Registry of Death (1996) by Matt Coyle and Peter Lamb

Well, that’s some introduction by Poppy Z. Brite. (And whatever happened to her? Brite was hot shit back in the 90s, but I can’t remember Brite being mentioned for quite a while…) Ah:

His later work moved into the genre of dark comedy, with many stories set in the New Orleans restaurant world.

Oh! Some pages from this were published in Death Rattle — I don’t know whether it was announced that it was an excerpt or not, but if so, I missed it. Well, now it makes more sense how odd that piece was.

Kitchen Sink had a pretty distinct aesthetic, and then Tundra had a very different one… but Kitchen Sink at this point seems to be growing a new aesthetic, somewhat different from the previous two. I guess it’s a post Crow aesthetic? They’re leaning into portentous writing, is what I’m saying.

But man, the artwork here is amazeballs. And by artwork, I mean rendering. The pages look like they’ve been collaged on a computer (was this before Photoshop?), adjusted/distorted, and then used as the basis for these drawings. They’re compositions that I don’t think anybody would have come up with by just starting to sketch on a blank page? But what do I know.

It’s really striking, though, so I can understand Kitchen Sink wanting to publish this (by two young guys from Australia — the artist was just out of art school). But striking as it is, I can’t really see many people buying this.

And not because People Have Bad Taste, but because it’s not altogether coherent, and makes for a less than compelling reading experience. I mean, for a first comic, it’s impressive, but the story isn’t compelling, and there’s too many spreads like the above that are pretty much illegible, even if all the separate elements are awesome.

It’s the kind of book that seems as if the writer spent a couple days writing it, and then left the artist to draw it for two years. I.e., the story could have used some more depth. And work put into it.

I’m unable to find any reviews of this book on the intertubes.

This is the one hundred and ninety-fifth post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.

Art & Beauty Magazine (1996) #1 by Robert Crumb

I’ve got the Fantagraphics edition of this here, but I assume the Kitchen Sink one was just the same.

So it’s a bunch of (really good) drawings by R. Crumb, along with a buttload of quotations from various artists and other people. Crumb is trying to express something of what he finds valuable in art, and it’s basically beauty, I think he’s saying? (Oh, and that he hates abstract art.)

The patter from the “curator” about the artwork is very… flattering, and I assume that Crumb wrote it himself. So he thinks he draws good, and he should, because he does.

Oh, I forgot I already covered this over in the Fantagraphics blog series… *reads the article* Oh, I was so much more erudite back in 2016! I agree with everything I said. So there.

Eric Reynolds writes in The Comics Journal #193, page 129:

Do really need to say
anything mcye than “R.
Crumb?” This is the first
all-new Crumb book
since Self-Loathinq
Comics almost two
years ago, and white it
isn’t really a comic, it is one cf Crumb’s most interesting
and fascinating projects ever. The book featwes 35 brand
neu character studys. d’most all of which are Of so-Caled
“Crumb women, ” each with annotations from the artist
and accompanying quotes on art from vanous sources,
a/ hand-lettered and crafted by Crumb.
In a way, this be considered Crumb’s manifesto.
As pointed out, this self-titled magazine about “Art &
Beauty” •s preoccupied with the very figures that have
for so iong been at the root Of Crunws most
;d-reßecttve an, yet here these women
are intellectualized in a way that
seems at odds with the more
instinctive and sexualy-base
presentations of similarly-
formed women in
Crumb’s comics (and
for which he is best
known).
Crumb defends
h’s obsession with
the iema’e physique
very tenderiy and
passionately in Art &
Beauty, revealing a man
is as clearly motivated
by the didactic nature cf great
art well as the more personal
desire to satisfy the id. Of course these are
still coectifications. but Crumb would be a lesser artist
if he tried to deny his obsession with the female form
than if he tried to understand it.
70 extend the obvious Freudian interpretation, these
lavish character studys offer the most tempered filtration
of the artist’s id and ego ever seen. Crumb states that
his own “imagination is stimulated by such pictures,
våich give(s) him the high level of motivation required
for his meticulously detailed pen-and-ink rendering
technique,” but what gives him the motivation and ability
to so articulately express with words his ffvvn artistic 0b-
sessions? ‘t might be the desire to d greater
artist, Or ‘t m”‘ not either way, that has been the
resu•t of it end has characterized Crumb’s preeminence
not on’y’ ds an underground cartoonist, but as one Of
the 20th Century’s most important artists.

Not everybody is equally impressed:

And for many, this, along with Crumb’s countercultural kudos, will be enough for them to find great joy in this exhibition. But I cannot shake the sensation that surveying women who have been drawn on the basis of the sexual gratification they provide for the artist, gives me. Not only do I see the misogyny seething through every pencil stroke, I feel like I see the attempts to obscure it, with humour and academisation, just long enough so that patrons can get out their chequebooks.

[…]

I don’t know if this is the fault of Crumb or the paratextual art-world machinery, to be fair. Unfortunately Lucas Zwirner, son of David and head of the Zwirner’s publishing arm, makes me retch at the opening by encouraging the crowd to think of Crumb in the context of ‘the grotesque’ and Breugel.

Heh heh.

This is the one hundred and ninety-fourth post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.

Oink: Heaven’s Butcher (1995) #1-3 by John Mueller

I think this was Mueller’s first comic book. Looking at comics.org, he’d done covers for Swamp Thing for a while (or perhaps while doing this), and it shows.

I mean, I can see why he’d been picked to do Swamp Thing covers, but his storytelling is very choppy. And I’m guessing the artwork is somewhat photo referenced? But is fully painted? Perhaps in… er… acrylics? I don’t see much computer manipulation of the artwork, but this was 1995, and I guess it would be too early. But perhaps painted on top of pics? Some of it?

Not all, obviously. The rendering sometimes reminds me a bit of Corben, but the storytelling doesn’t at all. And the non-painted panels that appear as if random? Pretty cool. It’s just hard to say what’s happening a lot of the time. Which I guess adds to the mystery.

Sorry about all the reflections… I’m trying to angle the camera, but it’s very shiny paper.

Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I guess Mueller had a religious upbringing? You can tell by the subtle subtleties in the subtle subtleness.

But that’s pretty horrifying.

The story is basically about these guys breeding pigs both for eatin’ and also more human-like beings for workin’, and sometimes both! So we’re all, of course, curious about what’s behind all this evilness. How on earth does this make sense from an economic point of view? Or a logistical one? You’d expect people to get pretty miffed after a while if you’re snacking on them, too, right? So it just seems unnecessarily brittle, as evil setups go.

Mueller has the explanation why they’re doing this evilness, though: “Because we can”. Okidokey.

It’s often just next to impossible to say what’s going on, or what order you’re supposed to read the panels or the speech bubbles. How many people are participating in the conversation above? Who is saying “yes, it was!” in response to what statement from which character?

It brings us back to that age-old question: What does an editor do? Not work on this comic book.

But I mean, it looks pretty neat.

I wonder whether this book originated back in the Tundra days? It shares an aesthetic with many things published back then (i.e., “heavy metal fan that’s learned how to paint”), and is not like anything that Kitchen Sink would have published back in the day… But it’s a bit late for that, I guess.

… OK, skimming what I’ve written above, I think this blog post came out meaner than I had meant: I quite like this book. It had a visceral quality that’s quite appealing, and it made me slow down reading a lot — I don’t know whether that was on purpose, or whether it was just due to the wonkiness of the dialogue. But it’s fine. I can easily see this having rabid fans that loves it.

Cool author pic, dude. And he was a bit early with his prediction, I guess, but I guess he was pretty much on point with his predictions.

I was unable to find any contemporaneous reviews of this.

It’s deep:

That’s when things get really deep.

I can’t claim to read the mind of John Mueller and know exactly what kind of messages he was hoping to convey with this striking graphic novel, but I know that I thought long and hard after reading it about blind faith, the abuse of power and authority, the conditioning of young minds to best serve the interests of their governors, and what might happen if the human race as a whole lost all compassion for other beings. I told you — deep stuff.

But is that a bad thing?

Kind of half-baked and not fully developed. This reminds me of something a juvenile delinquent might have written during study hall (or detention). Not sure where this got its “classic” status from…

Seems like most people like it:

At its core, it’s a very entertaining story and well crafted from start to finish. Very well constructed in every way, I found it extremely engaging despite the harsh and dark nature of it. I did not know the work of John Mueller prior to this series but this made me want to seek out more of his works.

Well, not all:

Oink is evidence that Mueller is a gifted artist and a poor storyteller. Though the reader will constantly want the story of the titular revolutionary pig-person to be compelling, and though some characters are likable enough to elicit a few satisfying emotional turns in the story, the world itself is cobbled together from several half-baked ideas, all of which would have needed to be fully baked to make this story satisfying.

Dark Horse released a collected edition some years back. And Mueller has kept up the pig-related comics with Jeremiah Hamm.

Oh! Misread that. It’s Jeremiah Harm.

This is the one hundred and ninety-third post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.

Death Rattle (1995) #1-5 edited by Chris Couch and others

Now, I know nothing about no publishing comics, but launching a 32 page black and white anthology in 1995? … wha…? It seems like the least commercially viable thing you could possibly do, doesn’t it? On the other hand, Xenozoic Tales started in the previous Death Rattle incarnation, so perhaps lightning would strike again, and using the anthology as a loss leader talent scouting operation would work again.

It’s worth an attempt?

On the other other hand, perhaps they just really wanted to do it, and there were no commercial considerations. (Although I think by this time, all the Kevin Eastman money was gone.)

But it makes commercial sense to start off the first issue with a story by Mark Schulz (i.e., Mr. Xenozoic Tales). But it’s only written by him, and the artwork is by Roger Petersen. He does nice inking, but the figures are really awkward.

The story isn’t exactly an EC ironic ending one. It’s more of a “huh?” ending. But it’s fine.

Tim Eldred does a quite spooky little story.

Brian Biggs is not somebody you’d expect to find in a horror anthology. His Frederick & Eloise was great, and this confirms that his thing isn’t really horror. And, as you can see, it’s “to be continued” (in the next issue), and basically one third of the things here are like that. It makes sense not to let any one story overpower a 32 page anthology, but it doesn’t make for satisfying reading, either, which is why 32 page anthologies are so tricky to get right.

This thing, by Zane Campbell, runs for several issues, and it’s all like this, except that we get more and more and more text, and it doesn’t make much sense. (And the artwork devolves from here, really.)

Mark A. Nelson’s twist story isn’t really much of a story, but it looks great.

So: That’s the first issue. Is this a winner? Well… it does satisfy many of the cravings a typical EC comics horror anthology fan has, and it has some nice surprises, too. So… er… Thumbs up?

But as with Death Rattle vol 2, they front-loaded the series with more compelling things, and the rest of the series feels way more random. But actually the best thing in the series is this insane thing from Simon Morse. It’s not scary, but it’s really funny. And totally off the wall.

But the issue is more “let’s find stuff to fill the pages”, or as here, “let’s put in something to boost sales”: A three page preview of the next Crow series. The artwork by Alex Maleev is great, but the preview doesn’t really … convey much beyond Alex Maleev being good.

Tony Millionaire’s thing is very funny.

Some of these pieces, like this one by Remy Bastien and Bachan, are quite interesting to look at, but don’t really make for satisfying reading.

So we get more random illustrations from Bachan: I’m guessing these were just blind submissions Kitchen Sink was getting?

So we get more “let’s get Crow collectors” stuff in. O’Barr explains that he had to remove several sequences from the Caliber series, because he didn’t know that “a comic book had to be a multiple of twelve”. Which is wrong; they had to be a multiple of 16 (or 8 at some printers, but from what I understand, it could sometimes be more expensive to print a 24 page book than a 32 page book).

I was expecting to get some of these sequences, but instead:

Just a bunch of random illustrations and sketches.

This is a really sloppy anthology.

Doug Potter expresses his love for the military.

Just kidding! I love how this is drenched in pure hatred and disdain, and even the O. Henry ending is pretty surprising. (I mean, it was clear that it was going to end with … something like that, but it was still an original twist.)

Matt Howarth does a sci fi/horror two-parter, and while I really enjoy the artwork, the story didn’t really… er… have much of a story.

Ooh! For the fifth issue, it seemed like they were saying “well, nobody’s buying this anyway, so we might as well just put some good stuff in”, so we get this wonderfully illustrated story from Thomas Ott. With a twist ending! It’s very depressing, and I like that.

And… whaa? But in a good way. By Matthew Coyle/Peter Lamb.

I must admit to not actually being able to make heads or tails of the Tom Sutton thing, and the second instalment ends with a “next”, which never happened.

But further issues were apparently planned.

They even have an ad for Death Rattle #6. But I’m guessing it was cancelled due to low sales.

I’m unable to find any reviews of this, but here’s a news item from 1997 about Kitchen’s shutdown:

This is the one hundred and ninety-second post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.