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Visual White Noise on Paper: “Mome” is the word.

To be completely honest I bought these issues of “Mome” because Al Columbia had work in them, and for no other reason, that being said the comics and art in the rest of these issues is pretty damn good. “Mome” was edited by Gary Groth and featured cartoonists that were new to the game, with a few old school hands on deck. “Mome’s” content is varied but the same themes seem to repeat themselves in each issue, mainly dealing in philosophy, dreams, imagination and some autobiographical stuff thrown in. Gary interviews a different artist in each issue. I have five of them, all featuring some of Al Columbia’s work but I will go through them one by one and give some highlights not a run down of every story in each issue.

“Mome” issue 7, Spring 2007 is the first issue featuring the illusive Al Columbia’s work, its a series a of pieces titled “Chopped Up People” what you get is Al’s twisted sense of humor bleeding off the pages. You get Pluto, Mickey Mouse’s dog, chopped to hell smiling his head off, a portion of a comic strip featuring Al’s recurring characters Pim and Francine, a blue smiling man cut into pieces etc. you get the drift, in Al’s nightmare Fleischertoon world anything is possible even smiling cartoon corpses. Eleanor Davis’ “Seven Sacks” is another highlight, a ferryman takes seven different weird creatures across the river  with each getting bigger and bigger, each with a sack going to a gathering, at the end the ferryman sees a foreboding column of smoke in the distance and pushes off hurriedly to the other side. Sophie Crumb (daughter of (in)famous underground comix couple Robert and Aline Crumb) does “Lucid Nightmare Pt. 2” about a trio of kids that do “Z-9” which transports a person to the “Land of Sweet Dreams” but also has them waking up and not knowing where the hell they are with a really bad hang over, and thinking they might be kidnapped by predators. “Nothing Eve Part 3” about a group of guys in a bar who are deciding on what they want to do before the end of the world by Kurt Wolfgang. In “Al Loose Ends Part 2” Lewis Trondheim does the autobio thing which I normally hate but in this one he tries to find out from his fellow cartoonists (mostly French and Dutch) if the cartooning profession causes the cartoonist to age badly or cause more depression than other professions. “Hollow Leg” is a dream bout a girl having a hollow leg that talks to her by Anders Nilsen. And another dream (or nightmare) comic comes our way via David Heatley at a house party where September 11th, 2001 gets replayed in a absurd way.

“Mome” issue 8, summer 2007 has Al Columbia’s “Fucking Felix” and with this one we’re back in Columbia’s “Fleischertoon from hell” world. It is literally that, Felix the cat getting fucked in nine, single black and white pages, Felix awaits his lover, a bald man in a suit who gets some “pussy” and “makes” in Felix’s mouth, Felix spits out tadpoles. Again Al’s twisted, sick humor oozes through. Eleanor  Davis has a bard meet and enchant a woman of the wild in “Stick and String”, or is she the one doing the enchanting? Sophie Crumb does “Lucid Nightmare Part 3” where the kids wake up from the “Z-9” trip to be chased by a maniac and they have no idea where they are at. Tom Kaczynski has a character named “Cayce” who has a dream, he wakes up in the future in 10,000 years, and he watches a TV show with Karl Marx leading a zombie revolution on Mars. In “Young Americans” Emile Bravo does a comic strip taking place in the 1950’s and the strip proceeds innocently like a comic strip from that period with a intellectual father trying to relate to his jock/sports addict son but then the strips repeats the same panels and makes the dialogue more profane which gives you pause for thought. “Hide and Watch” by Joe Kimball is a surrealist comic where the sun gets attacked by light bulbs and various other, unexplained things happen. And Trondheim does “At Loose Ends Part 3” in which he further explores if cartoonists age worse than any other profession.

In “Mome” Fall 2007, Al Columbia actually follows through on a Pim and Francine strip! Normally, Pim and Francine are only featured in partial strips, one page art or scraps. In this one Pim and Francine get eaten by a bald headed butcher who bakes them into his pies. “Shhh!” Tim Hensley goes 1960’s art style with a tale of a guy trying to woo a girl with a band contract in a library. Jim Woodring does his weird, anamorphic squirrel character, Frank, in his weird, abstract, Buddhist/Hindu world in “The Lute String Pt. 1”. Joe Kimball tells the tale of vampire love in “The Lifer”. Then there is pages of Mike Scheer’s ballpoint pen drawings that are jaw dropping with an intro by Eric Reynolds. Tom Kaczynski has a new condo slowly drive people insane in the surrounding community in “976 Sq Ft.” Sophie Crumb does “Lucid Nightmare pt. 4” which is the final part were the addicts escape from their captors to join up with a bunch of hippies.

“Mome” issue 11, Summer 2008, Al Columbia goes off the “1930’s cartoon from hell” thing and paints a scene of a sad, lonely, empty and deteriorating house, the panels show and emote the loneliness of the house, near the end you see a older woman with a rope around her neck but the question is was it a suicide or foul play? In the comic “5:45 AM”. A woman sees every man looking pig like but when she comes across a man she likes she sees him looking like a male version of herself, but his penis has the head of the piggish man in “Einmall Ist Keinmal” by Killoffer. Eleanor Davis does “Its Dot and Louisa in the 10.000 Rescues” each panel features the aforementioned characters in different weird rescue situations. “In Million Year Boom” a man goes to help develop public relations for a  brand new “green community” that is a lot more than it seems and more horrific.

In “Mome” Vol. 12 2008,Al Columbia does the single art pages with “Invasion”, all the pages show is what looks like an empty, suburban street with empty houses and front lawns except for the blue cats, the title “Invasion” makes me think these cats aren’t of this world and maybe why no people are about. This is why Al is one of my favorite artists, some pieces leave more questions than answers. Sophie Crumb does portraits of an old west female outlaw named “Agnes Freeman”. Oliver Schrawuwen does a pretty fucking funny comic called “Hair Types” where a buffoon in an art class, when seeing an illustration of different types of hair made by a fellow bearded art student sees that his hairstyle is listed as “docile hair”, the bearded student says that he has “crazy hair” he is roasted by all the students with hilarious results. “Train” by Dash Shaw has a woman, who is a children’s therapist, go on jog after a therapy session and witnesses a train wreck where the survivors stampede towards her in fear and she doesn’t know what to do. Jon Vermilyea does a violent rip on children’s breakfast food ads in the “The Breakfast Crew”. David B. tells a tale of a man whose skin is made into a drum and whose spirit leads his men into battle through the beating of the drum, but love gets in the way in “The Drum Who Fell in Love”. Sophie Crumb does a “Tijuana Bible” take, old school style, in “Loopy Liza in “Tsk Tsk”.

