Che is brilliant and radical" which doesn't seem very indicative of 'leftie' hypocrisy to me - more like, one old Underground Comix dude helping out another old Underground Comix dude.

Che's life, in all its contradictions, is extraordinary, and worth thinking and writing about - just as I'd happily read Steve Ditko's Stalin graphic novel.

Che is certainly worth writing about but it still seems that whatever balance Spain tried to bring (I'll admit I didn't do more than scan around it for Spain's views), like most of the other biography portrayals, avoided the really nasty things (like killing homosexuals).
I'm sure people would get upset if people downplayed the slavery in a Jefferson bio.

I think a realistic Ditko political bio would be a real slog. I think I mentioned above the Ditko comic about scientists in communist Russia being terrible.

I'm reading about the Italian underground comix now and it's pretty fascinating.

many of these are still in print but a great many are not so I'm not saying, I'm just saying

lets try that again

Goodness, that's a lot of comix.

was just reading an interview with charles burns where he says he was a crumb fanatic and in high school (college?) someone tells him Crumb has a new book out called BIG ASS and Burns is all "well shit, i guess i have to go buy a book called BIG ASS now, goddammit"

Che is certainly worth writing about but it still seems that whatever balance Spain tried to bring (I'll admit I didn't do more than scan around it for Spain's views), like most of the other biography portrayals, avoided the really nasty things (like killing homosexuals).
I'm sure people would get upset if people downplayed the slavery in a Jefferson bio.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, 2. oktober 2014 13:22 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Congrats on criticizing a book you didn't read, and comparing the author of it to racist lunatics! Also, the comparison with Jefferson is again massively offtm. And wtf at just tossing out 'killing homosexuals' as if that's just some perfecly established fact that he did, and we all know exactly what you're talking about, and not something that a google search picks up nothing except right-wing lunatics talking about. And seems to be based on the UMAP camps? Which were established after Che left Cuba.

Sorry, I thought that had been confirmed about Che. I read it on a gay blog years ago and various other places that seemed okay (though my judgement isn't great, as I've screwed up a few times).

I don't think Spain is racist. I'm fairly sure Ditko is not racist, don't know about the other guys.

Frank Miller is a p unrepentant racist.

again I really don't think Spain is anywhere close to those other dudes in terms of loathsome/crackpot politics - feel like that's a criticism only rightwing dudes would make

and if this is all hinged on the Che thing, Frederik B is correct to point out that it is not entirely historically accurate or fair to lay all the crimes of the Castro regime at Che's feet. Che was not running Cuba.

Did anyone else see that Playboy Frank Miller interview where he said a Rod Stewart song was the moment he thinks gender relations screwed up? Pretty funny.

are so many underground comix so pervy bc the writers + audience were pretty pervy or is it about making some kind of point about abjection/perversion/graphic images/sexuality idk?

I'd put most of it down to people just seeing/reveling in what they could get away with

they were breaking new ground at the time and speaking shibboleths; the status quo was repressed and the culture was changing fast.
also everybody was on drugs (primary distribution through head shops) and the audience and writers were pretty pervy.

It was a mixture and it depends on the creator on what ratio mixture of arousal, commentary, humour or anything else.
Never been sure how much S Clay Wilson was aroused by the stuff he drew if at all.

http://www.tcj.com/the-s-clay-wilson-interview/

Is there anything that attracts you visually about that particular act?

Sex sells. And I like drawing dirty pictures.

but man is that EVER what torrenting was made for.

and UG artists continue to die in poverty, while Doctor Solar averts his eyes

hey i buy my signed prints at the cons same as anyone else! reissue the material and i'll buy it!

Thanks for the link. Even still, looking at Wilson's work, I find it difficult to tell what arouses him and what is simply done for the outrageous and sleazy aesthetic.
With Crumb it seems all the sexual fantasies are things that he's really into.

wilson's bosch-like sense of the perverse is so intense and ugly it opens up the sinuses
for me, finding a vision like that doesn't really make me curious as to his intent; i'm more just along for the ride and agog at the chicken fat. it's such a specific sort of genius; trying to figure out where he's coming from feels like it's beside the point.
But here's a sad update and closer look on his more recent state: http://www.tcj.com/in-the-first-circle-of-hell-with-s-clay-wilson/
the http://www.sclaywilsontrust.com/ , built to raise support for him and his family, appears to be down now

from that TCJ piece linked:

“I think some people who are offended are reacting to their own reactions. The drawing they see is a key that goes to the eyeball keyhole. Click! A door flies open and stuff they’ve been suppressing flies out, right? It unlocks their own repressed bogeyman or skeletons in their mental closets and this is upsetting to them, because they’ve been repressing it and the drawings are a springboard for that chain reaction. Sidewalk psychology, but I think it’s true.”

