Comix Reading List #90: Canon #4

90. CANON 4 (Colin Blanchette)

So glad for the arrival of a new issue of CANON!

DISCLAIMER: I have two contributions to this issue. My first ever interview, with Brooklyn artist Speed Paste Robot AKA Steven Solomon (a big public Thank You to Steven!). And, a news piece on a flurry of alternative comics events in NYC earlier this year. My impressions on the rest of the issue follow:

I was most looking forward to Terence Fuller's interview with Sean Scoffield who he had mentioned in several of his videos (and even shown some of Scoffield's incredible original art, if memory serves). Sean Scoffield does not disappoint. I love all the information about The Beguiling and the early business of stocking and selling alternative comics. His comments on his comics career are full of new-to-me information, and this great matter-of-fact self-appraisal:

"Well, I went to art school. I was always into comics. Comics got me drawing. I was very good at it. I drew some comics, but, you know, nothing really ever happened. Drawing a comic takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. When you're not getting paid..." Then Scoffield spends the rest of the interview on his wide-ranging art career, fascinating stuff.

Every issue has a surprise contribution I didn’t see coming. Ryan Carey's examination of a long forgotten Steve Gerber 90s Marvel series certainly fits that category. I've been a fan of Gerber's since being permanently scarred by an early issue of HOWARD THE DUCK in elementary school in the late 70s. This entry in Gerber's bibliography is both incredible and inevitable, with another of his not necessarily nuanced, but complex, dissertations on the culture of violence.

I swear I'm not being paid to say this, but editor Colin Blanchette is really coming into his own as an interviewer. His specialty, in my view, is giving new, little-known, or just plain forgotten cartoonists their chance to tell their story in their own voice (also see his feature-length interview with Beth Hetland in this issue). I immediately recognized Andrew Zaben's name on the cover, at a certain time his books were ubiquitous in Fantagraphics catalogs. So much so, I always wrongly believed Fantagraphics published Zaben's books! This quote on how he came to create his graphic novels is priceless in it's logic:

The cover to DREAM BIG DREAMS...

all three covers from GCD

MYSTERY OF THE FIRST FOOTNOTE: Due to space considerations our first question and answer were edited out of the Steven Solomon interview leaving a dangling footnote. Below is also a favorite Neal Adams page from Steven Solomon...

I have to ask, where did you study sculpture and how did you come to apply that to "create[...] a series of cartoon-influenced figurative work through the early 2000s"?

I started my journey wanting, like every red-blooded comics fanboy of my era, to BE NEAL ADAMS. (audience laughter, some cheering.)

This led me on many farcical rabbit trails which ended up with my enrolling in a very academic sculpture program… But it also resulted in my then wanting to BE ALBERTO GIACOMETTI. (more audience laughter, some heckling.)[1]

Once I worked slowly and painfully through this drawn out student period cartoony figuration tendencies, which always persisted in my sketchbooks and side projects, emerged in painting.

The line between “painting” meaning an exploration of a single image where the interaction between materials and ostensible subject matter and “comics” where the panels equal a certain time frame and have a storytelling thread (however that story is being told) is a blurry boundary sometimes.

New Alternative and Small Press Comix Arrivals (July Week 5)

We look at WIP across bluesky...

Shortbox Comics Fair is coming in October, here are previews of three titles found on their timeline:

Xulia Vicente is a Spanish cartoonist who has previously contributed to Shortbox and been published by Silver Sprocket bluesky

Olivia Stephens (DARLIN AND HER OTHER NAMES and many others) part of BALLAD FOR BLACK CASSANDRA bluesky

Erin Roseberry previews their Shortbox comic THE MAKER OF GRAVE-GOODS bluesky

Maria Capelle Frantz (THE CHANCELLOR AND THE CITADEL) sketchbook page bluesky

Raven Clemens (THE PARADOX OF GETTING BETTER) character studies bluesky

Andrew Neal (MEETING COMICS) notes for a future comic bluesky

Karl Christian Krumpholz pencils for West Colfax illustration bluesky

Creepy Delaine Derry Green painting-in-progress bluesky

Always great to get a look at Joshua W. Cotter's work on NOD AWAY VOLUME 3! bluesky If you want to see more and support the completion of this book, subscribe to Joshua's patreon 

Speed Paste Robot AKA Steven Solomon is always sharing his unique drawings, hopefully culminating in a another mini-comic! bluesky

Bluesky may be a little quieter, less interactive than "old twitter", yet you can see above talented cartoonists are still making use of it to share there WIP.

