Well all right, here we are again.
It’s Joe McCulloch on the case of Shonen Jump. Also, new comics.
Chris Mautner on six under-appreciated anthologies. I still think Weirdo is underrated. I mean, the letter columns alone… so good.
Joe and Chris would also like it if you’d listen to them talk about comics. Reading is for dummies.
Ben Katchor’s new book collects his vibrant and funny strips for the architecture magazine Metropolis. And the linked-to article drops the bomb that Katchor draws digitally now. That’s funny and great for all the reasons you’re thinking of right now.
Richard Sala has wound down a gorgeous series of drawings.
And in random Twitter news, William Gibson on Katushiro Otomo is a good thing:
Didn’t Spiegelman put down “Weirdo” at one point in time? Or at least in the early 80s? Which in retrospect is odd considering how many artists they shared in common in one form or the other:
Drew Friedman
Robert Crumb
Kaz
Mark Newgarden
Art Spiegelman
S. Clay Wilson
Bill Griffith
Charles Burns
Justin Green
Kim Deitch
Christian Roux (Cathy Millet)
So yes, in short “Weirdo” was probably not as bad as some people probably think it was. Conversely, RAW vol. 1 is probably overrated to at least some degree. Except for “Red Flowers,” of course.
The Weirdo faction was more likely to agitate against RAW than vice versa.
Reading The Best of Punk Magazine (John Holmstrom) recently, I noticed that one of the reprinted items was a letter from R. Crumb. IIRC Crumb has spoken about how through the influence of Peter Bagge’ (et al) he actually felt somewhat energized by the punk rock movement. But perhaps he was more influenced by Punk Magazine than the actual music. In certain ways, early issues of WEIRDO seem to show its influence, for example the hand-lettered editorials/LOCs, and in particular, the photo funnies (much hated by some, though not me). It seems as if Crumb had as little interest in respectability then as now and wanted to keep things somewhat fun and vulgar, whereas RAW seemed to aspire to loftier heights. They were both great magazines.
It was just that highfalutin Gummo Bubbleman was such an easy target. It was all harmless jousting.