So while I bought the issues for Columbia’s work the rest of these issues surprised me and were just as interesting and good. Maybe down the line I might try to buy the whole run of “Mome”. I didn’t list the issues with Al Columbia covers because I am more interested in his comic strips and art, less so about his covers. The interviews are pretty interesting in these issues, and “Mome” sure is the word, get it out and get into it.

To get into it you can read every “Mome” in digital form right here: https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Mome

To get physical copies which I recommend there is still cheap copies on Abesbooks, Amazon etc. out there so snap them up while you still can.

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White Noise Eardrum Buster: The wild noise land of “Tasmania 1”, lets go down there…

A lot of compilations are hit and miss, sometimes there is a lot more misses than hits and those are the ones I won’t review on this blog. The ones I do review are the ones that have more hits than misses or in “Tasmania 1″s case, almost every track hits like a mack truck.

 

 

 

I found this on a now defunct blog and it was way up my alley, according to discogs it originally came housed in a box with two tapes with an A5 booklet with art for each artist. This was put out by Overuse records, which was founded by Tasmanian based Matthew Nicholls in 2015 and most if not all the acts on the comp are his own bands. That being said, each band and act has its own personal stamp and this comp fucking kills. So without further, ado start digging to the land down under.

The first track is an synth ambient piece with rumbling lows, its soft and calm but bludgeons you at the same time, it is by the act Dysassociation called “Endless Low”. Most people going into this compilation will think this is a noise comp, nope. The first track puts you at ease, wailing and sighing synths give way to…Snarling feedback laden blackened punk by Fixation with two tracks of mean hardcore with “Crippled Over” and “Falling Down”. Both tracks rip and go for the throat, these two tracks hate your fucking guts.

Next up you get blackened noise from the act Blackline, two tracks laden with black metal tinged filth, “Famine” and “Disease” and that is what it will sound like in your ears. Then Carved Cross comes in with their raw, lo fi rumbling black metal, screeching in agony with “Forced Self Deprivation”.

Another blowout ambient piece with crackling and searing textures comes to singe your ears courtesy of Colour Sensory with the track “Waves of Diffraction”.

Now time to get down, and I mean really really down, with the audio heroin of Gaunt, with the tracks “Music Isn’t Fun” and “Something Numb”, this is pretty much down in the dumps, volume blown out darkwave with vocals that are moaning and sound like they were recorded in a coffin. You want to get depressed listening to these two tracks complete with wailing synths. Then you get Leather Temple with “Dark Street Corner”, their piece dark ambient laced with low rumbles and screeching feedback, not for the faint of heart. Like a shot of adrenaline, Parvo comes in with the track “Teenage Kicks” and it will kick you right in the face, straight up no frills, lo fi punk, is what Parvo is about and there is nothing wrong with that!

Next up is the minimalist, lo fi black metal band, Night Falls Haunting with the tracks “Prelude” and “Fear Haunts Me”, “Prelude” is a slow, plodding, echoing and scratchy track that sets the mood for whats ahead, which is “Fear Haunts Me” which is sluggish and like walking through a cold dark forest in winter complete with screechy vocals. Night Falls Haunting has no pretense it is just straight ahead, depressing, old school style black metal.

The last two tracks on “Tasmania 1” are the noise act Claudia with “Faggot’s Spit” which has a crackling sound to it and what sounds like samples lifted from a she male porn flick, sometimes the sample sounds like the participants are wailing in pain, fun fun fun.  Last, but definitely not least, is Fetish Ritual with “M.B.” power electronics done old school like Whitehouse. Spoken word, snarling in fury at child molesters with swirling screeches and static in the background, “Tasmania 1” nails the coffin shut and now you’ll suffocate.

So in closing if you can find this version of the compilation snap it up quickly, to my knowledge there was another version minus the A5 booklet and box set. I have volume 2 and will review that in the future along with some other Overuse releases. In my opinion the art in the booklet helps supplement the music, this is a must have for fans of extreme and on the fringes music.

No copies of the boxed edition of “Tasmania 1” but there is a copy of the no frills release on discogs whoever is interested might want to snap this up: https://www.discogs.com/release/16273038-Various-Tasmania-I

Here is Overuse’s defunct blog, there seems to be no new entries since last year but it still gives some info on their releases: https://overuse.blogspot.com/

If you throw up your hands in defeat and want to make your own depressive noise go here and listen to it in it’s entirety: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Tr5M2tqGgrAt/

Here is a volume 2 you can listen to it and check out my run down of it here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2022/02/20/audio-white-noise-going-to-go-tasmania-2-iac-on-your-ass/

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White Noise on Paper: Lets go to the “Biologic Show” by Al Columbia

Al is one twisted motherfucker and from one twisted motherfucker to another he made me a fan. The “Biologic Show” is when he started to develop his style that he is famous for, the “Fleischertoons from Hell” art style, in “Biologic Show”, the art style is more drippy, sharp and edgy goth, not that there is anything wrong with that, his demented and twisted sense of humor is intact. The “Biologic Show” issues 0 and 1 are very rare and hard to find, they were collected with other odds and ends and put in a book by Hollow Press with a dembossed cover in Italy and now that is sold out. That is the book I read and I am reviewing

The first issue of “Biologic Show” was published by Fantagraphics in 1994, this was issue 0, why Al just didn’t call it issue 1 I can’t figure out. “Biologic Show” issue 0 features “No Tomorrow If I Must Return” featuring his recurring clown character, Seymour Sushine, this time embedded in what looks like the mouth of his hinged mouth character, Alfred the Great, featured in “Zero Zero”(get zeroed zeroed out here: https://www.noisepuncher.net/2021/09/30/five-four-three-two-one-zero-zero-comix/), the next one up is self titled and its about a man who finds his girlfriend murdered so he commits suicide to find her in the afterlife, the problem is this afterlife is Hell and his girlfriend will have nothing to do with him, “Grinding Larry” is about Larry who gets in a car wreck and loses his brain and now he has to find it, “Over” is a nasty poem set to some horrific comic strip art, “Extinction” features a couple’s escalating fight on a park bench and a man nearby who fights his mutant dog, nothing goes right as you imagine, “Lowborn Peacock” has another one of Al’s weird poems being performed in Hell, “Lil” Saint Anthony” is a tale of a man in a semi catatonic state eating his own shit on the ground and a boy wanting to buy bullets for his gun to put the man out of his misery, “Bruja” is another nonsensical strip and poem, recurring characters Pim and Francine make their first appearance in “Tar Frogs” they look different, more goth like as opposed to the 1930′ Fleischer Brother’s style characters they’d become, Pim eats some tar shaped like frogs off of their pervert neighbor Mr. Crowley’s front porch and becomes horny, he rapes Francine who might be his sister while Mr. Crowley (I have Ozzy’s voice echoing in my head) leers and watches behind a curtain, Pim impregnates Francine and she gives birth very fast to a beaked monstrosity, Pim tries to kill it but realizes he’s been really stabbing his sister.

