Underground Station
by Bruce Sweeney
When Too Much is Enough Dept:
In 1995, Robert Crumb co-designed and released a book co-published by Dog & Blik in the Netherlands and Kitchen Sink in Northampton, MA. The book, Waiting for Food, is all restaurant placemat drawings, doodles created while the minor master waited for waiters. As ridiculously obscure as that was, we at least had another batch of sketchbook drawings that were interesting, if not ultimately provocative.
When Too Much is Too Much Dept:
Fantagraphics Books just released Your Vigor For Life Appalls Me. I got the limited hardcover for $50, of which there are 300 signed and numbered by Robert. Also, a general release version in hardcover for $27.95 and probably a softcover will also be released for less. Obscure and weird enough, this is a book of mainly letters between Crumb and two other collector friends from his age of 16 to 35; principally in his teens. This is freshened by a number of otherwise unavailable illustrations by Crumb. There are, of course, evident examples of Robert Crumb’s growth and mental maturation, but much of this is esoteric discussions of obscure artists and musicians. In short, I cannot recommend this item of triviance to any but the most ardent of Crumb fans.
Fantagraphics (7563 Lake City Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115) also has a host of new titles such as Villa of the Mysteries #3, Poot #3, the Nimrod, Penny Century #3, Evil Eye #1, Luba #2, Artbabe vol. 2 #3, Meatcake #8, Minimum Wage #9, and Zero-Zero #24. Minimum Wage is represented by the art of Bob Fingerman and Pat McEown, both doing separate slice-of-life stories. This is a duo that has a real capacity to turn out well-told tales of trivial adventures. Zero Zero is simply a great series! Issue 24 is chock-filled with superior material by Kirri Deitch, Lewis Trondheim, and Mike Diana.
Fantagraphics’ best title so far this year would have to be Eightball #19 by Dan Clowes. At $3.95, the production standards are high, and on good paper quality that reproduces Clowes’ sense of black & white with real finesse. His stories have a haunted quality that only Adriane Tomine of Canada’s Drawn & Quarterly seems to meet. Clowes is considered by some to be the heir apparent to Crumb, but I’ve heard that one too many times by now.
Last Gasp (777 Florida St. S.F., CA 94110) has released two masterworks. One, Secret Mystic Rites: the Art of Todd Schorr retails for $24.95 and is a gorgeous splash of wild acrylic art. Schorr is a master craftsman at the top of his game who executes color, image, and content like a possessed artist. Moreover, his art, while wild and zippy with a California feel to it, is capable of real message and drama. It’s often cartoony with a penchant for hot-rod dynamics, but it is always arresting, and the quality standards for this fantastic Hong Kong production are exemplary.
On a more controversial note, however, is Last Gasp’s latest and maybe final Zap #14. Of all the titles to kick off the underground comic movement thirty years ago, Zap perhaps leads the pack since Robert Crumb was selling his solos, #0 and #1, on the streets of California. Today, a copy of one of those premiere issues commands as much as $1,000. In subsequent issues of Zap, Crumb was joined by artists Victor Moscoso, Spain, Rick Griffin, S. Clay Wilson, and Robert Williams.
As Zap became more legitimate, joined by more artists than Crumb, and marched through production by Last Gasp’s Ron Turner, it progressed as a contemporary showcase for this talented collection of underground comix visionaries.
Crumb however, became more ensconced in his French lifestyle, more infrequently returning to the States to spend time with his old underground cronies. Their styles and variant successes would, of course, take them all in different directions while in the main, remaining in San Francisco. By the start of production of #14, Crumb wanted little to do with the project while the others would be loyal to Zap and see Crumb as an integral contributor. #14 eloquently tells the sad story – not always between the lines – of the internal conflict among Zap‘s contributors and Crumb’s reluctance to make any contribution. That inside story is interpreted by two artists, Paul Mavrides and Crumb himself. Spain recounted the story to me himself, and the controversy is all the more interesting because of its Rashomon-like multi-recounting of the perceptions.
Speaking of Crumb, collector Monte Beauchamp will have a book out in November, The Life and Times of R. Crumb. Over forty friends and admirers contribute memoirs and tributes to one of the great pop artists of our time. Contributors include filmmakers Terry Gilliam and Jim Jarmusch, Simpson-ator Matt Groening, film critic Roger Ebert, and illustrators S. Clay Wilson and Dan Clowes. I don’t have much more in front of me regarding size, cost, format, etc. but I should be getting a review copy, so stay tuned.
Mark Zingarelli, underground cartoonist, was recently spotted in Time magazine. Way to go and say good-bye to those of us in the back stretches that hardly knew ye, Mark. No hard feelings, lotsa people pay their dues in the sweathog ranks and progress onto bigger things. Look at it this way, class, now there’s room for one more sweathog.
Firebrand Books, (141 The Commons, Ithaca, NY 14850) has announced the latest Alison Bechtel book, Split Level Dykes to Watch Out For ($10.95), a human and comical address of shifting roommates and lovers in contemporary society. This is not for the taste of those with an affinity for prejudice, but knowing Bechtel’s work, it’ll be a rich and humorous collection.
Loompanics Unlimited (PO Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98363), to whom I’ve referred previously in this column, has a host of new titles out. Many are truly underground, all are sub-niche oddities. Their latest titles include Cop Killer by Michael Newton with cover art by Jim Blanchard ($16.95); Reborn in the USA by Trent Sands for those of you committed to a new identity ($16); Fighting With Sticks by Nick Evangelista with cover art by Mark Lang ($15); Hydroponic Heroin by Robert Neil Bunch for those of you finding marijuana tedious ($12.95); and I Am Not A Number by Claire Wolfe – so who said she was? ($21.90).
I had a chance to get together with Rick Geary while recently in San Diego. Rick has done two inspired books for NBM (185 Madison Ave #1504, New York, NY 10016), Jack the Ripper and The Borden Tragedy, which are extremely well-researched and well-illustrated books covering those macabre points of gruesome history. His next project, Fatal Bullet, will cover an obscure point in American history, the assassination of President James A. Garfield. I hope to catch up more with this project around New Years’, but for now, it’s estimated to run 80 pages softbound and will be out in the spring of ’99.
NBM currently has a truly humorous book out illustrated by Ted Rall titled My War with Brian, an account of the author/illustrator’s social combat with a school bully in his earlier years. This 6″x9″ b&w trade paperback goes for $8.95 and is bitterly funny. This welcome departure from NBM’s more European formats is part of their explorative ComicLit line.
