MEANWHILE Francisco Goya IN NEW EDITIONS OF COUNTER- CU RAL COMICS CLASSICS! El Torres Fran Galan MAY 2019 - NO. 29 Goya. Goya Olivier Bouquet Julie Rocheleau El Santo Dr. X Super Destroyer Christopher Daniels “Ghastly” Graham Ingels Ingels Jack Kamen Kamen Jack Davis Al Williamson Wallace Wood Reed Crandall Bernard Krigstein . Howard Pyle N.C. Wyeth Ho- garths William Burne The Comics & Graphic Novel Bulletin of Raw, ribald, rebellious, takes on gun culture, religious mania and Music was the flame that ing in a variety of styles. the 1%. Meanwhile, his longtime assistant set the world afire with The Beatles book features the underground comics on the Freak Brothers strip, Dave Sheri- the heat of revolution. In the more straightforward rose and fell with the dan, has a book out from Fantagraphics. the 1960s, musicians were, pieces; for all their raucous He was the creator of comix icons the for good or ill, the true rep, the Stones seem to counter-culture of the Leather Nun and Dealer McDope, who leaders of the Youth Move inspire more introspective 1960s. But their legacy was so popular, he had his own board -ment. Now the careers of work. From First Second game! Sheridan never got the attention the yin and yang of rock comes Youssef Daoudi’s of unfettered self-expres recieved by his peers, perhaps because and roll, the Beatles and gorgeously drawn bio of he went for comedy more than confronta- the Rolling Stones, get pianist Thelonious Monk, -sion and artistic free- tion. Not so Spain Rodriguez. A member captured in comics thanks whose physical approach dom continues to influ- of the crew behind the seminal under- to NBM’s series of graphic to playing jazz influenced ground, Zap Comix, Spain brought his life biographies. Both books many a rad rocker. Look ence comics to this day. experience on the hard streets of Cleve- are anthologies featuring under 785.42 M749d at land and New York to the violent adven- multiple cartoonists work- Beaumont & Tates Creek! Some of the artists called them “comix” tures of the insurgent Trashman and Big Bitch. That avatar of female ferocity is the to distinguish their work from mainstream “’So yeah, I don’t draw much funnybooks like Little Lotta and Batman. star of Warrior Women, the second book The stars any more,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. They really didn’t need that—the work devoted to the work of Spain; the first, A lot of ink has gone under the itself was so mad, bad and dangerous to Street Fighting Men, is available, too. Un- who made bridge. It’s enough.’” So spoke read, there was never any risk of custom- derground comics revolted against the the King of Underground Comics ers confusing the likes of Skull, Young bland modernism of contemporary news- the music Robert Crumb in a recent in- Lust and Dopin’ Dan with the offerings paper strips, taking their artistic cues from terview. Fortunately for fans of that made fine cartooning, Crumb was not the 1960s live again in these graphic bi- ographies The heirs of 1960s radicalism rouse the available at the drugstore spinner rack. older comics. Jay Lynch was a leader of Underground comics got their name due to the Chicago comix scene whose main rabble with entirely truthful. Recent works being published outside the established characters Nard & Pat looked like low new com- include covers for new books by distribution network for comic books and rent versions of Krazy Kat and 1920’s hipster godfathers Charles Bu- magazines. They were cheaply made, often superstar Andy Gump. Lynch’s intensely ics about kowski, Allen Ginsburg & Wil- on presses run by the creators themselves detailed art and bawdy outlook led to liam S. Burroughs, not to men- because “straight” printers balked at the later contributions to Playboy and the current tion R. Crumb’s Dream Diary subject matter. They rejected the Comics Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. One of (above), all available at Central. Code Authority that kept American comics the few underground artists with a day crises fit for children (and few others). And they job in straight comics, William Stout Though the 1960s coun- reveled in the Swinging Sixties trinity of assisted Russ Manning on his Tarzan comes Now Is the Time of ter-culture went quies- sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. Comix rose with strip while drawing comix and covers for Monsters, a dark, furious cent in the Seventies, a the hippies and died with them, as anti- bootleg records. Influenced by EC artists collection of both poetic drug fervor killed the head shops that sold like Wallace Wood, Stout’s slick art stood new generation of rebels and reportorial comics them. But not before they broke new out among the scruffy crowd in comix like came of age