“Biologic Show” issue 1 is really issue 2 called “Peloria Part One” and features Pim and Francine only in their nightmare world being chased by Siamese twin girls who are trying to kill them, Francine runs away and Pim gets cornered, Francine grabs a ride in a car with a creepy old man who attempts to hit on her and she wants to be let off at the fountain in town where she meets another recurring character of Al’s, Knishkebibble the Monkey Boy and his vacant eyed goth girlfriend and asks Monkey Boy if he’s seen Pim, Monkey Boy says “no” while feeling up his girlfriend and Francine gets back in the car with the creepy guy, Pim in a daze emerges and asks Monkey Boy if he has seen Francine, he lies and says he hasn’t, Pim passes out and Monkey Boy tries to revive him, soon Francine in the car with the weird guy thinks she sees Monkey Boy and Pim sitting at the fountain, she decides not to get out of the car and drives away with the stranger. The story is supposed to continue in the next issue.

Al claimed he was gonna do “Biologic Show” issue 2 which was actually gonna be 3, the story “I Was Killing When Killing Wasn’t Cool”, was supposed to be appear in that issue but Al realized his style of drawing had changed and he’d changed it into the “Fleischer Brothers from Hell” style he is known for and didn’t think it would fit “Biologic Show”, the story ended up being put in “Zero Zero” which I reviewed (link above). Al got the title for his comic from William S. Burrough’s book “Exterminator”. After Al didn’t want to do “Biologic Show” anymore (Surprise! Surprise!) Fantagraphics said they were gonna expand “Peloria” into a graphic novel, but of course a lot of Al’s plans, it didn’t happen.

This book also features Seymour Sunshine “Debris”, bits and pieces of his recurring character in “Slow Machine”, “Casigian”, “The Hellbound Bellydancer”, and “Ersatz (A family name)” featuring two characters that look suspiciously like Pim and Francine, the book republishes the mini comic “23  Skidoo” the story “Orifi to Boreal” about a man who goes to a wishing well wishing for pussy and throws his coin down the well he gets more than he bargains for, in the next untitled story a man gets in a car crash and skids yards and features a poem about the man internally bleeding to death and the last piece is “Johnny 23” a piece published in the comix mag “Taboo” in 1992, a guy tries to suppress his murdering impulses by imagining he is a crooner while having his ex girlfriend tied up in his bathroom.

So there you have it, “Biologic Show” is nihilistic, bloody, violent and to be honest a bit juvenile, the thing is meant to convey pure black mortician humor. You can see the progress of Al’s style, from the drippy, jagged edged style to a more 1930’s cartoon from hell style. While the art style has changed, the humor and messed story lines have not. “Biologic Show” is not for the feint of heart, I do like his later art style better, it is more original and his own. A lot of people back in the day were doing the whole “goth jagged edges with drips” thing. I do wish Al was more prolific, people say he is a perfectionist, problem is there is very thin line between perfectionist and procrastinator. Finding the original issues and the compilation book from Hollow Press at a reasonable price is gonna be impossible, I know I looked. I have my copy and got it right before it went out of print. Good luck if your trying to find it.

If you want to find physical copies go look on ebay, but I got to warn you your wallet is going to be screaming to be put out of its misery.

To read the original “Biologic Show” issues digitally you can go here: https://comiconlinefree.net/the-biologic-show/issue-0

And here: https://comiconlinefree.net/the-biologic-show/issue-1

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White Noise on Paper: Look in the “Mirror Mirror 2” on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

Comics anthologies are my thing, especially ones that are non traditional and feature various forms and styles of art, “Mirror Mirror 2” is one of those compilations, this is meant to be a “horror” compilation edited by Sean T. Collins and Julia Gfrorer. In the foreword Gretchen Alice Felker-Martin says “Great horror is the pursuit of meaning through defilement, a conscious and inquisitive violation of the mind, body, the beloved, the home; the concentric circles of security that comprise our lives. Great porn proceeds from a similar root, grappling with that which delights and with that which abases in the context of their inextricably. There is no division between the shame that ignites desire and the desire itself, just as there is no division between love and fear of death.”

Thus starts this anthology, all of it, unlike the other “Mirror Mirror” anthologies are in black and white. Again as with other compilations some pieces don’t evoke anything near horror, in fact, some pieces made me chuckle at the “try too hard” story lines, but there is pieces in here that are also bone chilling, overall its a beautiful book. 6″x 9″, flexibound in black Pantone offset with black gilded edges. The highlights are the castrating lesbian love affair in “Love” by Laura Lannes, Clive Barker (yes that one) summons his inner Stephen Gammell on his one pager “Dark Moon”, Lala Albert explores dark fairy eroticism in “Vespertine Odor”, Nicole Claveloux goes old school medieval with her silver and black paintings of erotic dark fantasies, Mou descends into the darkness of depraved self pleasure in “Empty Handed”, Uno Moralez uses 8 bit video game graphic art to show what happens when man’s idealized fantasy of women go awry in “Vitalya (I’m Fucking Tired of You)”.

Dame Darcey does the Gothic haunted castle thing brilliantly in “Meat Cake: Fire”, Johnny Negron does a cryptic and horrific poem form justice in “Perfect Beast I: Baton Sinister”, Trungles puts his own erotic spin on the old Beauty and the Beast story, reptilian style in “Shifts”, Al Columbia brings out his recurring characters Pim and Francine and strings them along in his 1930’s surrealistic horror cartoon world in a bunch of one pagers, Meaghan Garvey flirts with death in “Everytime”, Apolo Cacho runs through a weird beast like world in “Coatlicue”, and Josh Simmons does a day out with a son and mother who want to visit a cave and end up getting more than they bargained for in “The Cave”.

Over all its a solid comp with a different take and spin on what horror means, some of the pieces art wise and story wise don’t work and only elicit a shrug from me, the ones I listed above are gold. If your into unusual, underground comix you should dig into “Mirror Mirror 2”.

