Random Thoughts

X by Sue Coe with Judith Moore and Art Spiegelman (158x236mm)

Sue Coe had previously illustrated How to Commit Suicide in South Africa, but this is also written by her.

From the title you may have guessed that this book is about Malcolm X… but most of Coe’s pages don’t touch directly upon him.

But we get a historical overview and contextualisation of Malcolm X’s life by Judith Moore — about a quarter of the pages in this book. It’s an interesting overview. Not much of this was news to me, but it’s a good read.

The final Coe pages do refer to X more directly.

I enjoy Coe’s artwork enormously.

And the ending certainly packs an emotional wallop.

The book was reprinted in 1992 — I’m not sure who the publisher was.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Chemical Imbalance #6 edited by Mike McGonigal (200x267mm)

What’s this then? Isn’t this a blog series about punk comics, not punk music? Yes, but I’d thought it’d be fun to take a look at some of the more prominent zines of the time and see what’s up. So I went ebaying, and this was the earliest copy of Chemical Imbalance I could find. (The zine apparently started in 84.)

It includes a 7″ single which is why everybody bought this 98 page magazine, allegedly. (I’m listening to the single while reading the zine.)

It’s very much got that “well, I’m gonna say that this sucks before anybody else gets a chance to” teenage kinda pose, which I like.

There’s a surprising amount of comics in here, like this Ben Jackson thing that looks very much like … a cross between Maus and Krazy Kat. There’s more than a dozen pages of comics, so I wonder whether they were paying the contributors? Or whether people were just sending them stuff?

The most surprising find in here is this five pager attributed to The Fuk Boys, which is Matt Groening and Gary Panter. I’m just gonna go ahead and include all five pages here, because I’ve never seen this stuff before, and it’s kinda interesting:

Pretty wild, eh? I’m not sure I would have guessed that it’s really by them — some of the rendering things look slightly Panterish… but only very slightly.

The reason this is printed here is because Groening is interviewed. I’m not gonna include the entirety of that here, but it’s an interesting interview. Groening touches upon being inspired by Lynda Barry, hanging out with Gary Panter, appearing in the same student newspaper as Charles Burns, and starting to work on the Tracey Ullman show:

And not doing drugs.

Heh. That’s a nice Jimbo/Bongo drawring.

There’s also cartoonists here that I’ve never heard of, like Ion?

But I mean, this is a music zine, so it’s mostly interviews with musicians and snippy reviews of albums.

Heh. I can’t remember reading this Drew Friedman page before? But it’s been decades since I read that Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental book.

And I did not know that about Hattie McDaniel and Tallulah Bankhead.

That has to be Jim Woodring, but it’s uncredited.

Finally, we get a nine page portfolio of gorgeous comics from Carel Moiseiwitsch (and she also did the stunning two colour cover).

I am just flabbergasted at how good this magazine is, and I had never heard of it before I started doing this blog series. The articles are interesting, well written and frequently quite amusing. And the comics selection is outstanding.

I want to track down all the issues, but I really shouldn’t.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Mark Beyer screenprint.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.

Corpsemeat 2 edited by Savage Pencil (300x405mm)

This is a huge, all-screenprinted 24 page extravaganza — the printing is really superb.

And since it’s screenprinted, they’ve helpfully included sheets of paper in between all the pages to keep the pages from melding into each other, as paint has a tendency to do.

About half the book is by Savage Pencil (and various writers, like Alan Moore under the Curt Vile name), and… it’s…. it’s Savage Pencil doing hyper-violent horror pastiches. It’s not quite Mike Diana territory, but it’s getting there.

But those are British people, and this is a blog series about US comics, and the reason I’m including it is because of this amazeballs centrespread by Gary Panter…

… and four fantastic pages by Mark Beyer. And one of the inks on these pages is bronze.

This was made in edition of 300, and it must have taken so much work to do — there’s so many screenprinting layers, and it’s so well printed. (Some of the Savage Pencil pages only have a couple of paints, though.)

There was apparently a different edition of Corpsemeat #2? With… Peter Bagge and Rory Hayes?

Very confusing. The cover is a similar idea, but it’s different (beyond being in black and white).

The inner pages look like they’re the same. Only in black and white.

This blog post is part of the Punk Comix series.