during the against the predatory capi- ground for American cartoonists, setting a Slow Death and Fear and Laughter, an 1980s. Spawned in the talism of our age. WW3 standard for free expression that contin- underground satirizing Kentucky-born bo- punk and queer commu- and RAW vet Sue Coe’s ues to shape how, why and by whom com- hemian hero Hunter S. Thompson. Find nities opposed to the solo work Zooicide is a ics are made. Half a century later, these Fantastic Worlds: The Art of William Stout social and political con- visual jeremiad against that works are being collected in new prestige and these other examples of the best of servatism of the Reagan beloved institution, the editions. The most popular underground the ‘60s underground at lexpublib.org! Era, many of the more zoo. And The Antifa Comic comic of all, the Fabulous Furry Freak x artisitic agitators found a Book is a well-drawn, well- Brothers, returns with a 50th anniversary home in alternative com- written chronicle of his- release. Featuring recent stories, this slim, Middle row, top to bottom: William Stout, ics anthologies such as torical and contemporary full-color volume finds the wit of creator Jay Lynch, Spain, Dave Sheridan RAW and World War 3. fascism and the world- Gilbert Shelton as sharp as ever as he From the pages of WW3 wide resistance to its evils. MEANWHILE kids away from dope. Judging from the comics made by the kids who grew up reading these anti- drug strips, I’d say they didn’t work. But lovers of the campy and creepy should give Reefer Madness a read. Meanwhile, madness of a different sort claims the painter called “the last of the Greats, the first Modernist”. Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746-1828) plied his painterly trade like most of his peers, garnering the favor of the rich and power- ful. But he had a secret life, pursuing his obsession with the weird and occult. In the graphic biography ! Goya: The Terrible Sublime (Pegasus), writer El Torres and artist Fran Galan recast the artist’s struggle with his demons as a literal battle with unearthly forces. His only true ally is the Duchess of Alba. Despite her high-born station, she is haunted by the same mob of brujas as Goya. As deafness and disease ravage him, Goya follows his muse to the bitter end, where he discovers the true leader of the witches. Available at all locations, The Terrible Sublime will thrill fans of both historicals and horror. Speaking of which, Marijuana was the daily sacrament of the tral and Eastside. Thievery is but one of the counter-culture of the 1960s. It played a multitude of crimes perpetrated by the nihil- central part in underground comics, whose istic namesake of The Wrath of Fantomas characters were either users or dealers. The (Titan). A French sensation in the early 20th other side of the story, sordid sagas of the Century, “the Lord of Evil” set the standard “assassin of youth,” had been told years for super-villains (and more than a few he- before in the pages of pre-Code crime and roes) to come. Olivier Bouquet’s script is romance comics. Bug-eyed reefer addicts as wickedly inventive as the original novels; and good middle class girls led astray by jazz the blood-smeared art of Julie Rocheleau and “pod” fell afoul of the law and paid the is a mad mix of mood and mayhem. The price for trifling with “the weed with roots in figure of hooded menace influenced not just hell”. Now those archivists of the obscure at literature, but sport. Specifically, the King of Yoe! Books have compiled another Best of Sports, professional wrestling! Masked men the Worst in Reefer Madness. Available from such as El Santo, Dr. X and the Super Central and Northside, this gloriously lurid Destroyer played both the face (hero) and tome reprints not just work from comic books the heel (villain) in the squared circle. The like Sweethearts and Racket Squad in Ac- complicated history of this perennially popu- tion, but also daily comic strip continuities. lar and controversial art form is detailed in The rural dramedy Abbie & Slats confronts The Comic Book Story of Professional Wres- the infiltration of “banzai weed” into Crabtree tling (Ten Speed Press). It’s a well-drawn, Corners while Rex Morgan MD deals with well-written, well-researched book that ex- Teen-Age Dope Slaves (the comic book ver- poses not just wrestling’s past, but its future sion of which goes for almost $2000). in indie, transnational and women’s wres- There’s also examples of the freebie comics Doctor of Horror is the third and last of Fanta- tling. “Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels digs given away in schools and churches to warn graphic’s EC Artists Series dedicated to “Ghastly” it, so go to lexpublib.org to reserve it today! Graham Ingels.