So where do you look in the “Mirror Mirror 2”? Go here, the company 2d cloud publishes this book, support them, when it looked like my copy was missing in the mail the owner of the company offered to send me another copy, free of charge, no questions asked, luckily it finally came: https://shop.2dcloud.com/products/mirror-mirror-2

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White Noise on Paper: Chow down on some “Kramers Ergot” 5-10

Ergot is a fungus that infects rye and other related plants, it is also closely related to the chemical composition of LSD and was prevalent during the middle ages, some speculate widespread Ergot poison helped contribute to the witch hunting hysteria of the time. Its apt that a comic compilation like this one has “Ergot” in its title, I think the editor, Sammy Harkham, made that title for his compilation of art and underground comics on purpose, who “Kramer” is besides the guy in “Seinfeld” I can’t figure out. “Kramers Ergot” is worth every wallet emptying penny, once these go out of print the price of used physical copies shoots into the stratosphere and I hate to say it digital masturbators, “Kramers Ergot” is meant to be enjoyed holding the actual thing and reading it, the experience isn’t the same as reading it on “Comixology”. “Kramers Ergot” was started by Sammy Harkham as a zine in 2000 under his own Avodah Books, issues 4 and 5 were published by Gingko Press, the issues 1-4 are very rare and way way WAY out of my price range, there is some prices I am not willing to pay, I have 5 to 10, out of those 5 is the weakest of the bunch but its still got good material, stand outs in 5 are M.L.E. (Mutant life Expectancy) by the great Matt Brinkman with Neil Burke coloring, the always talented Chris Ware with “My Life”, the always cryptic Helge Reumann and Xavier Robel’s alternate reality, dialogue free comics, Gabrielle Bell’s comic panels look like paintings, Kevin Huizeuga’s foray into theology with “Jeepers Jacobs”, Jorand Crane’s western ghost story “The Hand of Gold”, Leif Goldberg’s colorful insane paintings, Paper Rad’s Yellow Submarine type acid trip comic strip, Fabio Viscogliosi’s strange old time children’s book type illustrations in “Love or Leave a Dunce on Holiday”, J. Bradley Johnson’s “Brimming with Enthusiasm: A Selection of Early Comics” and Dan Zettwock’s head trip of a horror comic “The Ghost of Dragon Canoe”.

Kramers Ergot 5

Books 6 and 7 came out through Buenaventura Press. 6 is a huge improvement over 5, the highlights  in this one are the tale of a church haunted house in “Cross Fader” by Dan Zettwoch, reprints of underground Dutch artist Marc Smeets, intro by Chris Ware in “Passing Time”, the insane satire of action and kung fu movies with a psychological and metaphorical bent in “Ejector Seat Cadence” by Bald Eagles, the colorful and LSD haze inducing “Kramers Ergot Fuck You” by Paper Rad, Jerry Moriarty’s painted comic panels in “Sally’s Surprise”, vice cop corruption in “Pushing” by Chris C. Cilla, the Aztec high school dramedy in “Jaguar Street” by Matthew Thurber, reprints of Suiho Tagawa’s colorful Japanese war propaganda comics from “the Norakuro”, X rated Aesops fables from Fabio Viscogliosi in “Pornography for Beginners”, the fantasy water color stylings of Sherry Boyle in “The Porcelain Figurine” and the insane world of Elvis Studio by Helge Reumann and Xavier Robel.

 

7 is a killer, I’d say a literal killer because the thing is hardbound and the size of a old Sunday comic supplement from the 1930’s, i.e. giant and I even had a hard time flipping through the thing, you could easily use it as weapon to beat somebody to death. I had problems finding room for the thing, its in full color with glossy pages if you don’t lift it right you can get a hernia, however, staring at the giant pages will immerse you even deeper in the stories, now I know why my grandparents were nostalgic about their Sunday comics page. “Kramers Ergot” 7 appeared in 2008 at retail price of 125 bucks because of the cost of putting it together and publishing it, “Kramers Ergot” 7 killed Buenaventura Press. Alvin Buenaventura, the publisher went on to set up another company and ended up committing suicide in 2016, whether it was due to his company going under is speculation. The stand outs in 7 were Shary Boyle’s elephant fantasy “Grow Old”, Ted May’s Frankenstein space adventure in “Cradle of Frankenstein”, Daniel Clowes’ twisted noir “Sawdust”, CF’s weird ass fantasy “Crate Cauldron”, Kim Deitch’s tale of a beer bottle cap collector in”Sex, Drugs and Sweet Music”, Chris Ware’s tale of a girl with one leg in “Home”, the late great Richard Sala’s tale of chasing love in an interesting crowd of characters in “I Chase the Bright Elusive Butterfly of Love”, Rick Altergott’s continuing adventures of his mentally challenged hero in “Doofus”, Matt Brinkman’s animal/skull/reptilian hybrid one pager, Eric Haven’s otherworldly tale of a barfly and reptilian woman in “Reptilica”, Matt Thurber’s tale of Brian Eno in “Produce the Corpse”, Blex Bolex’s tale of an artist who is given a offer he can’t refuse in “Lost for Life”, Will Sweeney’s journey of mad scientists, hallucination machines and space in “Chatsworth Miasma”, Anna Somers bear hunt gone awry in “Lumberjack’s Widow”, Helge Reumann’s untitled story of his weird world with bearded men and weird deformed creatures who beat and shoot each other and Matt Groenings bunnies losing at the game of life in “Road to Success”.

 

 

 

  “Kramers Ergot” 8 went way down in size, to almost the size of a pocket book and was put out by Picture Box Press who has put out some bad ass books. It was a tan hardcover with partial gold foil and tangerine colored hexagons on its front, it reminded me of one of the books I’d pull off my grandpa’s walnut bookshelf when the dust jacket went missing, the contents of said book would normally be boring. The cover, simple design and color scheme screamed 1970’s, this next volume in typical fashion goes in a different direction, this time only some of the pages are glossy and some in color and starts with a boring fucking essay on how without gay people “camp” wouldn’t exist, half way through the preachy essay I skipped ahead for the comics. “Kramers Ergot” 8 doesn’t disappoint, Gary Panter roars into this weird and twisted future with his recurring character “Jimbo”, C.F. gets into strange love in “Warm Genetics House Test Pattern”, Takeshi Murata goes art pop culture funky with “Get Your Ass to Mars”, Johnny Ryan goes into outer space and gets slaughtered by aliens in “Mining Colony X7170”, Anya Davidson has a mean ass bitch kicking butt in “Barbarian Bitch”, Sammy Harkham, the editor of this shebang, contributes the weird and terrifying tale of spousal upheaval in “A Husband and Wife” and, last but not least, reprints of the deliciously evil Wanda from 1970’s era “Penthouse” magazine gets brought back to life in full color, I see a lot of the old Warren magazine artists of “Eerie”, “Creep” and “Vampirella” in Ron Embleton and Frederic Mullalley’s art work for “Oh, Wicked Wanda!”