Five Highlights From The Comics Journal #42

 

front cover: John Byrne/Joe Rubinstein

back cover: Dennis Fujitake

cover colors/separations: Gary Groth

both covers: TCJ Archive

THE COMICS JOURNAL #42 (October 1978)

Executive Editor/Art Director: Gary Groth

Editor/Circulation Director: Kim Thompson

Distributors: Bud Plant, Well News Service, Seagate Distributors

 "The 32 page comic will be extinct in 5 years, and there will be fewer titles around, in all probability only the titles such as SUPERMAN, BATMAN, WONDER WOMAN, SPIDER-MAN, FANTASTIC FOUR, THE HULK, and maybe CONAN. There will be more dollar books and trade sized paperback books similar to TIN-TIN."

-Future First Comics publisher Mike Gold predicting the future of comics!

1. THE COMICS GUILD: A Professional Guild to Protect the Rights of Visual Creators: A Report by Gary Groth

Part One: THE NEW COPYRIGHT LAW

Part Two: WHAT DO THE PROS THINK?

Part Three: BIRTH OF THE GUILD: MAY 7, 1978

At thirteen pages this is the most ambitious investigative article since the Alan Light expose in the very first issue (TNJ #27). The Comics Guild was an idea by Neal Adams in response to the infamous "work made for hire" language from the January 1, 1978 copyright revision that was exploited by Marvel and DC back then. Gary Groth breaks the story up into three sections. Part One is a historical look at past attempts at organizing comics professionals and the origins of this Comics Guild; Part Two is a survey of 35 comics creators that gives an oral history of the Guild that wasn't; and, Part Three is a transcription of the initial May 7, 1978 meeting of 44 interested parties at Neal Adams' Continuity Studio. Nothing ever came of this attempt, but it's fascinating reading the conflicts and apathy that caused it to be stillborn.

2. Dave Sim's COMICgraphics advertisement

from TCJ Archive

Dave Sim drumming up business a few months before CEREBUS #1 went on sale in December 1978 (date according to GCD).

3. COMICS REVIEWS: CLAIRE BRETECHER: Triumphant Despite Traitorous Translation by Kim Thompson

 "Translation is a difficult craft (or art). If the translator is less than fluent in the language of origin but fully conversant with the target language, the result is frequently a grammatically, idiomatically, and dialectically 'correct' translation, but unfaithful to the original and in some cases downright nonsensical. On the other hand, if it is the target language that is the weaker of the two, awkward and ruptured translations abound.[...]"

GCD

Kim Thompson compares and contrasts the original French-language version of Claire Bretecher's comics and Valerie Marchant's English-language translations for THE NATIONAL LAMPOON PRESENTS CLAIRE BRETECHER. Given Thompson's future career translating so many classic European comics for Fantagraphics, this review gives invaluable insight into his thoughts on translating foreign work.

4. FANDOM REVIEW: THE COMIC READER: Comic Fandom's Oldest Newszine by Marilyn Bethke

 "TCR's shortcoming is not that it fails to accomplish it's goals, but that it's goals are so low that they are accomplished with ease."

Bethke respectfully eviscerates Mike Tiefenbacher's news gathering practices and narrow focus. Very reminiscent of much later JOURNAL criticisms of Don and Maggie Thompson's CBG.

THE COMIC READER #158 cover

Alan Kupperberg original art

Heritage Auctions

5. SUSPENDED ANIMATION: METAMORPHOSES: The Greeks Must Have Had a Word For It by Jim Korkis

 "METAMORPHOSES, which was produced, written, and directed by Takashi for the Sanrio Film Corporation, is a film filled with beautiful images, but it's emotional promise seems to have been buried before those images were even committed to celluloid."

Jim Korkis reviews a very unusual...enterprise. A Japanese company hires a Japanese animator to produce an animated feature in Hollywood employing U.S. animators. Korkis is not sold on the final product and dissects the films problems in depth, see for yourself below...

 "Metamorphoses" released as...

 "Winds of Change" (1979)

HONORABLE MENTION: "The Gerber Story" by future Eclipse Enterprises Editor-in-chief cat yronwode. A review of CAPTAIN AMERICA 221-225.

