Thursday, March 8, 2012

Pop goes the Seventies:

   

Over the years,I have thought long and often about what makes the art form of comics so interesting and cool. Mainly because I also create them. There  are  many, many illustrators,inkers,letterers,writers and "all in ones"-- those of us who do it all ourselves. Well mostly all ourselves--I mean Dave Sim had Gerhard--c'mon give me a break. Empty page through production and all the time checking and rechecking-well you get the picture. Work, lots of work. Much like the independent film makers who ride on the waves of the "amateur" auteurs. Exciting stuff--eh. I really don't think the excitement of comics and comic-related material really goes away altogether,at least not for me. I mean the stuff, for better or worse, gets in your bones. My interest has settled down to a low idle. Some of the reasons are economic in nature. Other reasons include story quality and the state of the American comics industry. I was employed for Capitol City Distribution around the time Frank Miller was screaming for well- earned justice for Jack "King" Kirby. Later, I worked for Cold-Cut Distribution when Jhonen Vasquez's "Squee" and "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" were selling like hotcakes. But of course,I was a fan before all of that and worked in comics retail from time to time. Mostly just for the free comics. Profit was nice when the opportunity presented itself, which wasn't often. I'm still looking around for pics of Camelot Comics Shop which was just off Main street in Houston, and also Roy's Memory Shop,  an old house bursting with the nostalgic rhythm of rock-n-roll oldies. So now I'm older, probably some twenty-five years removed from those high school days,working at Ron's Krispy Chicken and spending weekends spending what was left of my pay on comics. And here I thought I'd get through a mid-life crisis like a breeze--hah! But that longing for the medium found a home, nestled in and has never been very far away, even at this stage of my life. I'm just not as much of a geek about it. My girlfriend says I still am though--but she likes geeks. Anyhow, I'm always waiting for the next wave of creators, just to see where they take the medium (after which I'll give my personal views, if I dare, if I dare...for example, I'm somewhat of a film buff. For most folks back in the seventies there was no portable video equipment to speak of. Such new fangled contraptions were not exactly in widespread use then. Like most procurement of such high tech goodies, it was and still is a matter of affordability and interest. It would have been a fluke to run across such a thing during the 1970s in Houston, where I was born into this somewhat muddled life.

                      
                                http://www.hometownpix.com
                     

 I believe, if you are lucky enough, that minute glimpses of inspiration can be gleaned from a vast quantity of influences (and they are vast)for comics within a number of genres. What's known as the Bronze Age of comics in America (c.1970-1985, according to Wikipedia) is a very interesting and strange thing to observe. Sometimes the attention might be caught by a angle of a character in a panel, or maybe something drawn in a certain style. The similarities then become a question of which came first--the chicken or the egg. Eerily similar passages in novels published around the same time. I know a woman that has seen so many movies that she can guess the endings, having become familiar with a number of different genres. 
For the creators of these early works of comic book art, I imagine it's a kind of pop osmosis during their heyday. Pop art was alive and thriving, spring boarding the technology and distribution of art supplies as well. I'm sure some artists were just outright copying each other. Insular creation is sometimes the nature of commercial art, especially with the relatively new technology of computer design. (which, for example, brought the manual sign painting business to its knees). So when I pick up a book from this period, I wonder what sort of  deadlines and pressures artists such as Neal Adams or Rick Buckler had to endure (or Larry Hama and Keith Pollard for that matter!) as well what solutions they used to overcome creative obstacles. In other words, what succeeded and what didn't?
As an example, Barry Windsor Smith's story of that pivotal, creative, but somewhat homogeneous time is worthy of note here. I'm talking mainstream end of the art form--during the seventies it really got to me! It was established comic book artists digging their boots in and settling in to ride that gravy train--all the way to the end of the line. This genre of comics is what my girlfriend calls insular, inbred, superhero drek. She's more correct than not. For female comic book artists back in those days (Marie Severin or Cat Yronwode aside),the comics field was just not as advantageous for women. And it seems there were many more female artists that I was not aware of at the time, whose art remained unseen and unappreciated. If there was mainstream exposure, they surely were not credited in the same manner as the guys. As with many women working in the American film industry, many female comic book artist struggled to get proper credit for the very pages they sweated over. There were no female bigwigs marketed with the same enthusiasm as  Frank Miller, by the time he got rolling along. And why not? Because for the publisher, it was a marketing coup d'etat. I cannot imagine what it was like for those freelancers, no matter the gender, during this period of pop art history. After all, New York City and its outlying boroughs are like a mecca for artists of every kind. It's like there's something in the water, even Queens produced bands as phenomenal as the Ramones.  And comic book appreciation is a very subjective and personal thing. I'll start talking to my girl about Cerebus or Paul Gulacy's Sabre, or Steranko's MediaScene, but soon I'm usually in a hollow monologue and she's off reading Los Bros Hernandez mighty Love and Rockets graphic novels yet again... 
( we drove all over northern California and scoured the Web collecting them--meh, she likes what she likes). All I can say is I sure miss Rory Root's Comic Relief. R.I.P...


Hey, is it live  or    is    it                                     

memorex?