“Kramers Ergot 9” switched publishers to Fantagraphics and switched size, this thing is the size of a telephone book, the other part of the title is “Evil Fully Determined”. This time the boring essay is dropped and the comics come on like a freight train. Highlights are Renee French’s bird abstract world in “Bjornstrand’s Elise”, Helge Reumann dives back into his strange mutant/lumberjack world in “Sexy Guns”, Anya Davidson channels Pagan Rome/Christian animosity in “Hypatia’s Last Hours”, Al Columbia has his recurring characters Pim And Francine do a one page nightmare appearance in “Night People” and does another color section on the aftermath of a party from hell from the 1930’s in “The Devil’s Mansion”, Al is a genius, problem is he very erratic in his output, Al was supposed to contribute a full page comic in the oversized 7 but couldn’t get anything done, people who know him say he is a “perfectionist” but that to me is another word for lazy and/or procrastinator. Tim Hensley channels old school cartooning into a story about a priest who gets in a “unholy” jam in “I Confess”, its all in a days work in “Police Work” by Adam Buttrick, Lale Westvind goes a on a space cannibal ritual retreat in “The Kanibul Ball”, Kim Deitch goes down memory lane in a zoo in “Shrine of the Monkey God”, suicide goes haywire in “Adieu Cruel World” by Baptiste Virote, Blobby Boys get violent towards infidelity in “Blobby Boys” by Alex Schubert, one criminal gets out of prison but wants to come “home” in “Comics and Gags” by Abraham Diaz, and Jonny Negron has one of his voluptuous vixens get felt up by a 1980’s action hero stereotype in his one pager.

“Kramers Ergot” 10 is a bigger volume not as big as the other one, this one was put out by Fantagraphics an affair goes off the rails in Dash Shaw’s “Police Woman”, Robert Crumb digs into knuckle dragging modern neanderthals in “The Ruff Tuff Cream Puffs”, Jason Murphy does abstract in “A Calamitous Exit”, Arouk Richard does the duck walk west in “Ducky Co Co”, C.F. goes crazy on “Liquid on Neutral”, Blutch does face melting action in “Angel Face”, Shary Flenniken trots out “Trots and Bonnie” and their sexual misadventures and satire of old comic strips that first appeared in “National Lampoon” magazine, Rick Altergott brings out his immortal and idiotic “Doofus” who klutzs and crashes  through his strip, editor Sammy Harkham spins a tale of old Hollywood in “Blood of the Virgin” it is the longest strip and worth the slog, Will Sweeney gets spacey in “The Embigening”, Helge Reumann’s weird world is great as usual in “Equalizers”, a full color reprint of the classic Frank King’s “Gasoline Alley”,  Kim Deitch tells about roaming with Spain and writing underground cartoons in the 1960’s in “If It’s Weird It Works”, and the always cryptic and awesome Lale Westvind with her half shark half lady in “Sarka”.

The “Kramers Ergot” volumes before 5 are too rich price wise for my blood, their heavily sought after collectors items. There is some prices I won’t pay and the prices for 1 through 4 I won’t pay for. “Kramers Ergot” with each volume keeps it interesting, editor Sammy Harkham mixes comic strips and art together seamlessly. Each volume has got its own personality and own flavor, from varying sizes to different artists and content. “Kramers Ergot” is something you can ingest and not see werewolves and want to hunt witches (maybe you will do that after reading these volumes anyways). I sure hope Mr. Harkham does more volumes.

So where do you ingest this ergot? Well go look on ebay and amazon, hate to be lazy but search these out, there is some of these that at reasonable prices, except for the oversized volume 7.

Volumes 1, 2, 8, 9, 10 are available online to digitally ingest here, if you want to be a millennial/zoomer pussy about it: https://comiconlinefree.net/comic/kramers-ergot

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Visual White Noise Theater: Want to watch some “Strange Tales” (1986)

Most horror anthologies have this problem, either most of them suck with a couple of good ones, or if your lucky they’ll be mostly good ones with a smattering of bad ones, “Strange Tales” has total of six and out of those six, three are good and three are boring and/or stupid. The really good ones shine like diamonds in coal. Vidcrest, who put out the infamous “Mondo Cane” movies, a company that is still around and run by Robert Weinbach who is still alive put this thing together, he seemed to specialize in finding weird and unusual shorts and putting them together. At the time, the only way to get a hold of this collection was to get it on VHS, at first when I e mailed him he said he had no copies, then he e mailed me back and said he had found a VHS copy in storage, so I bought it. Watching this, I could tell most, if not all of these shorts were shot on Super 8 and most if not all were probably student films. I searched this one out when a buddy of mine sent me a list of live action/animated shorts, one of the shorts on this VHS, “Twilight Journey” got my attention. The problem is this VHS was recorded to EP mode which makes the picture look kind of shitty, its to jam more stuff on less tape, the picture is soft and fuzzy, sometimes you can’t see what is being filmed. So without further ado, here are the good and the bad of “Strange Tales”.

The first short, “The Visitant” is an OK short, a guy chases the ghost of his dead son through a cemetery which looks like the famous Forest Lawn Cemetery in Burbank, CA, me and my weird family used to have picnics there, many famous people from the Golden Age of Hollywood are buried (and turning over in their graves). As he is chasing his son, a zombie chases him with an axe and various dead people as well as an driver-less van try to run him down, he comes across his daughter who is cursing him for killing himself and his son in a drunk driving accident, the guy finds out he is in purgatory and now destined for hell. This one had some cool make up effects and was at least interesting.

The second short is called “Desire in a Public Dump” and I wasn’t too impressed with this one, though I gotta give it credit for not dragging on too long. When I watched this I figured this one was shot in the 1980’s like the rest of the shorts on the tape, but the whole look of the actors and actress and the whole feel screamed “1950’s” yes I found out that this short was shot in the 1950’s, it is very weird to have all the other shorts be filmed in the 1980’s and one lone one from the 1950’s. In this one a hobo stumbles on a picture of a redhead pin up who comes out of the picture and when he goes to kiss her he gets a pitchfork through his chest, the girl disappears from the picture and is replaced by a gorilla, a kid with a BB gun finds the picture and it ends there.

The third short is “A Day in the Life of Snidley Carmichael” stupid, boring and hated this fucking short. All it is is a guy spazzing out to opera music, running around like a fucking retard pretending to get shot. Not funny and a waste of this tape. Next.

The fourth short is by far the best and most interesting, “Twilight Journey” is a god damn trip and this is the reason why I searched this tape out. I wasn’t disappointed, a hybrid of live action and rotoscoped animation, this one is hard to peg, this is acid for people who never have or will drop acid. From what I can tell the story is about a kid whose mom is prostitute, she wears a pig mask I guess out of kinkiness, now this is where it gets confusing either the boy kills his mom while the John is asleep or the John kills her and sets the house on fire.

As the John runs away in his car he gets in an accident and dies, soon he is tumbling through animated space.

