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Underground Comix

Started by EggsAckley,

199 posts in this topic

comicgrinder

comicgrinder

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This is a little off topic, but I am new here. I am wondering if anyone has heard of John T. Bergerud? He put out a book of complete original sketches from page 1 to page 47 called Black Dominion published by Anubis press. This sketch book hosted a number of different artist of sexual s & m nature.

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crawdad

crawdad

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I would also take the Zap #1 cover over almost anything else Crumb did, though the back cover of Zap #0 has always been my favorite single page (since my mom did throw my comics out when I was 9 or 10 years old).

 

Yeah, same thing happened to me (the bc of Zap #0), more than once, actually... my mom burned my comic books in front of me...

watching Fantastic Four #4 (the yellow cover with Sub-Mariner) being incinerated in the stove top burner...

hoping somehow the flames would stop and reverse the damage...

a sicker feeling is hard to recall!

 

The front cover to Zap #2 made a bigger impression on me (in '69) than the Zap 1 or 0 fc... and tho I studied the Cheap Thrills lp cover at the time, certain panels of it were more interesting than others... I don't know, it is great of course.

 

The front cover of Big As_ #1 was pretty impressive on first arrival - those garish deep purple glossy colors (the fresh smell of the printed ink was a high in itself!).

 

I went to the recent ('07) Crumb OA show at YBCA -

I'd seen Crumb exhibits before, namely the one in '72 at the Brannan Gallery (great one because it displayed a bunch of the hand-colored pieces Crumb did with felt-tip pens, still fresh and bright) and the '87 Modernism Gallery show with Crumb in attendance (correct me if the dates are wrong) -

the YBCA show was jaw-dropping, drool-cup spilling eye candy.

I was amazed at the variety and vintage of the art.

 

The covers to Snatch #2 and #1 (I think they had #1 there), a lot of the early covers and stories ("Meatball", East Village Other, even colored pencil Arcade covers from I think the Marty Pahls collection)...

it was overwhelming!

 

 

 

 

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crawdad

crawdad

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When I was collecting comics back in the 60's few people really took notice of original art. In 1971 I took a table at a NY convention to raise a few bucks and remember one dealer with a table piled high with original art from Tower comics. It was all priced at $5 per page(lots of Wally Wood). If I only had a time machine...every collector's dream.

 

True... the time machine...

 

At the 1973 Berkeley Comic Con, I ran into a guy wandering around with stuff to trade... he wanted my "Sad Book", by Crumb published by the American greeting card company (as I recall), but it wasn't enough to get a page of original Crumb art he had (on blue paper, 8 x 11) in black ink, no words or title but it was a finished cover-type piece that I've never seen again.

 

I can barely remember what it looked like, I think it was a little like the Carload of Comics cover, of earlier vintage than 1973 but after Zap 1...

perhaps there were several characters in a car or truck...

it's hard to say - does it ring a bell?

 

The guy with the page was butter-fingers - he traded me some ECs or something for the Sad Book and something else I had, then vanished... hours later I found the Sad Book in my stack (I was wandering around with stuff too) - he forgot to get it or gave it back inadvertantly.

 

I've since wondered if he somehow lost that piece of Crumb art - he didn't come across as well organised, it may well be lost to the ages.

 

Anyways, I never thought about original art until I saw Greg Irons finish the splash to "Raw War" at his easel or watching guys like Spain, Shelton, Hayes and Griffin bringing their new pages to show Gary Arlington or Bill Blackbeard.

 

 

 

 

 

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EggsAckley

EggsAckley

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I had the pleasure of meeting Marty Pahls in 1980 at his apartment in San Francisco in the Haight. He was kind of sickly at the time and showed me a boxful of stuff including Arcades from his childhood. Can't remember how we originally contacted each other (I was in Philly at the time) but he needed a copy of Myron Moose #2 which I had a duplicate of. Later he sent me a Crumb original of a 60's greeting card that I still have to this day. Just did for no reason other than he knew I was a fan of his friend. That was the 60's hippie mentality, maybe it was because I gave him the MM #2 for free? Who knows?

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crawdad

crawdad

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The hippie mentality still lives!...

Cyril Jordan (Flamin Groovies gtr. and 1 time Gladstone cover artist, "Mickey Mouse in The World of Tomorrow") recently gave me Myron Moose #1 - and I didn't even want it!

 

Rory Hayes showed me a little drugstore around the corner from the SF Comic Book Co. (in '69) that still had a lot of the American Greeting cards by Crumb, so I bought about 10 different ones.

 

There was a gum card dispenser near the store in the Mission district that still coughed up Crumb's Topps cards (but no gum or wrappers) in '69...

 

btw, 50 Cent put a link in this thread to some comments Jay Lynch made about the ditto comix I put out in '69-'70 with art by Rory, Jayzey & Art Spiegelman.

 

Thanks! I just saw the link the other night, I would have missed it otherwise.

 

The first original underground art I ever got was by Rory.

 

The last time I saw him was by chance, at a Haight Ashbury soup kitchen around 1984... it had been at least 13 years since I last saw him ('71)...

we said hello but I didn't think to follow up... and then I never saw him again.

 

 

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EggsAckley

EggsAckley

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Rory Hayes rocks. I own a CGC 9.8 of C*NT which came from Don Donahue's stash. By the way, the greeting card Marty sent me was the original art to the card, not the card. I wonder how many cards Crumb did for American Greetings? I don't recall any published checklist ever coming out.

 

Jay Lynch was a pleasure speaking to over the phone. I think his great contribution to the underground comix movement is sometimes overlooked. He told me he sold his originals to one collector years ago. I would have loved to have an original Nard N Pat published page. He will do a commissioned new one for a reasonable fee though.

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crawdad

crawdad

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I'd guess there were at least 20 different Crumb greeting cards, who can say for sure.

Is the original art of the card done with watercolor or color seperation?

 

The day I bought The Sad Book, Rory bought one too, from that same little store 'round the corner.. the last 2 copies. He told me it was there.

 

He was a really nice guy, Cyril was his child's godfather...

 

It's weird we can't even spell out the name of his sex comic. America is more repressed than ever, kinda sorta.

 

 

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