Recommended Books On Comics, Comic Art & Collecting

[esquirecomics]

I am posting this thread in the GA section even though it doesn't solely apply to that time period in order to engender more intellectual discussion. Of course, if we post a book in this section it should have some connection to GA.

 

I have started collecting whatever books I can find about comic books. Every once and awhile we have had a thread about one particular book or another, or a book has been mentioned in passing in a thread. I thought it was time to have a dedicated thread on the topic so that we can discuss some great books and recommend them to others.

 

I just picked this one up on e-bay recently. A WEALTH of great material (text and images).

 

 

It was published in 1975, and covers Original Art and the Sunday Pages; Comic Books; Comic-Character Toys; Comic-Character Timepieces; Buck Rogers in the 25th Century - the Fabulous Fantasy; Comic Insert Cards; and the Decoders and their Manuals.

 

Anyone have any idea what happened to Lesser, who is described as the "owner of the most comprehensive and unusual collection of Amercan comic art and memorabilia in the world". He would only be around 70 today, and has apparently been quite active in collecting many things as this NYT's 2003 article relates.

 

The New York Times

 

June 13, 2003 Friday

 

An American Vision Far From Apple Pie

 

BYLINE: By ROBERTA SMITH

 

The Brooklyn Museum's "Pulp Art: Vamps, Villains and Victors From the Robert Lesser Collection" is an underdone show of overheated art. It suffers from an installation that is both hokey and murky, accompanied by a display of pulp-related contemporary art that could have been more substantial.

 

Still, "Pulp Art" is essential viewing for anyone interested in American popular culture past or present. And for some it may also serve as a slyly invigorating antidote to the Guggenheim's recent display of Norman Rockwell's pallid paintings.

 

This is the second Brooklyn Museum show to come from the holdings of Robert Lesser, a retired broker of electric-signage contracts, and the author of four Off-Off Broadway plays, who seems to be foremost an evangelist of popular culture. His collection of space toys and robots was exhibited in 2000.

 

Mr. Lessing has written an informative, if sometimes histrionic, book on his pulp art collection, which the cash-short Brooklyn Museum is using as a catalog. In it he argues aggressively that American democracy created a "Cultural Anarchy" that grants all citizens "the political permission to be pleased" by anything they choose, despite the dictates of "Tyrants of Taste." He rails against the neglect and widespread destruction of pulp-art paintings and claims as their precursors what he calls the pulp art of Breugel, Tintoretto, Durer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Manet and Hogarth.

 

The gaudy, smallish pulp paintings that Mr. Lesser has collected were churned out by forgotten journeymen artists for reproduction on the covers of the immensely popular pulp fiction magazines that ruled the newsstands between the world wars. These monthly magazines emanated from publishing houses centered, along with their printers, on Madison and Lexington Avenues in Midtown Manhattan. Their ascent paralleled the increase in cheap paper stock (hence the name), low-cost shipping and the reliability of the United States postal service.

 

The survival rate of this cover art has not been high: unvalued by publishers and artists alike, the originals tended to be discarded immediately after use, or later, when businesses closed or buildings changed hands.

 

These paintings were, as Bessie Smith might say, built for speed. Their vivid scenes telegraphed the latest travails of sharp-jawed heroes, voluptuous women in scanty or torn garments and sundry bad guys and monsters. They were designed to out-rivet the newsstand competition and, like much television today, were aimed primarily at young white males.

 

The art signaled escapist reading in several genres: mystery, horror, western, air-war, romance or science fiction. Heroes included Doc Savage, the Spider, Tarzan and the Shadow, while villains and plots frequently reflected prevailing fads or anxieties centering on other cultures. The discovery of King Tut's tomb, the rise of the Nazis and the threat of war with Japan all register in these images. Aliens from outer space tended to be depicted more sympathetically than those from Asia, as shown in the section of the exhibition euphemistically titled "Struggling With Diversity."

 

Both formally and thematically, pulp art gave vent to the dark, violent, libidinous underbelly of the American psyche -- to the same degree that Rockwell's paintings blessed its wholesome, repressed, preternaturally sunny side. Both visions were fantasies gauged to deep-seated needs; both leaned heavily on sexual stereotypes; both were at their apex in the 1930's and 40's when men wore hats and women were wanton or just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the show, a section titled "Women in Peril" is countered by one called "Women Fighting Back." In his book, Mr. Lesser seems to cast the swing vote when he writes, "Pulp art is hard whiskey: men's art fueled on testosterone."