Soon he encounters weird shapes, pyramids and killer orcs, whoever did this put a lot of work into it, looks like the guy was probably inspired by Ralph Bakshi’s “Lord of the Rings, LSD and a lot of pot.

Looking for keys and a sword battle ensues, its marvelous and fantastic and worth the price of this video, I wasn’t as mad when this short met my expectations, it made it worth the three other boring shorts on this thing. My only gripe is the short ends abruptly, wish this had had a longer running time and Robert would’ve knocked the other boring fucking shorts off this thing.

The fifth short is “Crystal Quest”, I loved this one, this one follows a guy who is being chased by something or somebody on what looks like a different planet, he takes the crystal from the mouth of a stone monster then he is actually chased by a monster who corners him near an elevator.

As he pushes the button and the elevator the monster chasing him runs away and he thinks he scared the monster off until he turns around and sees a behemoth of a monster blocking the elevator.

He dives underneath the monster’s legs shuts the elevator and pushes the lobby button. He gets to the bottom and the door opens and you find out the “Crystal Quest” is a futuristic game show. I loved this one, the make up was good and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the people who worked on this student film went on to do special effects and make up on bigger projects. This one was goofy fun and the other good short in this collection and the last good one.

The sixth and most certainly last one is “Bus Bench” all I can say is “YAWN”, “Strange Tales” goes out on a huge whimper and not a bang. Some old lady sits on a bench while buses and people go by, she seems to be thinking about her past and her own daughter or something. This was boring, so bad I was looking at the clock thinking about other stuff I could be doing. On the back of the VHS box it says “Award winning shorts” yeah, Weinbach I highly doubt this. So all in all there was three good shorts and three boring shorts, so is this worth your clams? I’ll say this much “Twilight Journey” and “Crystal Quest” will make it worth the price, and you’ll want this if your a horror anthology completest.

So where do you pick this up? Well if you want a tape you’ll have to hound Robert you can go to his geocities looking web site here: http://vidcrest.net/catalog/order_list.html

He has a DVD version on his ebay page but talking with one of my friends who ordered a DVD its almost the same version as VHS: https://www.ebay.com/itm/114251165702?hash=item1a99e67006:g:9wUAAOSwwvpe3Af-

If you want a preview of what your gonna get go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/4Gaa2Xbyq1FX/

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White Noise on Paper: Get over your “Fear of Comics”.

After the underground success of “Love and Rockets” comics series came to a screeching temporary halt in 1996, one half of the duo shit his shorts, dived in and swam in the surrealistic and absurd ocean of his own comic, “New Love”. “Fear of Comics” compiles these stories as well as stories from other sources and is volume 17 in the “Love and Rockets” compilations put out by Fantagraphics. While “Love and Rockets” was about young people in lust and love going to punk rock shows, “Fear of Comics” follows the antics of giant moles fucking opera singers, tribes men eating brains, forgotten saints, alien invasion, squadrons of flying women (not in planes either) who dress like retro 1950’s cigarette sales girls fighting giant babies etc. All of the inside pages are in black and white.

On the surface this comic anthology looks like a bunch of nonsense, nonsense for nonsense sake. But noise addicts know to look past the static and drink it all in and there is a lot to drink in, it might get you drunk. While Gilbert has his own style he blends different styles into his own, the prime example being his dead on homage of the artist Herge of Belgian comic “Tin Tin” fame and too be honest, I find “Fear of Comics” more interesting then “Love and Rockets” but that is because I am weirdo. It is a lot less sexual than “Love and Rockets” and the Hernandez brother’s other projects, I mean don’t get me wrong this isn’t G Rated stuff, more like an “R”, unlike Gilbert’s other comic “Blubber” that is a straight up “XXX” and is being put out in a compilation by Fantagraphics in winter, 2021.

Sadly there is no new copies of this anthology out, like all good things Fantagraphics puts out they don’t ever seem to do reprints, no matter how much the fans and other people complain it seems to not phase them one bit. Hell, I’ve even tried to message them with complaints because some of us don’t want to pay astronomical prices for used physical items and to all you “tech cloud” fetishists out there who ejaculate at the fact that everything is digital and think I am a “boomer” for actually wanting to hold something in my hands unlike you guys who seem not to care that the only thing you hold physically in your hand is your shrunken, unused, mommy basement dweller Vienna sausages, good luck finding this anthology on archives or other digital comic sites oh and don’t come crying to me when your external hard drive croaks and all your other back up USBs are corrupted. RANT OVER.

So I bet your asking yourself where can I get “Fear of Comics”? Well stop being afraid and go over here: https://www.amazon.com/Comics-Rockets-Gilbert-Hernandez-2000-11-07/dp/B01FGKWWCW

There is a few copies that are still affordable better get em’ while their hot!

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Its Show Time!!!: “Cartoon Sushi” 1997-1998

This is a new feature where I watch a TV show that is visual white noise, not static but noise to people who don’t get it. “Cartoon Sushi” is one of those shows. Made in 1997-1998, the period when Mtv was slowly being eaten by its own uncreative stupidity via shitty fucking shows like “The Real World” and other “reality shows”. “Cartoon Sushi” was the awesome “Liquid Television’s” retarded step brother to some, to me it had a lot of promise. When I found out that Mtv was gonna attempt to put out another animated short compilation type show back on TV I was overjoyed. Sadly, it didn’t last too long, it got eaten by the “Reality TV” juggernaut and soon all of Mtv would be completely devoured by it.

Mtv in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s looked around and realized they had to keep their edge. Sure they were on top playing music videos and back in the day they played anything and almost everything to see what would stick to the wall. The 1980’s zines and underground independent comics were bubbling underneath the mainstream surface, the public to a bigger extent and Mtv to a lesser extent ignored that bubbling through most of the 1980’s. But the sheer amount of kids who listened to rock and metal music were buying “Heavy Metal Magazine”, “Weirdo”, “RAW” and other like minded magazines, they were also ordering xeroxed zines. The underground was like a festering infection that was about to explode so Mtv wanting to remain on the cutting edge took the initiative and in 1989 put “Liquid Television” on Mtv, and the festering boil popped and geyser of puss erupted into pop culture consciousness. Now as a junior high kid “Liquid Television” blew my eyes out and skull fucked my brain, at least on TV it was unlike anything I’d seen up until that point.

