This year represents a personal milestone for me, in that I have now been creating and self-publishing my own comics for thirty years.
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The Thirty Year Niche
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Magazine Rack, Site Stuff
Signature Moves
Why is Walt Disney’s signature on Star Wars?
Look, kids! Vague, controllable versions of things you love! Signed by a corpse who had no part in any of it! BUY BUY BUY!!!
Not just his name; his signature. As though he was the architect of its design. Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, right? Tinkerbell, sparkly glitter, and magic castles. Horrible TV-movies every Sunday. That’s Walt Disney. Around 1980, I was into Star Wars to get away from all that corny shit.
Now you’re telling me it’s Walt Disney’s property?
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Thatch
Do you still read comic strips? If so, where?
If you read them in a metropolitan newspaper, you are reading syndicated comic strips. This is the traditional method by which comic strips are published. Syndicated cartoonists can make big bucks because they get a fee for every different newspaper they appear in, and then there’s the merchandising. Seventy years ago, it was not uncommon to see syndicated cartoonists living large alongside movie stars. They were feted as a new style of raconteur. At his peak, the artist of Dick Tracy got a shiny new Cadillac, every year. Syndication is the ultimate goal of the working cartoonist. Continue reading
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Oingo Boingo
Hey, you know when depicting any female consort in a comic strip is a good idea? Never. You know who wants to read comics about you and your spouse (if you have one), past or present? No one. Other than yourself, do you know who thinks comics about your relationships are funny? Nobody. (Now, putting buddies in strips? Gold. Who doesn’t love that?) Continue reading
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That ’90s Comic Book
No, not Peter Bagge’s HATE. I mean that ’90s comic book you’ve never heard of.
A short-lived little funnybook called DROP DEAD, which any fool could see was inspired by Bagge’s neat stuff. Some kid who called himself Matty Boy Anderson was barely out of high school when he started cranking out copies, and timidly mailing them to review periodicals like Factsheet Five, and cartoonists he admired, such as Bagge, Roy (Trailer Trash) Tompkins, and Evan Dorkin.
It began in 1993, when self-publishing meant a trip to Kinko’s. The black & white interior was cheap to print (and fun to huff), but full-color covers were expensive. So typically an office color-copier was secretly abused for free, someplace prior. With a book stapler, you were all set to collate and fold your comix. This is the way it was done. Plus, not sinking your life savings into a print run left you more open to trading, which is also the way it was done. When you submitted your publication to Factsheet Five, you indicated whether trades were welcome. If you did, you found yourself with quite a “zine” collection, very rapidly.
It was actually pretty grand. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Late To The Party, Magazine Rack
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