 

Not unexpectedly, the pulp paintings have a juiciness that Rockwell disdained. They are certainly more fun to look at. They go for the jugular.Their surfaces flutter with bravura flourishes. Their action is extreme and simple: one image -- call it anti-Rockwell -- depicts a sweet-faced grandmother sewing a young man's lips together. Colors are radiant and pure; copious amounts of red, usually seconded by yellow and black, seem to have been de rigueur.

 

The show's problems include an irritatingly dark, noir-style installation; its narrow corridorlike spaces seem intended to conjure up a dark alley and or a tunnel in the Mummy's tomb. The double and triple hanging of the works and their uniform matting under glass further increase the viewing challenge.

 

But there are some wonderful moments. One is provided by George Rozen's handsomely Semitic rendition of the Shadow with his black fedora, red-lined cape, undulating eyebrows and skulking poses. Rafael de Soto's unusual compositions tend to stand out, like an image from Detective Tales magazine in which a snarling man with crossed arms fires a gun with one hand while struggling to jam shut the door of a small bus-station locker with the other. His only problem is a third hand, slim and pale with an impeccable manicure, protruding from the locker.

 

The air-war pulps, which gave artists more options in terms of space, scale and exploding forms, often have terrific dash, especially the aerial dramas by Rozen, Rudolph Belarski and Frederick Blakeslee. (Blakeslee's "Red Wings for Vengeance" of 1938 might as well be a still from Steven Spielberg's adventure fantasies.

 

The show's one real discovery is Frank R. Paul, an Austrian-born artist who specialized in science-fiction illustrations. Paul worked in a style that was all his own, creating fantasy cities that resemble big pieces of jewelry. His surfaces are more restrained, his men relatively unmuscled, even slightly Victorian in stature and demeanor. His 1932 illustration for "The Vanguard to the Neptune" in Wonder Stories Quarterly shows two men watching in horror while a third is devoured by an enormous red flower that suggests an extremely happy Venus Flytrap. Calling Dr. Freud and Henry Darger.

 

You need be only minimally sentient to get the show's main point: in the great chain of American popular culture, pulp fiction and pulp art form a multifunctional link. They connect to science fiction and great mystery writing, to comic books and television serials. They cross-fertilized with radio shows (some of which are played in the galleries) and film noir of both A and B levels; and they continue to influence Hollywood.

 

Without all this, Pop Art, which may be the greatest pulp art, would not have been the same; nor would 1980's appropriation art, when David Salle found a way to make pulp art new again and Walter Robinson (now editor of Artnet.com) tenderly emulated it. Neither artist is in Ms. Pasternak's closing section, although Cindy Sherman, Gregory Crewdson and Alexis Rockman are.

 

Whether its influential legacy makes pulp art great art is another question. While bright and energetic, the paintings become formulaic and repetitious in bulk; after a while too many of them start to look too much alike. Personal expression and depth were not goals, nor was formal invention or originality -- all are as necessary in popular art as any other kind.

 

Perhaps pulp art did begin, as Mr. Lesser writes, with Bruegel, Tintoretto, Hogarth and the others. But this would also suggest that the artists he adores perpetuated, adapted and heated to the boiling point -- especially through color -- a received style already diluted by generations of use. This is part of its instant legibility.

 

Unlike the Abstract Expressionists, whom Mr. Lesser chides for working for the W.P.A. instead of being forced to earn their living (like real men, is the implication), the pulp artists chose immediate rewards and popularity over making something new. These options are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as attested by thousands of cherished popular songs, movies and posters. But Cultural Anarchy is the right word for the contentious mix of talents, goals and achievements within which pulp art, and much more, flourished.

 

"Pulp Art: Vamps, Villains and Victors From the Robert Lesser Collection" is at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, 200 Eastern Parkway, at Prospect Park, (718) 638-5000, through Aug. 31.

[esquirecomics]

Although I don't have time to address them tonight, other books to be discussed include:

 

The Gerber Guides (we don't even really need to say anything here)

Men of Tomorrow (already discussed last year)

Comic Book Nation

Seduction of the Innocent

The Comic Book Makers

Seal of Approval

Baby Boomer Comics

[Point Five]

Nice thread, Mark! Looking forward...

 

I am posting this thread in the GA section even though it doesn't solely apply to that time period in order to engender more intellectual discussion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[esquirecomics]

 

Bueller, Bueller? Anyone, anyone?