Eventually I will do a “Its Showtime!!!” on “Liquid Television” but I watched this successor because the external hard drive my buddy gave me had a bunch weird and strange shorts and when I saw that “Cartoon Sushi” was on that hard drive, I jumped out of my seat. This, along with “Beavis and Butthead”, re runs of “Ren and Stimpy” gave me hope that Mtv would stomp down on all the reality shows that were starting to inundate TV. Of course I turned out to be dead wrong. “Cartoon Sushi” only lasted two pilots none of which I ever saw, eleven episodes, and two specials. It lasted one year and the experimental part of Mtv had a stake put through its heart, had its head cut off and the corpse was burned. Soon all music would be gone too. Fuck Mtv.  However, both “Liquid Television” and “Cartoon Sushi” reminded me of the comics compilations I had picked up in my small hometown candy, booze, magazine, comic’s store, George’s Liquor or visits to comic book stores in bigger towns and cities. As I’ve said before, unless the super hero comic was done differently and creatively (like the original, violent and sexual “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Spawn”) I wasn’t interested, “Heavy Metal”, “Weirdo”, “Blab”, “Zero Zero”etc. were more up my alley. Both shows embodied that anarchic, insane, creative streak.

“Cartoon Sushi” was made up of shorts either made for the show or shorts that appeared in various animation festivals, like “Liquid Television”. The show keeps your interest because various animators use different forms of animation, some will use stop motion, some will use computer animation, some will use puppetry, regular animation etc.  The show was created by Danni Antonucci, (Danny did the title animation for “Cartoon Sushi”) who would do go on to do “Ed, Edd and Eddy”, Keith Alcorn who would do the “Lil’ Puss” character featured in “Cartoon Sushi”, and developed by Eric Calderon who still develops and produces animation til this day.

Various animators and people who worked on “Liquid Television” ended up doing work on “Cartoon Sushi”. People from “Cartoon Sushi” would end up using it as a spring board to do bigger things (realize I didn’t type “better”). Dave Hughes who did the “anime satire” segment on “Cartoon Sushi” entitled “Ultracity 6060” would go on to develop, produce and create a bunch of shows for “Adult Swim” chief among them “Off the Air”, a collection of shorts centering on one concept or idea an episode, Hughes has given credit to “Liquid Television” and “Cartoon Sushi” for this inspiration, Matt Harrigan who also worked on “Ultracity 6060” would also go on to work for “Adult Swim” mainly creating and developing “Fish Center” they both worked for Mtv’s animation department back in the day.  Christy Karacas whose awesome ink and paper, crazy ass animation short “Space War” blew my mind when I first watched it went on to do “Superjail” for “Adult Swim” you can see the rumblings of the insane and off the wall antics that would prevail in “Superjail”.

John R. Dilworth who did the “Dirdy Birdy” shorts for “Cartoon Sushi” would go on to do various projects, chief among them “Courage the Cowardly Dog” for “Cartoon Network”. Paul Berry whose short “Sandman” would be showed in various festivals and in the “Cartoon Sushi: Halloween Special” would go on do animation for “Nightmare Before Christmas”, “James and the Giant Peach”, “Monkey Boy” and Primus’ awesome stop motion video for their cover of Charlie Daniel’s “Devil Went Down to Georgia”. Lorne Lanning would contribute a computer animated short “Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey” and would expand the world in his “Oddworld” video games. Michael Dougherty would contribute “Season’s Greetings” a animated short that showed the first appearance of his Halloween character, Samhain, would feature in his live action movie “Trick R’ Treat” (2007) and he’d also do the Christmas themed horror movie “Krampus”. Eric Fogel’s “Celebrity Death Match” would be featured first in “Cartoon Sushi” with a match between Charles Manson and Marilyn Manson, the refree would be voiced by real life boxing referee and judge, Mills Lane who would get his own court type show eventually, the popularity of the segment would lead to “Celebrity Death Match” getting its own show and showing more celebrities demolish, mutilate, burn, kill and slash each other. 

Another animator, Bill Plympton” who still does tons of stuff would do the ridiculous “Sex and Violence” segments in “Cartoon Sushi”. Like “Liquid Television” there was some continuing segments like “Ultracity 6060”, the “Robin” segments done by Magnus Carlsson who did music videos for Radiohead,  “Science Facts”, “The Many Deaths of Norman Spittal”, “Celebrity Death Match”, and the aforementioned “Sex and Violence”. The majority of the material isn’t connected, the breadth and difference in material keeps this show interesting. Some of the material was taken from “Spike and Mike’s Twisted Festival of Animation” and other places.

So in closing, “Adult Swim” and a lot of off the wall and absurd, nonsensical humor came straight for the rotting, stinking womb of “Liquid Television” and “Cartoon Sushi”.

So you ask yourself, “Where the hell is the Sushi bar? I can’t seem to find it anywhere, no proper physical bar, a couple of dishes on youtube, what gives?” I’ll tell you what gives here and sorry, couldn’t get episode five up, the file was completely corrupted and is nowhere to be found anywhere, the pilots and two specials weren’t on there and I can’t track them down. There is one place that sells bootlegs and looking at the list they don’t have complete episodes, take it or leave it here:

Episode 1: https://www.bitchute.com/video/u1y2GhwozrIt/

Episode 2: https://www.bitchute.com/video/pSMZBDMjFBy9/

Episode 3: https://www.bitchute.com/video/WGGcnSULO7Ar/

Episode 4: https://www.bitchute.com/video/DYiRAJcHRjTr/

Episode 5: Sorry file corrupted and can’t find it anywhere.

Episode 6: https://www.bitchute.com/video/MyjWiI5YFkhz/

Episode 7: https://www.bitchute.com/video/irhuT8wQNHAA/

Episode 8: https://www.bitchute.com/video/4n3Js5U4dSBF/

Episode 9: https://www.bitchute.com/video/8dQWxbdGSfRi/

Episode 10: https://www.bitchute.com/video/bQlYXMlvve1d/

Episode 11: https://www.bitchute.com/video/fe8iCX7YpX7G/

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White Noise Eardrum Buster: “Calling All Covens” come on down for the seance party in the tea room!!!

“Sure to become a solid favorite at after-seance parties and packing the dance floors at spiritualist conventions, this compilation of rank electrified filth brings together a body of work deeply rooted in the murkiest strains of underground noise music”. Couldn’t have said it better, this on the A5 booklet insert on the back, this is creepy seance music that is meant to be played by candle light.

Front cover of A5 booklet for tape.
Page 2 with track listing.

 

This thing was put together by dark ambient group Goat Majesty, the front and back cover were done by Vladimir Vacovsky. What you got here is a who’s who of the blackened noise, dark ambient and drone scene. First off you got ZN with “Ingratitud Y Colera”, a tune with screeching feedback that sounds like a woman is screaming and deep drones that puts you on edge.

Page for ZN track.

Next up is Goat Majesty with their track “Cult Leaders” which comes roaring in like a demon possessed beast, with deep bubbling drones and muffled vocals, this is something that Abruptum in their experimental heyday would’ve done, feedback screech swirls in and out of the song and builds into a cacophony of blinding black noise and synths wailing. A very experimental black metal vibe on this one.  No drugs required for this one kids.

