Welcome to the second visit to my little library collection of titles relating to comics where I hone in a small section of books on my shelves, select one title, or two or three or even more from that section, and take a closer look…and please note as I stated in the first post on this topic, the books are not shelved according to normal library rules i.e. category details…but are located by size grouping rather than specific subject grouping…however they generally all have something to do with comics, being comics or critiques of comics.
In this instance, despite the overbearing presence of a trio of books from the Marvel universe, I am going to start at the opposite end of the section of the shelf with the two unjacketed books by Ronald Searle, MERRY ENGLAND ETC. and SOULS IN TORMENT . These books were bought second-hand from a dealer at a community market and both had lost their jackets. Despite my unorthodox shelving policy these books from an English artist just so happen to be shelved next to a title from another English title and author/artist, TAMARA DREWE by Posy Simmonds. The juxtapositional positions of the titles on the shelves throw up other amusing aspects…Posey Simmonds sitting next to Robert Crumb’s THE BOOK OF MR. NATURAL, Ronald Searle side by side with JACK COLE AND PLASTIC MAN, and Fletcher Hanks’ YOU SHALL DIE BY YOUR OWN EVIL CREATION , the latter title just a short distance away from Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s DOCTOR STRANGE VOL.1. In the middle of all these there is a journal on comic art titled COMIC ART, or comic art is… as it reads on the spine.… and at one end we have HOUDINI by Jason Lutes and Nick Bertozzi whilst at the other end there are THE X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN tomes, both first volumes in a longer series…and there is another Fletcher Hanks title I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS! in the middle of it all with both Hanks titles introduced by Paul Karasik. But let’s return to the starting end of the row with a Ronald Searle. (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill)
Ronald Searle delivers some cruel snippets of English life in his books Merry England, etc. (from 1956) and Souls In Torment, both of which feature collections of his single panel satirical cartoons deftly wrought in pen and ink and left floating on the page without frames or borders. He can be cruel. (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill) Also of English origin is a graphic novel on the countryside chronicles of rural based romantic relationships as displayed in Tamara Drewe , both written and drawn by Posy Simmonds whose treatment of the subject is markedly softer and less satirical than Searle’s but telling, nonetheless. (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill) In stark contrast to TAMARA DREWE and that graphic novel’s setting in the English countryside we have tales from Outer Space and the Jungle by the American auteur Fletcher Hanks, mostly from the 1940s. This collection of 7 or 8 page comic strips titled YOU SHALL DIE BY YOUR OWN EVIL CREATION! is a collection of short stories with titles such as Space Smith In The Battle Of The Earth Against The Martian Ogres , The Super Wizard Stardust, Whirlwind Carter Of The Interplanetary Secret Service and Fantomah: Mystery Woman Of The Jungle , as pictured above on the cover of the book. (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill) Also of North American origin is this first volume of the collected X-MEN comics, Nos. 1-31, from 1963-67 with the creator credits of Written by Stan Lee and Drawn (or designed or illustrated or layouts) by Jack Kirby. It seems from the credits that Stan was always involved but from Issue No.20 he moved away from the writing to the editing with Roy Thomas taking over the scripting. Kirby, although always involved up to and including Issue No.17, moved around the art studio a bit and had some help here and there with the pencilling, inking and lettering. (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill) This post is now developing a Made in USA production streak with Jack Cole’s humorous and stylistic talents on display in a book from DC Comics titled JACK COLE AND PLASTIC MAN as written and celebrated by Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd. It documents Cole’s work on the comic as well as some of his contributions to Playboy magazine as a staff cartoonist. The principal character, Plastic Man, was an incredibly flexible and stretchable figure in Cole’s hands…out on the beach he could stretch his neck up four or five times the length of his body to peer over the landscape’s horizon! This ability was referred to in the comic as “polymorphously perverse plasticity.” (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill) Now to Robert Crumb’s MR. NATURAL: Profane Tales Of That Old Mystic Madcap from Fantagraphics Books addingmore American work in this post, although Crumb did move to France to live in 1990 and some of the work in this book is from post 1990, so it can possibly referred to as American work made in France. Essentially though it dates from the late 1960s and early 1970s…comic art about the Hippy philosopher and his down-to-earth lifestyle. (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill) And to complete this post is an issue of this high quality journal (in fact this would have to be the absolutely highest quality visually produced journal on comic art that I have ever seen) from that big country north of Mexico, COMIC ART . This journal, an annual from Buenaventura Press, has been sumptuously produced in full colour on quality gloss paper. It is issue No.9 Fall 2007. Sadly, it is apparently no longer published. It has stunning reproductions of extracts from comic strips and informative articles about the creators and their work and some rare historical material (e.g. the one in this issue on the work of George Clark by Donald Phelps whom I met a a comics conference in the U.S.). I would love to find further issues of this publication! (Photo-©2020 Dr. Michael Hill) 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.
Doctor Comics 