FLOG! Entries tagged 'Al Floogleman'

Things to See: 6/27/11 Roundup

mike

• A gallery of Lorenzo Mattotti's recent cover illustrations for Internazionale's annual fiction (I think) issue

• Renee French's cute guy with awful infestation and cute guy with jaunty hat

• Sergio Ponchione sure does great dedication sketches — here's a recent batch

• Drew Friedman presents the history of the Barfo Family, complete with concept art by himself, Art Spiegelman and Mark Newgarden

• Illos by Tim Lane for The New York Times and The Progressive

• Steve Brodner's illustration for a New Yorker article on racial tensions in the UK

• Richard Sala's newlyweds and Babes on Broadway

• Jason gets sexy with his lone attempt at cheesecake circa 1988 and a Prince illustration from the same time period — plus more teenage sketches at The Old Cat and the Dog

• Watch Lilli Carré's dancing lady in animated-GIF action

• Leslie Stein wraps up the last page of Eye of the Majestic Creature issue 5, which picks up where the book leaves off

• It's the return of Steven Weissman's Tiny Joe & Junior! Plus his latest "I, Anonymous " spot

• Noah Van Sciver presents "The True Tale of the Denver Spider Man," his story from Mome Vol. 15

• Sketchbook drawings & comics by Anders Nilsen

RAW materal: Charles Burns, Sub Pop & Spiegelman.

LarryR

My longtime friend Bruce Pavitt has been contemplating purging himself of some material possessions for a few years now. (As an obsessive collector myself, I appreciate the impulse.) We recently concluded that the Charles Burns event on October 30 would provide an ideal opportunity to find new homes for a few of his amazing artifacts. As the founder of Seattle's storied Sub Pop record label, his collection is impressive, to say the least. You might want to shield your eyes to for protection from the brilliance that's below.

Many people are unaware that Bruce Pavitt created Subterranean Pop as a fanzine while an undergraduate at Evergreen State College in 1980. A year later he shortened the name to Sub Pop and released issue number 5 as a cassette and mini-zine so readers could hear the music being discussed. The dozen tracks included Steve Fisk, Pell Mell, Cool Rays (Calvin Johnson’s pre-Beat Happening project), and perhaps most interestingly, “Reagan Speaks for Himself” by Seattle sound artist Doug Kahn. Pavitt recruited Evergreen alum Charles Burns to do the cover. This issue of Sub Pop was the direct predecessor to the celebrated record label.

The original Charles Burns artwork for this cassette zine will be offered in a silent auction during the Burns exhibition with a reserve bid of $1,000. (The original Burns artwork for the Sub Pop 200 LP sold 8 years ago for several times this amount to EMP, the music museum founded by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen.) Bids will be accepted through the run of the Burns exhibition, October 30 through December 6.

Pavitt is also offering his collection of pristine copies of Art Spiegelman’s RAW magazine. These coveted oversize issues included bound-in copies of Maus and other extras, including the aforementioned Doug Kahn recording from Sub Pop 5 as a bound-in sound sheet (almost never found intact in RAW #4.) It’s worth noting that RAW #4 was delayed because the conservative owners of Eva-Tone Soundsheets, the only domestic publisher of flexi-discs, refused to press Kahn’s piece, and Speigelman was forced to press the disc in Holland.

As Pavitt was showing me this sterling stash of RAWs, out fluttered a long-forgotten letter. In it, Spiegelman compliments Pavitt on Sub Pop 5, mentions a Burns story in forthcoming RAW #4 — but fails to mention Burns’ die-cut cover — and informs him of Doug Kahn’s inclusion.

I found it fairly astonishing that these two visionaries were collaborating on this level as far back as 1981. Who would’ve thought that a decade later, Spiegelman would be honored with a Pulitzer Prize for Maus, forever altering the comix idiom, and Pavitt would launch the alternative rock genre, penetrating pop culture globally? I was sort of stunned by this document. And in the midst of all this we find Charles Burns.

The letter was penned on the back of a proof of Spiegelman’s art for the German edition of DEAD MEN ALL HAVE THE SAME SKIN, which I’d never seen. I find it somehow unsettling to see German language on Spiegelman’s work from this era, given the content of the contemporaneous MAUS.

All 8 near mint copies of the RAW, the Pavitt-Spiegelman document, RAW one shots by Sue Coe and Burns' BIG BABY: Curse of the Molemen, and related ephemera will also be offered at silent auction with a reserve bid of $1,000 through December 6. They will be on display at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery for the run of Charles Burns X’ED OUT exhibition October 30 – December 6.

(Click image to enlarge.)

For more information or to register bids on the framed Charles Burns original Sub Pop 5 illustration or the RAW magazine lot, call Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery curator Larry Reid at 206.658.0110 during business hours.

Now on TCJ.com: Huizenga/Spiegelman

mike

Speaking of Kevin Huizenga, his conversation with Art Spiegelman (moderated by Gary Groth) from The Comics Journal #300 is now available to read on the new TCJ.com website (about which more later).

VIVA LA COMIX

jmiles

From ARCADE #4 , winter 1975, edited Al Floogleman & Griffy

"Your violent thrashings stir me. From where are you people pulling the energy? It's a great trick, awareness and buoyancy. Yours is still the art 'that knows not its name,' down and dangerous, some of the only art around still life-impelled beyond its theory (that's decadence). There's a lot of dada ghosts riding their hopes on you; stay as unregenerate as you are."

- Ken Jacobs

Six years ago I believed the above quote was just as relevant in 2003 as it probably was in 1975 to what was once commonly refered to as "Underground Comix" and then later commonly referred to as "Alternative Comics."