Death Rattle (1972) #1-3

Kitchen Sink were pretty lax about credits in general, but this is the most anonymous book yet: No editor listed, and most of the comics themselves are unsigned and uncredited.

But this is Kitchen Sink’s sorta-long running horror series — there were three volumes of this published, and I’ll do each one separately, because they’re pretty different.

This is John Pound, though, and he’s quite accomplished — and contributes some of the most straightforward pieces. (And, yes, these are EC-derived things with twist endings, but not slavishly.)

I guess this is Tim Boxell? Perhaps? He’s appearing in basically all the comics that Kitchen is publishing around this time, so I guess he… works fast? And he’s got a certain something going on, but it’s… not that thrilling. Except for that woman’s face, which looks like it could have come from a Japanese horror comic book.

And this is, indeed, Richard Corben. It’s obvious on the page to the left, but that page on the right? I wouldn’t have guessed. It’s most un-Corben. But kinda cool? Realy cool?

Pete Poplaski has a different style for every thing he does, and… this is the most successful story I’ve read of his. It’s got tension, it’s pretty amusing, and it looks great.

Unfortunately, most of the pages here are like this. (Boxell again?) They’re barely readable, and just… without any interest.

I’m starting to feel resentful towards Denis Kitchen, because I didn’t know that he published so much crap. I thought he was a class act. And perhaps he grew into that later, but the first few years are pretty hard to swallow.

I have no idea who did this, but the art style is really intriguing, and the story is properly creepy. Nice one.

But it’s mostly like this.

W. E. Hoyden? Hayden? did this one, and it’s notable for having female characters… that speak… TO EACH OTHER. *gasp* *horror*

Anyway, I can see why this series was cancelled after three issues, because it’s… it’s… even on a Kitchen Sink 1972 scale, it’s bad.

So Comix Joint gives is a nine, eight, eight.

This is the fifteenth post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.

Bizarre Sex (1972) #1-10 probably edited by Denis Kitchen

This is a blog series about underground comics, and I’d take it that anybody interested in underground comics are going to be aware that there’s a lot of sexual imagery in them, so if they don’t want to see that, they should be elsewhere? OK?

But this is a blog post about Bizarre Sex, so there’s going to be more of that than usual, and there’s also bizarre violence and bizarrely sexual violence, so I’m just warning you more than usual.

So here’s a picture of a tea pot to give you a chance to close this browser window before we get to the imagery from the comic book:

Everybody gone now? Good!

Denis Kitchen said, when he started Kitchen Sink just two years earlier, that he’d never be able to publish the really out-there stuff that the West Coast publishers were doing, because he’s in the midwest and he’d be run out of the sate. Two years later, he launches Bizarre Sex, and this is the first bit in the first issue:

This is bizarre, all right, and it also seems virulently misogynistic. Tim Boxell had contributed stuff to various Kitchen anthologies, and they’re all… er… imaginative? But from a nasty place.

Daniel Clyne’s Hungry Chuck Biscuits Comics and Stories read like it was a doper comic by somebody who’s never done any dope, and this seems, oddly enough, like a sex comic by somebody’s who’ve never seen any sex. It’s just the oddest thing, and I like that.

Art Spiegelman (allegedly) does a kind of parody on romance comics under the Joe Cutrate pseudonym.

Boxell (allegedly), again (under the name Grizly) contributes the longest piece, and it’s very bizarre indeed.

But… more than a third of the first issue is a reprint of stuff Kitchen had already published in Snarf and Bijou. And the rest of the stuff is pretty tough sledding: Most of it’s just so amateurish and offputting. The book feels like a cheap, nasty cash grab.

The printing I have here, is the seventh printing, and it’s weird:

_
It is rather odd that Kitchen Sink replaced the entire interior contents of the 7th through 9th printings of this book with all the comics from Bizarre Sex #2, 2nd printing. I’m guessing that Kitchen Sink really wanted to reprint the first issue of the series sometime in the early ’80s but did NOT want to actually reprint Grass Green’s “Incest” story during the Reagan era. I suppose I could be wrong, but I can’t figure out any other reason for the deception.

So what I have here isn’t actually the first issue at all:

The first story by Richard “Grass” Green is about brother/sister incest (“Incest”), and Daniel Clyne follows up with a three-pager about interracial homosexuality (“Dr. Lum Bago’s Creation”). Tim Boxell fills out most of the rest of the book, though Wendal Pugh also contributes “There’s 1 Born Every Minute.”

But I have the first printing of the second issue… which I’ve already read all of, except an eight pager by Grass Green. And:

Bizarre Sex #2 not only has two different front covers within the first two printings, but the content also changes from the 1st to 2nd printing. Richard “Grass” Green’s story “Warla in Wonder World in Prisoner of the Arab Slavers” in the 1st printing is replaced in the 2nd printing by some other material from Jim Mitchell, Don Glasford and Denis Kitchen. A Grass Green story also disappeared from latter printings of Bizarre Sex #1, but I am not aware of the issues that caused these changes.

It’s all so complicated.

The Grass Green story that was dumped on subsequent printings (and not reprinted in #1 7th printing) is really lame, though.

The third issue continues the lameness with this thing by Mike Vosburg, but at least the artwork looks more competent.

The weirdest thing is this by Mike Roberts… but it’s not actually good.

At least Howard Cruse shows up with some Barefootz pages.

What could be the horrors that hide behind this cover, then?

Good lord! *choke*

Anyway, the first three issues of Bizarre Sex were, basically, unreadable dreck. Things change substantially with the fourth issue, and it seems like Kitchen is taking the book more seriously. It’s a big seller, so why not put some actual talent into the book? So we get a story by Harvey Pekar! About picking up a prostitute and having sex at a drive-in. (Illustrated by Budgett & Dumm.) It’s… an actually good piece.

