Buzz (1990) #1-3 edited by Mark Landman

I wonder whether anybody’s done any research into the phenomenon of artists starting anthologies just because there’s nowhere to be published otherwise? It’s a quite common phenomenon in music circles: You have musicians that don’t get booked all that much, and then they decide to throw a festival or two to have places to play. (And then again, there are musicians that are in huge demand that do the same.)

Editor Landman (who also did all the covers) places the book explicitly in the Weirdo tradition.

Landman is famous for being a comics artists that pioneered working with computers, and that leaks out to the design of editorial pages, too. Everything looks very desktop publishing 1990. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — it’s an aesthetic I find quite appealing.

(And also note that the book is a total sausage fest.)

I’m happy to see that Landman adheres to The Richard Sala Act of 1989, where Congress voted unanimously to require that all anthologies have at least one piece from Richard Sala. And I love this period — the artwork is just so deliciously unhinged, with panels that definitely aren’t drawn using a ruler, and that perfect lettering.

It’s just so gorgeous to look at.

And this is a pretty good story, too. It has that improvised feeling, but also resolves itself nicely.

Jim Woodring!!! Just perfect.

Early work from Jeremy Eaton — I think he’s going for a dream-like logic, but it’s a bit strained.

There’s a couple of artists that are more aligned with the Raw crowd, like Drew Feldman to the left here, but I’d say that most of the artists are third wave underground artists, like Roy Tomkins to the right here. Fantagraphics would take over publishing all these people later, I think?

The longest story (almost a third of the first issue) is by Landman himself. It’s an amusing neo noir parody/homage, and the computer-assisted graphics are pretty interesting.

And you can’t do an anthology like this without Krazy Kat.

So — first issue is a really strong start. There are no duds here, and it just has great flow for an anthology — a mix of shorter and longer pieces, and different approaches without being incoherent.

A Charles Burns story, Naked Snack, is serialised over the next two issues. The artwork is insanely awesome, and the story is just… insane? But rather unpleasant. And not in the usual Charles Burns way.

It’s apparently put together from Official Marvel Comics Try-Out Book — this is Peter Parker, really, and explains how unhinged it is.

I don’t think this is something that has been included in Burns’ collections? I can see why — it’s a fun exercise, but perhaps something that Burns wouldn’t necessarily want to have seen in a wider audience? (It ends with Peter Parker killing and eating his aunt, but not in that order.)

Dr. Ahmed Fishmonger does the most arty thing here.

And it’s a nice mixture of veterans and newer talents, like Jason Huerta.

And Landman’s found a pretty good Wolverton story to reprint.

Landman’s apparently sent the book to everybody.

The third issue (which is 40 pages long) is the only one that has a “Next Issue” blurb. (Don’t you think?)

It has Landman’s most famous creation, Fetal Elvis, and the issue has more throw-away pieces than the previous issues. Perhaps Landman was kinda running out of steam, accepting more stuff?

But with lunacy like this Mack White piece, you can’t really complain.

And we also get a couple of anti-humour Mark Newgarden pages.

So: This is a quality anthology, and it’s a shame that it only lasted three issues. But it’s a miracle that we got that many issues, so I’m not complaining.

Darcy Sullivan writes in The Comics Journal #146, page 46:

Kitchen Sink’s new Buzz also features a high
caliber of artists, loosely grouped around a
“wacky entertainment” theme. Two standout
covers created with computer graphics (as is
some of the interior work) have helped distin-
guish Buzz from KS’s somewhat similar Snarf.
But Buzz remains somewhat of a piffle.
The reprints are too familiar — Krazy Kat
and Basil Wolverton’s “Supersonic Sammy” so
far — and both the first two issues seem padded
A dime’s worth of non-stop zaniness usually
goes further than a dollar’s, which explains why
the books seem thin at 36 pages. And there’s
an odd sameness about the art, due to the pre-
sence of so many “hard-line” artists, from
maestros Dan Clowes and Charles Burns to edi-
tor Mark Landman, Jim Woodring, and Jeremy
Eaton, whose droll “‘Ork issyndicated
native papers.
The artists do give Buzz a seductive surface
energy, which accounts for most of the book’s
fun. Landman is apparently having a hoot of a
time putting this together, and his joy radiates
from page to reader. But Buzz comes across as
a dessert rather than a meal. It could use more
weight, perhaps a Mark Zingarelli or Carol
Tyler — someone whose work does more than
smirk. That said, we’re talking adjustment here,
not an abandonment of the book’s tone, sug-
gested by its very title. Lack of focus kills most
anthologies — take Bob Callahan’s book, ne
New Comics, which, in to include vir-
tually everybody, dissipates any possible synergy
between artists.

