I Forgot Altergott

Mea culpa. You know what? In all my apple polishing of cartoonists I admire, I’ve never mentioned Rick Altergott. What the fuck.

I even saw Altergott in person, at a MOCCA Festival years ago. I didn’t approach him, because his abilities as a cartoonist scare the bejeezus out of me. He’s got the touch that the old MAD guys had. He’s not only a caricaturist on par with Mort Drucker, he’s an inker like Wally Wood, with the gift for rendering faces and objects as though they exist in actual space. 

Good ol’ Rick Altergott. HOW I HATE HIM! (from HATE Jamboree, 1998.)

At this same festival, I briefly passed Ariel Bordeaux, Rick’s wife (also a cartoonist). It is impolite, ungentlemanly, and nothing but humiliating to remark upon the overwhelming desirability of another man’s woman. Goddamnit I hate Rick Altergott. I HATE HIM!!!

No no, that’s not true. That’s envy talking. Altergott contributed many Doofus strips to the latter half of Peter Bagge’s Hate, one of the most important and influential comical books ever. These pages contained jaw-dropping art, wonderfully sick humor, and gags of the type you once could find in Hustler. Altergott carried the flag woven by Kurtzman’s Little Annie Fanny, in spirit. I mean HE SUCKS!!! I HATE HIM!!!

SORRY! Sorry. Of course I don’t hate him, or wish I could assume his powers. What you’re seeing here is the dark, resentful side of professional respect. Altergott is Tom Hulce as Amadeus, and I am F. Murray Abraham as Salieri. It wasn’t Doofus laughing at me: IT WAS GOD!!!

Altergott has the kind of preternatural talent that leads people to concoct crazy theories, for example, that he is actually cartoonist Daniel Clowes. No. We are actually fortunate enough to live in a world with both Clowes and Altergott. Chris Ware too. As a matter of fact, I don’t know why I complain about the state of comics so much.

This is why my forgetting of Altergott is such a grievous oversight. He has the Definitive Jizz. My first impulse upon seeing his comics is not to study them, but to throw my hands up in defeat. He’s alive, thankfully, so I’d just be “swiping”. If he were dead, I could properly appropriate his techniques without looking like a thunder-stealer. (DO NOT KILL HIM.)

Like Tony Millionaire and Jim Blanchard, Altergott is a wizard with ink; his pages are dark delights into which you wish you could dive. Altergott uses Zip-A-Tone, too, adding that extra newsprint oomph, in the form of dotted greys and grades. One can only create this sort of comic kismet after being weaned on classic Playboy and National Lampoon. It does not spring from a vacuum. It comes from reading materials you had to hide as a child.

JESUS CHRIST!!!

A cartoonist has two basic ways of plying their craft.

1. Render characters out of pen marks and lines (Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Smith, Dilbert, early Doonesbury)
2. Render characters fully as though they exist in three-dimensional space (Mary Worth, Prince Valiant, later Doonesbury)

Think of one as “Economy” and two as “Deluxe”. Economy came to greater prominence due to its speed, and readability at smaller sizes. However, an artist who embraces an Economical style will not grow beyond that style, unless they do so outside of their strip. Many cartoonists break from this rigidity by becoming excellent painters; composition-wise, it’s a healthy lateral leap. Otherwise, they’re locked in, forever.

Deluxe, on the other hand, takes time, practice, and skill. But the thing about Deluxe is, readers never throw it out. They pass it on for generations as a precious object. Look at any beloved black-and-white comix page from the 60s to the 80s. It appeals to the average Joe’s love of fine art, in an approachable manner. Even guys who don’t regularly bathe treat them like Faberge eggs. That’s what I love about comix; that indefinable, universal magnetism.

That’s why I shoulda brought up Rick Altergott before now, but what can I say.

I’m a doofus.