Watching Comics: Ray Carcases of RC Comics

I first came across Ray Carcases (screenshot above) through a post by Colin Blanchette on twitter back in 2022, he had a video discussing a 70s Jack Kirby book...

Ray's channel covers his wide-ranging comics interest from Moebius to Manga, but we'll be highlighting some very early reviews of Nate Garcia comix...

HORNRIM 1-3

MUSCLE HORSE

PLUM POCKET

Ray supplements his reviews with interviews occasionally, sometimes this is the only chance we get to see these mini-comics artists up close and personal.

JEFF MANLEY:

August 18, 2022

REVIEW:

MINI #1

DESMOND REED:

February 26, 2023

REVIEW:

APPLES, MEMORIES, and TRASH

ERIC JASEK:

July 19, 2024

REVIEWS:

ZEBRA BOY

UFO BROS #3

Finally, I particularly liked this review of MAGNET HEAD #2 by Jasper Krents from February 17, 2024:

New Alternative and Small Press Comix Arrivals (July Week 4)

 1. Spotlight on UK underground cartoonist and publisher Mat Greaves (All the Old Poisons)

2. THE METHOD by Pittsburgh expatriate Christina Lee (The Copacetic Comics Company)

3. HOLE GIRL by Sophie Margolin (Toy Box Coffin)

4. EX COP by Leo Quievereux (Domino Books)

5. KING-CAT COMICS & STORIES #83(!) by John Porcellino (Self-published) bluesky

NEWS:

JULIETTE COLLET IN JUST INDIE COMICS NEWSLETTER #11! (Just Indie Comics)

QUIMBY BOOKS NEW ARRIVALS 7/20:

Quimby's

SILVER SPROCKET NOW OFFERING DIGITAL AND PRINT MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTIONS

Five Highlights From The Comics Journal #41

THE COMICS JOURNAL #41 (August 1978)

Executive Editor/Art Director: Gary Groth

Editor/Circulation Director: Kim Thompson 

1. MARILYN BETHKE WATCH:

"I entered the world of comics and fandom as an adult and found only a handful of good writers in the industry. Steve Gerber is one of those, and he is one of the only comic book writers who sees the medium through the eyes of an adult, and who doesn't suffer from the arrested creative development that afflicts most other 'grown ups' in the industry."

This is a change of pace piece from Bethke, as it's both personal memoir and career overview of Steve Gerber's first run at Marvel.

(She quotes a fan letter from future comics writer J. Marc De Matteis to conclude her article. Perfect.)

2. STEVE GERBER INTERROGATED... INTERVIEWED BY GARY GROTH

The above banner headline pretty much says it all about one of my favorite Gary Groth interviews. This serves as a sequel, of sorts, to the earlier Gil Kane interview (TCJ #38). Below is a choice quote about violence in media:

3. STAN SAKAI (USAGI YOJIMBO) FAN ART, DATED 1972!

4. UNDERGROUND COMIX BY BILL SHERMAN 

Bill Sherman reviews a rare Canadian underground comix entry, although it's theme of funny animals was pretty common at the time. Canadian underground legends George Metzger, Rand Holmes, and Brent Boates contribute to...

                                GCD

5. SUSPENDED ANIMATION BY JIM KORKIS

Jim Korkis (August 15, 1950-July 28, 2023) cartoonbrew

New Alternative and Small Press Arrivals (July Week 3)

 1. THE FIERY CROWN VOLUMES 1-3 by Charles Cutting (Gosh Comics: Print) (GlobalComix: Digital)

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

2. Quimby's Bookstore New Arrivals for 7/13. Quimby's weekly new arrivals post is the inspiration for my Alternative and Small Press weekly listings, which started here back on December 26, 2022! Take a look at that wall of self-published comics and zines in the background of the below screenshot...

Instagram

3. PEACEMONGER by Juliette Collet (Partners and Son)

4. Dexter Cockburn announces ZINE TAILS #6 coming in September from Black Ink Comix (bluesky)

5. AT THE 7/11 OUTSIDE CLUB Q by Annabel Driussi reviewed at Broken Pencil

NEWS:

i was sad to learn Pure Folly Books closed it's Hudson, NY brick and mortar store, I enjoyed highlighting some of their more offbeat offerings going back to my days on twitter. Read this excellent exit interview with proprietor Edward Uvanni at TCJ. Recently Pure Folly's bluesky account announced Uvanni's upcoming appearance with backstock in tow at this show...