Jason Sachs writes in Amazing Heroes #188, page 123:

Kitchen Sink is also well-known as
one of the finest underground publish-
ers. Although undergrounds don’t
really exist any more in the classical
sense, their tradition still lives on with
such Kitchen Sink publications as
Blab! and the new Buzz. (By the way,
does anyone have any idea why so
many of these cool anthologies have
one-syllable titles?) Buzz #1 features
stories and art by such post-modern
comics favorites as Dan Clowes, Drew
Friedman, Richard Sala, and Jim
Woodring.
As you might expect, this comic is
something of a mixed bag. Woodring’s
three pieces are absolutely bizarre and
very nearly indecipherable. For in-
stance, one story, “Pulque,” has a
group of four cute kids meeting a
strange creature made up of cactus
Yes, it’s just as odd as it sounds.
Sala’s four-pager is yet another of his
explorations into bizarre neuroses,
while Roy Tompkins tells the fairly
gross story of “Harvey the Hillbilly
Idiot,” and editor Mark landman tells
the alternately silly and strange story
of a freakish private detective.
Most of the work here is quite ac-
complished and some—Dan Clowes’s
back cover in particular—are quite
funny. However, all the new work in
Buzz pales in relation to the one page
of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat re-
printed here. Kmzy Kat is arguably the
greatest comic strip of all time. Few
artists come close to reaching Herri-
man’s consistent brilliance.
Readers looking for a good anthol-
ogy of post-modern cartoonists will
find one here. The Krazy Kat strip is
just a big bonus.

Burns is interviewed in The Comics Journal #148, page 78:

SULLIVAN: You brought up Manel; explain the Buzz story,
‘ ‘Naked Snack.
BURNS•. In the early ’80s, Marvel published something
called The Manel Comics Tryout Book, which was this
oversized book of blueline pencil drawings. You could try
out lettering, inking, pencilling, whatever. In a funny way
I was intrigued by the concept. My idea initially was to
buy maybe 20 Marvel Tryout Books and give them to all
my friends, and have them ink their versions of Spider-
Man.
I never pursued it. At that time the book was pricey
enough for me to go, “I can’t really afford to do this”;
it was 13 bucks or something. Years later, after I came
back from Italy and was wandering around New York,
some street person had one for three bucks. They prob-
ably stole them. So I bought a copy and just doodled on
it for a number of years, off and on. There was no real
intention behind it; I wasn’t thinking about ever having
it published.
When I was contacted by Mark Landman, the editor
of Buzz I knew that he worked with computers, and I knew
that I couldn’t force anyone I knew to letter this story. So
I asked him, ifl sent him a script, if he’d letter it for me.
And it worked out that way. I did a splash page and an
end page. so it’s fairly cohesive. It’s as cohesive as I get.
SULLIVAN’. And all the figures are your versions, drawn
BURNS: Some are very closely related. If you 100k at the
original Tryout Book, some are just inked versions of Peter
Parker or Aunt May or whoever. And with some I’ve done
something entirely different.
SULLIVAN: Your story is about people selling meat of sen-
tient animals on the black market. Sort ofa cannibalism
Story. What the original Story about?
BURNS: Oh, I have no idea. Just a Spider-Man story..
there’s nothing there.
SULLIVAN: I’ll go out in the alley and see if I can find
anyone selling Marvel merchandise.
BURNS: “Hey buddy… wanna buy a Manel Tryout

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

Pteranoman (1990) #1 by Don Simpson

The month after launching Bizarre Heroes, we get another Simpson series. So either he was really gung ho about all of this, or he was hedging his bets.

But perhaps Pteranoman was just bits that Simpsons was doing while procrastinating about doing Bizarre Heroes. While that series felt very worked-through, this is a lot goofier — feels very improvised.

That’s a nice “gulp!” panel.

Some of the goofy bits feel positively inspired, and while it doesn’t really add up to much of anything, it’s a good read.

Oh, yeah, he manages to squeeze in three stories here. I think the above is pretty self explanatory.

In the final story, he continues the Megaton Man epic a bit.

All in all — nice artwork, amusing stories, some interesting concepts — it’s pretty good? But I can see why there wasn’t a second issue: 1990 wasn’t a forgiving time to launch something as quirky as this.