[esquirecomics]

This is a fascinating book on the early history. #906 of #1150, signed by the author.

 

[showcase4]

...not a book per se, but if you read enough back issues of CBM, you'll see there have been many great articles and historical references by many knowledgable contributors. I have found this diversity of opinions to be very helpful, as no one single agenda or mindset is promoted. As many of us saw in the Obadiah Oldbuck vs. Superman thread from last year, 10 different people can have 10 differing opinions on what is, and what is not.....therefore, I prefer reading periodicals/books that draw from many different authors/sources vs.one. Here is a key issue of CBM from 1996:

 

 

[*paull*]

The Steranko History of Comics, Volumes 1 and 2 are must-reads for any golden age comic book fan.

[selegue]

Has anyone recommended this book yet? I think that it came up on another thread. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The commentary itself was only fair and needed an editor, but the choice of artists and the reprints themselves were wonderful. (Unfortunately, I literally needed a magnifying glass to read some of the reprints.)

 

 

Art Out of Time

 

Jack

 

 

Although I don't have time to address them tonight, other books to be discussed include:

 

The Gerber Guides (we don't even really need to say anything here)

Men of Tomorrow (already discussed last year)

Comic Book Nation

Seduction of the Innocent

The Comic Book Makers

Seal of Approval

Baby Boomer Comics

[esquirecomics]

A very interesting book I picked up that discusses the history of the Comic Code Authority.

 

[Kent Meredith]

You're familiar with POP and LOVE & DEATH I'm sure, but have you seen Kent Worcester's ARGUING COMICS?

 

It's a superb compendium of articles - many long out of print - including writing by Legman and others.

 

It should be currently available, and has a great bibliography to help you hunt down his source material. (But even KentW doesn't have a Parade of Pleasure!)

 

I'm eagerly anticipating Danny Fingeroth's latest (on Jewish identity and early comics), which should prove a superb and compelling expansion - & perhaps partial refutation - on one of the central themes of Men of Tomorrow, a book which some found controversial, some deeply moving.

 

I also strongly recommend all of Wertham's OTHER books, as they offer insight into a man of great character, if flawed judgement re: popular culture.

[spider9698]

Great thread. Made me pick up the Lesser and Wooley books on abebooks.com.

Thanks

S

 

[Socratic Wonder]

Here is my beat up copy of Seduction of the Innocent -

 

[Ze-man]

So many wonderful books , so little time.

 

I do not understand how you guys find the time to actually read these.

 

No kids, right?

 

*insert poking with a stick graemlin*

 

Kenny

 

 

[Kent Meredith]

This is one of Wertham's best:

 

 

One of his last books, it discusses select histories of violence and the underlying impulses and antidotes thereto.

 

Dry stuff - as always - and as with almost all his books, he touches on the influence of popular culture, including comics.

 

As discussed in MEN OF TOMORROW, It's ironic thast he's best known for perhaps his worst book (SOTI), written on a topic he neither understood nor appreciated, but rather disdained, along with film and other pop phenomena.

 

As MoT notes, he of course came around somewhat is his famous study of zine culture, noting the positive effects of fellowship such as we seek here.

[Kent Meredith]

And this is perhaps the non-SOTI Wertham book of most interest to comic collectors:

 

 

Written from Wertham's leftist perspective, it's a journey through one boy's life-changing act of violence, and proposes a number of root causes.

 

There is almost an entire chapter on what this young man calls "the creeps" (comic books) as well as illustrations from comics of the time (the 50's) and the young man's drawing of Superman.

 

Compelling and (with the exception of a chapter on the history of oppression in Puerto Rico) almost a page-turner.

 

It's another perspective on Wertham as a (dryly) compassionate figure striving for what he believes is best for the young and dispossessed.

 

Even if you disagree with his conclusions, his intentions are inspiring.

[Kent Meredith]

Less recommended:

 

 

Great jacket design, but Wetham struggles here to find a voice he's comfortable with.

 

And along with SHOW OF VIOLENCE, nothing on comics.

[Kent Meredith]

The aforementioned, not recommended book:

 

 

A SIGN FOR CAIN is better & more mature.

 

But it's all dryer than a martini in the Mojave!

[esquirecomics]

Finally got around to scanning in some more comic "books". Here are some others that I would recommend for your collection.

 

This one is a classic:

 

[esquirecomics]

[esquirecomics]

An early attempt at competition to OS.