Goat Majesty’s page for their track.

Windy dark ambience haunts Haare’s track “Inside the Black Mirror”, a lighter track, ghostly sounding with a few squeals of feed back here and there, this is like being stranded in a grey wasteland with stagnant pools. There is a kind of weird beauty to it.

Haare’s page for their track.

Fordell Research Unit’s track “Ilm (For Daniel Rutter and Sandy Milroy, Giallo buddies)” starts with light and haunting synths that wail in back of heavy drones, this track combines heavy weight lead and feather light sound, a combo that works in a strange way. A track that could be in a 1980’s dark fantasy film.

Page for Fordell Research Unit’s track. “Kolchak the Night Stalker”.

Vampyre’s track “02 SoV” starts out with squealing feedback then gives way to pulsing and swirling sound. Synths are bent, broken and tortured, the sounds of a violin being ripped apart. This is a rough track like a vampire’s bite and the track will suck you dry. Its dark ambient clouds laced with lightning bolts and a calm pulse.

Page to Vampyre’s track.

 

Black Mountain Transmitter starts their transmission, “Saturn in Retrograde”, with a rough and rolling crash of cymbals, roaring feed back and pulsing drones, all this mixes into a slow, plodding sludge of sound. Kids don’t try this at home. Wailing, bubbling and cascading sound brings to mind cyclopean dark and gray landscapes on some strange Lovecraftian planet.

Black Mountain Transmitters page for their track.

Husere Grav’s “Abandoned Instinct” starts off with a smooth, billowing sound that pulses in and out like a dying light bulb and increases in intensity and sound and then mellowing out on a strange. dark, drone loop. Hypnotic stuff.

Page for Husere Grav’s track.

Aderlating’s track “Eerste Pijniging” starts off with a low throb and crackling sound with echoes. Its as if one is trapped in a dank, haunted dungeon. Soft drones are the order of the day and creaking, howling sounds, make this track very creepy.

Page for Aderlating’s track.

The tape looked like it was professionally done unlike a majority of these limited run noise tapes that look like their recorded onto cheap blank tapes one gets in packs at Walmart here in America and Tesco in Europe. The A5 booklet and tape came in a plastic baggy.

So the question is should you get “Calling All Covens”? If you are a literal noise addict, want something different, if want music you can sacrifice somebody or something to (that was a joke), background for that dark video game you kids play, sound for the background of a role playing table top game etc. Than “Calling All Covens” will be right up your alley.

Back page of A5 booklet.

So if you want to get physical there a few copies left on discogs, (limited to 50 hand numbered copies) good luck: https://www.discogs.com/Various-Calling-All-Covens/release/12414442

If you want it in the background or want to see if you want to join the physical cult but want to start spiritual go here: https://www.bitchute.com/video/zrewAiE9WcK9/

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White Noise on Paper: Welcome to “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn”! GRRRRRR!!!!

Open this comic compilation and the smell of cheap gin, cigarettes and even cheaper perfume wafts right off the page. You know exactly where you are: “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn”. Welcome to a world where the 1950’s to mid 1960’s pop culture is mixed together with no blurring lines, its a place where space travel and alien visitation is normal. A four eyed detective, Lloyd Llewellyn, hangs out in a bar “The Big White Dot” with his diminutive side kick, Ernie. Together they chase alien dames, beat up Ed Big Daddy Roth monster teenagers from Jupiter, battle man eating Beatniks etc. This was Daniel Clowes first foray into doing his own comic book.

Daniel says all up until the point of Lloyd Llewellyn he had only done 25 pages of actual comics and single illustrations until he sent an Lloyd Llewellyn page in color to Fantagraphics, Fantagraphics gave him his own comic, except it was in black and white, the cover and back being colored which fits the whole aesthetic of the magazine and the time period its paying homage to. Its like reading a black and white sci fi noir film.

Dan says he isn’t particularly proud of his work in “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” it was one of his first projects and he says he was working himself up to “Triple A Baseball”. He said writing Lloyd Llewellyn was a way of exorcising pop culture demons and trivia he’d gathered, pop culture from 1948-1966. He thought there was a market for comics that referenced “Dragnet” and Mickey Spillane novels, he said the target audience turned out to be ex hippies who thought it was a satire of the pre 1967 culture they hated and younger kids who were into “Hep Cat” culture and hated anything post 1966.

The series lasted from 1985 to 1994, in it he pays homage to various pop culture relics from the 1950-1966 period including  Red Sovine and Burl Ives lyrics, DC comics of the early 1960’s, characters that are similar to Lee Hazlewood, Esquerita, Alfred E. Newman, Sylvester P. Smythe, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth monsters, 1950’s “Super Duck” and “Plastic Man”, movies like “Detour”, “Devil Thumbs A Ride”, “Touch of Evil”, “Brainac”, “Thrill Killers”, “Homicidal”, “Straight Jacket” and “Psycho” and TV shows like “Dragnet”. Despite what Clowes says (and his later stuff is better) I wasn’t bored one minute with this thing. I loved this world, I’ve read worse and won’t review those on here.

In this book is the foreword and afterward to the first version of this collection called simply “#$@&! Parts one and two”. This book is a must for Daniel Clowes fans, problem is this book is out of print and rare. While “Fantagraphics” is one of my favorite companies out there, their refusal to republish past stuff, even in limited quantities makes me insanely mad. The prices are utterly fucking ridiculous, I was lucky to get this copy for 150 bucks from Australia. Utterly ridiculous. From “Fantagraphics” point of view they probably wonder why they should reprint something barely anybody knows or cares about but the problem is they do it all the time. I wish they’d give Lloyd Llewellyn the same treatment as Dan’s other work like “Velvet Glove Cast In Iron” and “Eight Ball”. There is stuff released that is selling on ebay and various sites for insane amounts of money I would never pay, no matter how much I want it. Until I started searching I didn’t think I’d ever read “The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” and I despaired of ever seeing this visual white noise. There is a lot out there I want to see but never will because of insane fucking collectors and sellers who drive the price of something way the fuck up, sure scarcity causes the costs to sky rocket but c’mon, some of these sellers are just ripping desperate schmucks off. (RANT OVER. LOL!)

“The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn” was released in a limited print run of 2000 copies, wish they’d do another so all of you out there could experience Clowes’ strange noir, sci fi, retro world. If you want a copy I say do a search on your favorite internet search engine, the physical copies like I have are gonna straight up rape your wallet raw, and on amazon right now the cheapest available copy is 727 bucks! EEEEK!!! When I searched I could find no download links, if you want to search for a copy good luck to you and good luck hunting!