Saturn Apartments: Forced Retirement

I read Saturn Apartments, Vol. 4

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin.

Kevin Avery Tours to Support "Everything is an Afterthought"

On Tour Now: Kevin Avery Hits the Road with "Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson"

“Kevin Avery has done something heroic here. Avery has rescued the work and the passion, the life and the meaning of the great Paul Nelson. Nelson was a deep and beautiful writer, mysterious and painstaking and brilliant. Thanks to Avery and Everything is an Afterthought, Paul Nelson’s work finally has a home.” — Cameron Crowe

What happened to legendary music critic Paul Nelson?

Fantagraphics Books Inc. invites you to find out as we present author/editor Kevin Avery on tour for the unique anthology-biography, Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson – a collection that’s been called “music book of the year” by DangerousMinds.net.

In the ‘60s, Paul Nelson pioneered rock & roll criticism with a first-person style of writing that would later be popularized by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer as “New Journalism.” As co-founding editor of The Little Sandy Review and managing editor of Sing Out!, he’d already established himself, to use his friend Bob Dylan’s words, as “a folk-music scholar”; but when Dylan went electric in 1965, Nelson went with him.

During a five-year detour at Mercury Records in the early 1970s, Nelson signed the New York Dolls to their first recording contract, then settled back down to writing criticism at Rolling Stone as the last in a great tradition of record-review editors that included Jon Landau, Dave Marsh, and Greil Marcus. Famously championing the early careers of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, Neil Young, and Warren Zevon, Nelson not only wrote about them but often befriended them. Never one to be pigeonholed, he was also one of punk rock’s first stateside mainstream proponents, embracing The Sex Pistols and The Ramones.

But in 1982, he walked away from it all – Rolling Stone, his friends, and rock & roll. By the time he died in his New York City apartment in 2006 at the age of seventy – a week passing before anybody discovered his body – almost everything he’d written had been relegated to back issues of old music magazines.

How could a man whose writing had been so highly regarded have fallen so quickly from our collective memory?

With Paul Nelson’s posthumous blessing, Kevin Avery spent four years researching and writing Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, which compiles Nelson’s best works (some of it previously unpublished) while also providing a vivid account of his private and public lives. Avery interviewed almost 100 of Paul Nelson’s friends, family, and colleagues, including several of the artists about whom he’d written.

For additional information and a preview, please visit:
• www.fantagraphics.com/kevinavery
• www.fantagraphics.com/paulnelson


Kevin Avery's Tour Dates for Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson

Wednesday, November 9th at 7:00 PM
Kevin Avery will be joined on stage by Dave Marsh, a rock critic, historian, anti-censorship activist, talk show host and “Louie Louie” expert who has written more than 20 books about rock and popular music. This event will be held in the Rare Book Room on the 3rd Floor of the Strand.
Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway (at 12th St.)
New York City, NY 10003

Thursday, December 1st at 7:00 PM
Join Kevin Avery for a signing and discussion.
Barnes & Noble Park Slope
267 7th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215

Saturday, December 3rd at 1:00 – 4:00 PM
Join Kevin Avery for a signing and discussion.
Farley’s Bookshop
44 South Main Street
New Hope, PA 18938

Tuesday, December 13th at 7:00 PM
Join Kevin Avery for a signing and discussion. Avery will be joined by musician Elliott Murphy, who will play a few tunes.
BookCourt
163 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

For more information, visit www.fantagraphics.com/news/averytour

Review: THE COMPLETE RECORD COVER COLLECTION

THE COMPLETE RECORD COVER COLLECTION
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY

CARTOONIST: R. Crumb
ISBN: 978-0-393-08278-4; hardcover
96pp, Color, $25.95 U.S., $32.50 CAN

An American comic book artist, illustrator, and musician, R. Crumb (also known as Robert Crumb) is the famed Underground Comix creator known for his controversial work. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1943, Crumb is a founder of the Underground Comix movement and is its most prominent figure. Crumb also founded the seminal Underground Comix comic book series, Zap Comix.

Crumb is something of a satirist and social critic, and his work has frequently been called racist and sexist. But there are many sides to Crumb’s creativity and artistry, which is revealed in The Complete Record Cover Collection, a new hardcover Crumb art book from publisher, W.W. Norton & Company. Crumb is a prolific illustrator of record covers, having produced over 400 of them. Crumb apparently began drawing record covers in 1968 when Janis Joplin asked him to draw the cover for Cheap Thrills (1968), the second album from American rock band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, for which she was then the lead singer.

The publisher says that The Complete Record Cover Collection is the complete catalog of every record cover jacket Crumb has ever drawn, while also admitting that there could still be Crumb music-related art hidden away somewhere. Crumb mainly drew record covers for artists, new and forgotten, who performed jazz, country, old-time blues, roots, and Americana music of the 1920s and 30s. He also produced record cover art for his own musical act, R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders.

The Complete Record Cover Collection also brings together other music related art from Crumb. The book reprints art for event flyers and posters, advertisements, magazine covers, silkscreen prints, and trading cards, among other things. Much of the work also reveals Crumb’s skill at lettering. I think the publisher would like reviewers to emphasize the record cover art in their reviews of The Complete Record Cover Collection, but I want to focus on something else.

What I like most about this book are the portraits of musicians – past and present. These drawings range in size from about 2.5” x 4” to a little larger. They are drawn with such power and faithfulness to the subjects that they seem larger. Crumb executed two such portraits of legendary R&B singer James Brown for The New Yorker in 2000. One depicts a young Brown that captures his likeness with a photographer’s touch. The other, a depiction of an older “hardest working man in show business,” is more of a cartoon, but it captures the spirit both of Brown’s public persona and of his stage performance. Crumb’s 1992 portrait of Frank Zappa (also for The New Yorker) is a sparkling psychedelic piece that encapsulates the eccentric Zappa.

