Showing posts with label Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: Alabama-California (Orinda)











Shortly after Jay Kennedy released The Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide (1982) I went through it and re-sorted the geographic information by hand. Remember, this was long before Internet. I was interested in the demographics and regional distribution of this thing of ours. Plus, I am a librarian. This is what we do.

This was all hammered out on a manual typewriter, probably in 1982. I'll be posting this in parts. It has never been distributed in any form.

Jay's list, of course, was not complete, but he made a very good effort. If you hit the tag for the Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide you'll see some folks had issues with the publication. Jay is gone, and so is his biggest critic, Lynn Hansen. I liked them both very much and still miss these two guys.

In 1982 I didn't expect to outlive these two good men, but here I am, still around even though I am among the most sedentary of humans. The guy I list as my family doctor died several years ago. I smoke cigars and don't exercise. Fate has given me the task of being a relic and bloviating about the past of an obscure art movement, passing the torch to the students of the esoteric. So here I am blogging for you.

And, as Vonnegut said, so it goes.

This will be a long list, so you comix historians keep checking in. 

Friday, July 22, 2011

City Limits Gazette # Purple bowling shoes on a spongy miniature golf course (Aug. 1992)













Logo by Maximum Traffic, Steve Lafler on hobbyism, Bil Keane Watch with Maximum Traffic and Mark Campos, Hank Arakelian profile, Lynn Hansen on Kennedy Guide pt. 2, special visual Bil Keane Watch vision quest by Max. Traffic.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

City Limits Gazette # Feverish clambake (Dec. 1991)








What is selling out?, Bil Keane Watch by Troy Hickman, Jay Kennedy on the Guide and also Bil Keane, Hector chain cartoon, Lynn Hansen comix reviews, news from Matt Feazell, Jim Danky describes the State Historical Society of Wisconsin comix collection, bad cover versions of Long and Winding Road, Love Me Do.

City Limits Gazette # Digger Digger Rocking Chair (Nov. 1991)





Logo by Mel. White, the number for this issue came from something my daughter (then 3 years old) said, news from Bruce Chrislip, reviews by Lynn Hansen, Bil Keane Watch and illustration by Wayno ("The Dysfunctional Family Circus of Cruelty!!"), Mark Campos on underground comix, Jerry Riddle on Kennedy's Guide.

Friday, July 15, 2011

City Limits Gazette # Chock full o' frogs (Oct. 1991)









Hank Arakelian comments on Kennedy's Guide, reviews by Lynn Hansen, bad cover versions of I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Want to Tell You, I Want You (She's So heavy), I Will, If I Fell, If I Needed Someone, I'll Be Back, I'll Cry Instead, I'll Follow the Sun, I'm a Loser, I'm Down, I'm Happy Just to Dance With You, Bruce Sweeney's Underground Station, The Bil Keane Watch with contributions from Bruce Chrislip and Wayno.

State of Beings # 3. Arizona was included as a bonus with this issue.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

City Limits Gazette # blue sky blue (May 1991)





Logo by the wonderful Wayno! The first official Bil Keane Watch. News and comments by Bruce Chrislip, Bruce Sweeney on Kennedy's Guide, bad cover versions of Don't Pass Me By, Drive My Car, Eight Days a Week, Eleanor Rigby, The End, Every Little Thing, Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except For Me and My Monkey, Fixing a Hole, Flying, Fool on the Hill.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Artpaper: The Activist Librarians




Chris and Jan put this together for the December 1989 issue of Artpaper. Today the idea of an academic library comic collection is taken for granted. Public libraries are even giving workshops on how to make your own books-- Newave style. And little library zine collections are everywhere.

But back in the 1980s this was still considered a bit on the edge. The comic art librarians are mentioned in the last part of the article, taking special notice of the amazing Randall Scott, Michigan State University librarian and, I'm happy to say, one of the gang who subscribed to the old City Limits Gazette. Jim Danky, the Wisconsin librarian (an co-editor of Alternative Library Literature) in this piece, was especially helpful to Jay Kennedy when the Guide was assembled.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

One Normal Guy Talking With a Nut!









1st edition July 1985, Pullman, Washington : Kage Comics. Letter size cardstock stapled at margin.

2nd edition, 1985, Pullman, Washington : Kage Comics. Letter size cardstock stapled at margin.

Available as a reprint-on-demand title, 1994, regular digest size.

Clint Hollingsworth originally published this in a format that makes it difficult to scan, so you Morty the Blog readers are stuck with my posting the digest size version, which is unfortunate given the amount of fine detail work by Brad Foster. Also you'll need to extra enlarge the images to read the thing.

My personal copy is the 2nd edition and it is pink. I don't know if Clint used different colors in his printings. As a note to you bookpeople, Newave collectors tended to regard printings as editions, something that was more or less institutionalized in the network by Jay Kennedy in his Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide.

Clint's original editions included some extra material: Foster's short pieces "The Button" and three whimsical illustrations, and my story "A Glimmering Ray of Despair." These extras were all excluded from the print-on-demand version.

This was a very enjoyable jam with one of the most prominent artists associated with the Newave comix movement. Sending this thing back and forth between Washington State and Texas was like a long game of chess with a master. We made attempt after attempt to trap each other in this visual gamesmanship.

Brad and I are from the same generation and shared a somewhat parallel development as cartoonists, growing up with shared influences. We also, and I think I can speak for Brad here, found the Newave network to be a great outlet for our artistic freedom and expression. An outlet that was fairly unique at the time.

With those things in common, the differences were in the details. And we had fun with those differences in this jam.