Comics Scene Volume #2, page 43:

More importantly, Simpson
doesn’t respect superheroes. Some-
times he stops snickering long enough
to turn out a space soap like Border
Worlds or 1990’s Bizarre Heroes, a
largely mirthless. superhero comic
with a high fight-quotient and no Yarn
Men anywhere. But no sooner was
Bizarre Heroes on the racks than
Simpson countered it with the far bet-
ter Pterano-Man. Once again, that’s
Pterano-Man, a.k.a. Pete Teriano,
“liberal senator from Stalactite City. ”
With Pterano-Man—gotta love it—
Simpson softened the manic humor
that marked Megaton Man. “I decided
I wasn’t going to push the comedy,”
Simpson says. The result, inspired by
the deadpan camp of Twin Peaks and
the Batman TV show, is a delightful
pastiche of cornball comics, in which
Pterano-Man and his Cave Babes use
Pteranocopters, a Pteranoputer and
other Pteranostuff to fight a dinosaur
revived by toxic waste. Elsewhere in
the book, we meet the crimebusting
team of the Phantom Jungle Girl and
Cowboy Gorilla, who take direction
from a brain in a jar called the
Brilliant Brain.
“I’m very proud of Pterano-Man,”
Simpson says. “l think it’s one of the
best comics I’ve done. Unfortunately,
it was also one of my poorest-selling
Kitchen Sink titles. ”
Pterano-Man probably best reveals
Simpson’s approach to superheroes:
Gentler than Megaton Man, but still a
few thousand leagues from the
Punisher, Wolverine or the Dark
Knight. Forget those guys—Simpson
couldn’t even draw the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles with a straight
face; his best freelance work for
Mirage has been a tale of the
“alternate turtles,”
four grumpy
stand-ins.
“The whole superhero genre is just
funny to me,” he says. “At the same
time, the underlying symbols and
mythology are fascinating. ”
By symbols and mythology, he
doesn’t mean the bat on Bruce
Wayne’s chest and the night life in
Asgard, As a satirist, Simpson looks a
little deeper into what makes super-
heroes tick. His observations won’t
please many X-fans. In fact, it’s safe
to say—with apologies to Spirit cre-
ator Will Eisner—that this is not a
theory for little boys.
“This literal interpretation of su-
perheroes dominates Marvel and
DC,” Simpson explains. “The editors
ask very literal questions: ‘What if
Batman really existed? How would
the universe be different?’ They’re not
aware how dumb that is.
“The last thing superhero stories
are about is crime,” Simpson contin-
ues. “To me, they’re a sex fantasy.”
As Simpson describes it, super-
heroes are generally ordinary
schmucks, little guys like Clark Kent
and Peter Parker, who react to ex-
citement by leaping into alleys and
tearing off their clothes. Then. they get
much bigger, and all their muscles
and veins stand out. Sound familiar?
“It seems pretty clear to me what
that’s all about,” Simpson says. “The
most blatant image is the Hulk: The
idea that he has to rip out of all his
clothes to leap into action, and the ex-
aggerated musculature, the popping
veins. After my Anton Drek work, I
know how similar drawing that su-
perhero anatomy is to drawing the
veins in a throbbing…” Well, you get
the idea.

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

Bizarre Heroes (1990) #1 by Don Simpson

Simpson’s Megaton Man had had a good run at Kitchen Sink in the 80s, but the 90s were more difficult time to launch quirky books. Kitchen Sink bravely attempted to keep going, launching quite a few series… but they all fizzled after an issue or two, presumably from low sales.

Bizarre Heroes seems very much like a post-Watchman book — it seems to be setting up a “lost manuscript” sort of situation and stuff.

With a narrator that may or may not be reliable and stuff. Very much on point.

Wow, that’s an odd fight scene. It’s fortunate that that big guy hoisted him by his ankles that way… as one does…

But, no, it soon turns out to be a very un-meta book — after the flourishes in the opening pages, we settle down to a bog-standard journalist-on-the-trail-of-a-mystery kind of thing.

The book’s tone is all over the place. Most of the pages seem to play the drama straight, while other scenes seem clearly meant to be parodies. But what to make of things like the above? Her expressions are over the top, and the angles are super dramatic, but it’s not actually funny?

While this is clearly played for yuks, but… isn’t actually funny?

Still, I rather liked the issue, and would have been perfectly happy to keep reading to see where all this was going. Simpsons continued the series for more than a dozen issues over two series four years later, but I haven’t read them.

Darwin McPherson writes in Amazing Heroes #181, page 80:

Kitchen Sink is promoting Bizarre
Heroes as their first “semi-legitimate
super-hero book.” It may seem an odd
course for one• of the leading alter-
native publishers to take, but when
you consider it’s Donald Simpson in
the driver’s seat, it makes a little more
sense.
Yet I’m afraid Bizarre Heroes is
exactly what they claim—it’s just
another pseudo-scientific action yarn.
The story was average but interesting.
The plot of scientifically engineering
a better breed of human and using
them to replace regular people was
nicely handled with a satirical under-
current that pokes fun at New Age
science and tabloid newspapers,
among other subjects.
The reporter who discovers the
conspiracy (and has a superior clone
of himself) serves as narrator and as
an outlet for Simpson’s humorous
side. He’s a typical white bread good
guy who shoots enough wisecracks to
keep the atmosphere light despite
the ominous occurrences in his life.
Though he lacks super-powers, he’s
the real hero.
Bizarre Heroes was a fun read; not
spectacular but worth the time. How-
ever, it wasn’t worth the price. $2.50
for 30 pages of unresolved story is a
bit much, especially considering that
there’s no indication when (or if) it’ll
be concluded. You could pick up all
the issues of the “Dark Knight Over
Metropolis” storyline running in the
Superman titles and still have a quarter
left over.
Being in black-and-white doesn’t
give Bizarre Heroes an artistic edge,
either. In fact, it hurts the book con-
sidering the bland, indistinct costumes
the “bizarre heroes” wear. Aside from
a few patches of zip-a-tone, this could
be a coloring book.
If you can afford it, Bizarre Heroes
will give you a decent story, if nothing
else. But keep in mind that for $2.50,
you can get at least two decent semi-
legitimate super-hero stories and some
really nice art elsewhere.
GRADE: ! ! 1/2

Comic book fans are such cheapskates.

This is the one hundred and twenty-first post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.

Wendel Comix (1990) #1 by Howard Cruse

Wendel had been running in The Advocate for quite a while, and St. Martin’s Press had released a big collection the year before. Which makes this 32-page book a bit odd — did Cruse know that he wouldn’t have enough material for a new book (because he was winding down the strip to concentrate on Stuck Rubber Baby), so it made sense to just do a small collection of the strips that he did after the previous book? Or was he just planning on doing these smaller collections on a regular basis? (The cover does say “#1”.)

But it turns out that the book as is makes a lot of sense: We get the entire saga of the Sterno and Duncan romance, and Wendel & Ollie don’t feature as heavily. So it stands alone quite well, even though we don’t really get much context on any of the characters.

The book is, as always with Cruse, very well drawn, and with amusing repartee throughout. Some of the gags seem like they’re topical, or perhaps I’m just too dense to get the joke? Tina seems to imply that Duncan is the reincarnation of some other dweeb that was alive at the time, but I don’t get the reference.

So deep! Cruse does a perfect parody of this kind of twit.

And he’s not afraid to go way cartoony-over-the-top when the plot demands it.

It’s a great little book.

A complete Wendel book was published in 2011, and you can get a copy cheaply from Denis Kitchen now. (He didn’t publish that book, though.)

R. Fiore writes in The Comics Journal #137, page 47:

The trouble with Wendel is Howard
Cruse’s tenden+’ to write as if he were
looking over his shoulder (a difficult
trick for any cartoonist). He gets so
wrapped up in his self-chosen (and
responsibly so) role as Spokesman Of
His People that he becomes self-
conscious and inhibited. You would
think that drawing for The Avocate,
a gay paper, he would be able to loos-
en up, but Wendel is so concerned
with having characters who are not
stereotypes that the characters
stereotypes. When you are overly con-
cerned with group image, and afraid
that every characteristic you give to
an individual will be taken as a
characteristic Of the group, then au-
thentic characterization is impossible.
Most of Wendel #1 is taken up with
the romance of Sterno, one Of the
regular characters, and a weight room
Adonis named Duncan. Sterno has
been driven to transports Of lust and
will do most anything to hang on to
this fellow. Though it is not said in so
many words, it is clear that what at-
tracts Duncan is the opportunity to
manipulate and control, and he has
fixed on Sterno with the uncanny
radar such persons have for the
vulnerable. The thing is, Sterno has
been up to now a committed militant
firebrand, and yet falls completely
under Duncan’s influence with nary
a kick or whimper. Which is an in-
teresting character point: why would
these two seemingly contradictory
traits fit into the same personality?
Unfortunately, rather than going into
it in any depth, Cruse treats it as a
paroxysm of lust which has temporari-
ly blinded the “real” Sterno, who will
be brought out by a couple Of shock
events, Duncan’s spell broken entire-
ly. Not that such things don’t hap-
pen — to persons of all sexual persua-
sions — but as fiction this simplistic
motivation is just not as interesting as
a deeper one. It becomes situation
comedy characterization; if this
week’s plot demands that Offlcer Tutti
suddenly develops a burning desire to
play the tuba, then Officer Tutti is go-
ing to get himself a tuba, and it will
completely forgotten by next week.
Since you don’t see the same kind of
inhibition in his other work as you see
in Wendel, you have to wonder wheth-
er Sterno’s relationship with Duncan
isn’t a little like Cruse’s relationship
with The Advocate, and if he too isn’t
better off with it over.

*rolls eyes*

This is the one hundred and twentieth post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.