These black and white ink drawings are rendered in such detail that Crumb’s cartoonish style has a kind of realism that is all his own. Crosshatching, fine line work, and solid brushwork bring these musicians to life in strange ways, making even what is familiar about them vibrant and new. This is exemplified in portraits of a smirking, older George Jones; a proud Bo Diddley, and a wired up Merle Haggard.

The Complete Record Cover Collection is about the record cover art of R. Crumb, and it is an excellent book in that regard. Its treasure, however, is the collection of portraits.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

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Real Ringer

I read Real, Vol. 10 (Real (Viz))

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin (which has FREE smart phone apps).

Review: THE SWEETER SIDE OF R. CRUMB

THE SWEETER SIDE OF R. CRUMB
W.W. NORTON & COMPANY

CARTOONIST: R. Crumb
ISBN: 978-0-393-33371-8; paperback
110pp, B&W, $17.95 U.S., $22.50 CAN

The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb is a 2010 paperback from W.W. Norton & Company that reprints various non-controversial works from the cartoonist and artist, R. Crumb (Robert Crumb). Crumb, the famed Underground Comix creator, has created comix and art that some describe as perverse, crude, cruel, nasty, vile, racist, misogynist, and just plain negative. While I would agree with those sentiments in some examples of his work, I think that American comic books would be worse off without the work of this genius.

Perhaps R. Crumb, a publicist, and/or his publisher decided it was time to show readers a less controversial, more artistic side of Crumb. The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb is a combination art book, portfolio, and sketchbook that offers an array of Crumb drawings that have nothing to do with the busty female revolutionaries, conniving funny animals, weird characters, and horny everyman’s that populate Crumb’s comic book and comix work. Also, the art here is in glorious black and white, the better to show off Crumb’s precision cross hatching and sumptuous, textured ink work.

The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb presents intimate portraits of Crumb’s family and friends as well as drawings of roots music figures – some obscure (Charlie Poole) and some fairly well known (B.B. King). This book offers marvelous landscapes from the French countryside and lovely still life drawings, and even eye-popping depictions of French alleyways and buildings. Many of these drawings may simply be work that Crumb did while quietly observing people or interior and exteriors scenes. There are even a few comic strip vignettes starring Robert and his daughter Sophie as a small child.

I look at The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb as a publication Norton is going to use to pad their R. Crumb catalog. Or maybe people who only know the controversial R. Crumb need a book like this. Even Crumb seems to suggest as much in his introduction to this book, an introduction that only seems partly tongue-in-cheek. As far as I’m concerned, I’m up for anything that will get more people to see R. Crumb’s comix and illustrations. If it means The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb, then, let’s have more.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

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Review: X 3-IN-1 EDITION Volume 1

X 3-IN-1 EDITION, VOL. 1
VIZ MEDIA

CREATORS: CLAMP
Story and Script and Book Design: Nanase Ohkawa
Art/Cover Illustration: Mokona Apapa
Art Direction: Mick Nekoi
Art Assistance: Satsuki Igarashi
TRANSLATION: Lillian Olsen
LETTERS: Annaliese Christman
ISBN: 978-1-4215-4041-2; paperback, Rated “T+” for “Older Teen”
584pp, B&W with some color, $19.99 U.S. $22.99 CAN

CLAMP (or Clamp) is an all-female manga artist group and studio. The group began in the mid-1980s as a self-publishing collective of amateur artists. The group’s first professional work, RG Veda, apparently was started when the creators were still amateurs. Some of their best known titles are Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, and xxxHolic.

One of CLAMP’s most famous/infamous series is X, which is also known as X/1999. The series debuted in 1992 in the manga magazine, Monthly Asuka. X follows a young man who must deal with the fact that his destiny will determine the fate of humanity. VIZ Media is currently publishing the series as “X” in their omnibus 3-in-1 editions, which collect three volumes in one large size paperback volume.

X 3-in-1 Edition: Vol. 1 introduces the major players. After the recent death of his mother, Kamui Shiro moves back to Tokyo following a six-year absence. His dear friends, Kotori Monou and her older brother, Fuma Monou, find that Kamui is not like they remember him. Now, sullen and withdrawn, Kamui seems to have the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he actually does.

According to the blind seer, Hinoto, the fate of humanity rests on Kamui’s narrow shoulders. Meanwhile, the Seven Seals, who are Kamui’s allies, and the Seven Angels, who are to be his adversaries, gather. The year 1999 will be the year of the great battle in which Kamui will decide the outcome. Or will he? Could there be another?

I was brief in my summary of the first volume of X 3-in-1 Edition, but so much more happens and practically all of it is fun to read. X is not as polished as Clamp’s later work, and its unrefined nature shows on every page. However, there is something very alluring about this rawness. Lacking the ability or, more likely, desire to be subtle, Clamp filled X with high-strung characters whose emotions are not hidden or quiet. The conniving are really conniving. The sullen are particularly sullen. And when a young woman is in love, as Kotori is, she’s ready to stand by her man and make him soup if he won’t eat what she has already cooked.

The art emphasizes big panels which usually contain battle scenes. Those battle scenes depict energy and magic unleashed in a fast and furious display. What the art lacks in draftsmanship, composition, and figure drawing, it makes up for in sheer bravado. The characters are likeable and though the subplots are a mess, X is that kind of large scale fantasy that attracts readers – like me.

B+

Tesoro: A Short Story Treasury

I read Tesoro (Tesoro: Ono Natsume Shoki Tanpenshuu 1998-2008)

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin.