Welcome to another visit to my little library collection of comics, books, journals and associated paraphernalia related to my research, study and enjoyment of comics art. In this series of posts I generally focus on a particular creator or series in my collection and make a few comments about the subject. For this post, however, there is no photograph of a section of books on the shelves as I normally provide. Instead I have taken three books from off the shelves and merged them with some associated art material (painting, sculpture, dessert and a vegetable) in the art studio to add to the HALLOWEEN related theme of this post. Although in number not as many as the amount of books, journals and comics in my collection I have also collected a few items of comics art such as drawings, paintings and sculptures that I may feature in these posts from time to time, if relevant, along with the usual book items. That is the case with this post, thus the title “From My Library and Art Collection” referring to not just books but also some items of art. I have located some earlier blog material on this particular theme and re-edited it with additional contextual material, so this post is a bit of a mixed bag.

Comics, cards, painting and sculpture are combined in the photo above along with the themes of Halloween and Day of the Dead! In a decorated corner of the art studio for a previous Halloween we set up this grouping: an actual Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) skeleton doll from Mexico, or at least the upper half of the doll, sitting on a sculpture by Richard Black called The Cloud, with a comic by the Mexican comics artists JIS & TRINO. The skeleton doll has shed its legs and is relaxing on the wooden Cloud sculpture. There is also a Dancing Pumpkin postcard by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and a GRATEFUL DEAD skeleton and roses poster(out of frame on the wall behind in this image that can be seen in a separate image at bottom of this post) from the Stanley Mouse studio promoting some of that band’s famous concerts at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco back in the 1960s.  Towering above all of this and acting as a thematic backdrop is a painted enlargement of the after-death scene from Louise Graber‘s Gothic comic Black Light Angels. (Photo-© 2012 Dr. Michael Hill).

Here is that ‘moment after death’ scene in it’s published state, page 20 of Issue X of the BLACK LIGHT ANGELS comic by Louise Graber, published by GRABER HILL. The other version of this panel, the one at the top of this post, has been enlarged and hand-coloured by Louise to suit the art gallery exhibition of it. (Photo-©2023 Dr. Michael Hill)

Now, returning to the composite exhibition installation in the art studio to focus on the other featured book from my library in this post, the large format comic El Santos y El Peyote en La Atlántida by the Mexican cartoonists Jis and Trino. I met these two artists at ICAF (Fifth Annual International Comic Arts Festival: “Culture, Industry, Discourse,”) Georgetown University and Bethesda, Maryland, USA, presented in conjunction with THE EXPO (Small Press Expo), September 16-18, 1999. It was the first overseas comics art conference that I attended and at which I presented a paper based on my research into comics art, and what a magical episode it turned out to be, meeting overseas colleagues, attending a Comic-Con, and eating in Mexican restaurants, the latter a culinary rarity in my home city of Sydney at the time. (Photo-© 2012 Dr. Michael Hill). (NOTE: See the forthcoming post in mid 2024 under the title MY COMICS ART TRAVELS: Fifth Stop U.S.A. in which I plan to go into further details of that conference, those artists and their cartoons, as well as celebrating the IJOCA publication (see image of debut issue below) reaching its 25th anniversary!)

At this event I first met  Gene Kannenberg, Jr. along with several other comics based academics including Professor John A. Lent who was launching the first issue of his International Journal of Comic Art or IJOCA (see photo above). Other new colleagues I met there included Charles Hatfield, Jeff Miller, Ana Merino, Mark Nevins, Michael Rhode, Marc Singer, Guy Spielmann, Jeff Williams, Joseph “Rusty” Witek, and Pascal Lefevre from Belgium. Above is that first ever issue of the journal from 1999. It is now nearing a total of 50 published issues, having chalked up 25 years of continuous publication. It has also seemed to grow in size into the solid block that I affectionately named the “Brick”. Go John! (Photo-©2023 Dr. Michael Hill)

Above are the drawings of me by Jis and Trino. They took me by surprise with their cartoons and the offer of a glass of tequila at a morning session of the conference. (Photo-©2023 Dr. Michael Hill)

Yayoi Kusama’s Dancing Pumpkin postcard. (Photo-© 2012 Dr. Michael Hill).

Adding to the skeletal link is the 1966 GRATEFUL DEAD poster Skeleton and Roses designed by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse. (Photo-© 2012 Dr. Michael Hill).

Here the skeleton is reading Sensational!, a book on Mexican cartoon graphics!

The artist, Louise Graber, at an exhibition of her work, standing alongside an enlarged and painted panel from her comic BLACK LIGHT ANGELS  that is featured in this post. (Photo-© 2012 Dr. Michael Hill).

To conclude this post I wish to reiterate the relative importance of my attendance at the ICAF (Fifth Annual International Comic Arts Festival: “Culture, Industry, Discourse,”) event to the development of my research into comics. I was fortunate in being introduced to and seeing the presentations of a group of international researchers into comics (some of the names in the fifth paragraph of this post, above) and obtaining the first ever issue of the International Journal Of Comic Art from 1999. I eventually became the Australian representative on the International Editorial Board of the journal and have remained so to the present day. Subscription to the journal enabled me to read a plethora of research articles on comic art by scholars from around the world and even have my own articles on research into Australian comics published. Along with my acquisition of it at the conference, it has proved an inspiring and motivating experience. (NOTE: I am thinking that some of this conference information could also be placed in the MY COMICS ART TRAVELS series…I have one in the pipeline on the U.S.A…scheduled for posting on this site in mid 2024. We will see.)

My LIBRARY posts form part of my graphic based material that includes the fields of painting, printmaking and cartooning including artwork for my comic and graphic novel BLOTTING PAPER: The Recollected Graphical Impressions of Doctor Comics.