Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Monsters and Mutants #7






One of the side benefits of being involved with this invisible college of obscuro comix for such a long time is that some of the artists you jam with go on to be very well known, and then you can say you knew them when. Such is the case with Jeff Gaither, who went on to earn considerable recognition as a cartoonist in the tradition of Basil Wolverton and Big Daddy Roth.

Monsters and Mutants was a series Jeff published in Louisville, Kentucky and served as his early calling card. As you can see by the art, our styles are poles apart. That center spread really tells it all. Like Jamie Alder's work, Gaither's art is in the visuals. Amazing line work, and this was when he was just getting started! In the meantime, I'm a story guy with minimal graphic detail. So we sort kept bumping into each other on this one, but I particularly enjoyed Jeff's back cover illo of Morty.

This was published in 1986. In that same year we also collaborated on a digest-sized comic which I hope to scan and post later.

Posted with permission from Jeff Gaither.