In an application for a Guggenheim grant in 1999 he wrote “Throughout my career I have had to constantly defend my art work against critics who wish to censor it because of its depiction of aberrant imagery. My work, for example, was seized and burned in December 1991 by the Royal Mounted Canadian Police (This is Dynamite in Taboo #5) because its imagery was considered too obscene and violent for importation to Canada. It upsets me that some critics wish to censor and go so far as to destroy my artwork because of its subject matter. People are shocked that I, as an artist, would choose to depict the themes that I do. I am not the characters I draw, I am the artist that draws the characters or, in other words, just because I depict evil does not mean that I am evil.”

screwmagazinecoverart.blogspot.com

Danny Hellman started posting Screw covers a while ago and its amazing the range of artists who worked for the magazine, including the main underground guys, Tony Millionaire, Wally Wood and even Will Eisner doing tasteless rape jokes.

It's not updated often but it's really hard to find cover galleries, this is the best resource so far. I think Hellman said he hoped for a book of them but it's difficult to imagine over 1800 (can't find out how many issues there were) covers being shown, but I don't think they all had art covers.

I've never seen that Eisner piece; his attempts at being a cool underground artist have almost universally come off clueless

also his recommendations and blurbs for younger cartooonists through the 80s and 90s that were the vaguest encouragements, almost universally showing he hadn't even read the photocopy he was sent

http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/showthread.php?3623-The-SCREW-Magazine-Cover-Art-Appreciation-Thread!
http://cvkustoms.com/transversealchemy/2013/12/art-of-screw-tribute-to-al-goldstein.html

also very NSFW

was just reading an interview with charles burns where he says he was a crumb fanatic and in high school (college?) someone tells him Crumb has a new book out called BIG ASS and Burns is all "well shit, i guess i have to go buy a book called BIG ASS now, goddammit

It looks like the 80s Michael Moorcock Elric adaptions are going to be coming back into print. I always thought these were pretty good comics, especially these early ones by Roy Thomas and P. Craig Russell. Going by page count, I think this one will have both the Marvel GN and the early Elric mini-series done for Pacific.

http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Moorcock-Library-Vol-1-Melnibone/dp/1782762884/ref=sr_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412553718&sr=1-16

rad btw
http://media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mm1.jpg

the new alex+ada & COWL are both fire--the COWL trade comes out i think this month, yall should pick it up if you haven't yet.

COWL?

i've been reading Zap - last night i read #4. also read feds 'n heads. fun! what other stuff should i read in this vein?

did you do that torrent?

nah

COWL?

― the other song about butts in the top 5 (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, October 7, 2014 5:37 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Chicago Organized Workers League--it's the story of the decline of a union of superheros in 60s Chicago, sort of Mad Men b/w Watchmen. the art is gorgeous and the story has really taken off by the fifth issue.

I read the first issue of COWL and it didn't grab me at all. Sounds like it's worth checking out in trades.

get the feeling this guy may have read one or two Sienkiewicz and Baker comics from the 80s

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2014/05/29/image-comics-c-o-w-l-finds-heady-fun-on-the-big-shoulders-of-60s-chicago/

wow yeah this is SO Sienkiewicz:

http://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/05/27/Style/Images/COWL3.jpg

most def. looks interesting.

I read the first issue of COWL and it didn't grab me at all. Sounds like it's worth checking out in trades.

― EZ Snappin, Tuesday, October 7, 2014 5:58 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah honestly i wasn't quite sold on it even through 2 & 3 but had already decided i was chips-in for the first arc, then 4 & 5 really punched things up, really looking forward to where it goes next.

Read the Red Rover Charlie trade paperback (I've given up trying to pull issues for myself, new comic arrival on Tuesday sucks enough without figuring out what I want to read), it completely peters out - the characterization was great, the art good-to-great, but rushing it into six issues wasn't enough space.

From that Oni Press Humble Bundle:
Stumptown - Prime contemporary noir Rucka style, great read; good pseudo Lark art
Letter 44 is excellent; I only want more to keep up with the story
I Was the Cat is promising; curious to see a few more issues
Megagogo is kinda a kids book but it's not a bad read
Scott Pilgrim is Scott Pilgrim
Helheim is dopey escapist nonsense
Diesel Sweeties sucks
The Bunker was too convoluted to engage with
Down Set Fight is dumb as a box o rocks

Also copped the newest book of Antares; excellent as always. No idea why Leo doesn't have a bigger US following.

and my copy of Masterful Marks (alluded to in that Friedman Crumb piece upthread) just got here. It's great!
http://www.amazon.com/Masterful-Marks-Cartoonists-Changed-World/dp/1451649193

i have also now acquired seven books from this lineup:
http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=726&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=62
they're tough to read fun to back but great to read in quick grabs

http://wakanayamazaki.tumblr.com/
http://plurkerr.tumblr.com/

Quite liking these super wonky artists I found on Meathaus