Cruse ups the ante considerably, and gets autobio on us, and explains why people draw in the first place. It’s very funny. (I think Cruse turned out to be the most prolific contributor to Bizarre Sex by the end.)

Trina Robbins does a couple of very strange little stories.

And… wha…. Hippies, man. If I read that signature correctly, it says Casserine Grenier?

Again with the printings. The original printing of this didn’t have Omaha, the Cat Dancer, but I’ve got the… fourth printing? (The first edition was magazine sized, too.)

But this R. Crumb piece was, apparently. And it’s the most Crumb thing ever.

This edition of this issue also pads out the pages with yet another reprint of some stuff from Snarf. I have no idea why — was there something particularly offensive he had to leave out, or was it just too lame? Or he couldn’t get the rights?

We also get three pages from some French public domain magazine.

I’ve got the fourth edition of the 6th issue, and it’s magazine sized. It’s the only one with an editorial, written (presumably by Denis Kitchen) under the Steve Krupp pseudonym.

The issue is mostly a bunch of gag oriented shorter pieces…

… but Sharon Rudahl sneaks in a mythological thing.

Steve Stiles does a new pieces that wasn’t in previous printings, so I guess they dropped some more stuff. This is all making me very curious to read the first printings of these issue… but not so curious that I’m gonna buy them.

Joe Coleman does this totally unhinged thing, and … is this where Dave Cooper got his entire art style from? It’s impressively disgusting.

In the printings I have, at least, there’s virtually no gay content at all. I think this is as close as we get in any of the issues?

Richard Larson and Tim Boxell take about half the pages in the 7th issue with this somewhat undecipherable thing.

Steve Stiles sounds accurate as always.

And… a random collage thing by somebody unnamed?

Art Spiegelman returns, possibly. So many pseudonyms.

The eight issue is probably what Bizarre Sex is remembered for, if anything. It’s got 42 pages of Omaha, The Cat Dancer, which went on to become a rather big thing.

Reed Waller has a really appealing art style, and the story is a mix of soap opera and mobster action (kind of), so it’s not hard to understand. And I remember being really into Omaha as a teenager. Reading it now, I find it pretty… messy? I mean, the plot doesn’t make much sense…

Joost Swarte! Again, Kitchen ups the stakes: The tenth and final issue is… dare I say it… good. It’s an actually good anthology now.

Guy Colwell takes up almost half the issue with his extremely accomplished ruminant story about taking acid, watching porn on the TV, and possibly fantasising about going out and having sex (or was it a fantasy?) The storytelling is fantastically assured: The pacing is perfect, and it’s got such a flow… it’s compulsively readable; it carries you along.

*gasp* Rick Geary!

William Messner Loebs finishes out the issue with a story about a heroic cross-dresser (who gets all the girls).

So this anthology has some kind of trajectory. The first three issues (at least the printings I have) are … pap. Then Kitchen gets talent in, and every issues gets better than the one before, until we get to the tenth issue, where we finally have something rather special.

The Comics Journal #65, page 25:

Bizarre Sex #9 will fea-
ture a book -length story
called “Omaha, written
and drawn by newcomer
Reed Waller , and starring
funny-animals in what
Publisher Denis Kitchen
calls “kind of. a Barks-
land mix-up.
According to Kitchen ,
he discovered Waller
in Vootie, a small-circu-
lation publication appear-
ing out of Minneapolis.
“I saw him in there
Kitchen commented, “and
thought he was just
excellent and deserved
wider exposure. So he
developed this story
As for why the 34-
page story ended up in
Bizarre Sex, tradition-
ally an anthology title ,
Kitchen explained the
commercial reasons
behind the decision:
“It’s been my experience
with sales that solo books
by underground cartoon-
ists are very risky if they
haven’t had much previous
exposure, so just to call
it Omaha would have been
unwise. De•iding that
the ,story “qualified” as a
Bizarre Ser story , Kit-
chen decided to print it
there.
“Normally I wouldn’t
do that Kitchen noted,
“but I am making an
exception . He added
that the following issue
of Bizarre Sex, #10,
would be published next
fall and would feature
the more usual kind Of
anthology stories.•

The Comics Journal #78, page 13:

NEWSWATCH
Undergrounds: “Omaha” Ban Spawns Satire
U.K. “Omaha” Ban Spawns
Story: The official ban on
Kitchen Sink’s Bizarre Sex in
England has resulted in a
satirical commentary on the
affair in the pages Of a British
underground.
In the lead strip of Knock-
about Comics cartoonist
Hunt Emerson examines the
problems of censorship. The
story, “A-B.Seize It!,” includes
• specific references to the Bizarre
Sex case, with quotes from the
magistrate on the matter.
Bizarre Sex #9 consisted of the
book-length “Omaha,” written
and drawn by Reed Waller,
which was released in 1981 to
general critical acclaim in the
United States.

The Comics Journal #123, page 106:

Q: Handling you People’s Exhibit #2 for
idenrijicarion, looking at the cover of the title,
Bizarre Sex, what would you describe them as
doing on Cha,’ cover?
A: A bunch of women embracing a tiger
swallowtail caterpillar.
Q: What are (he women wearing?
A: They are not wearing anything.
Q: Could you describe their positions on this
caterpillar-shaped object?
A: It’s not a caterpillar-shaped Object, and I
[speak here as a biology major in collegel—it’s
a tiger swallowtail caterpillar. They are pushing
it down into the ground.
Q: And there is a woman on top of it?
A: Yes.
Q: Are they reaching for it?
A: I don’t know. They seem to be trying to hold
it down or they could be reaching for it. One Of
the feet is grabbing the women.
Q: Directing your attention to the chapter in
Bizarre Sex entitled “Joel Beck Presents One
Dong’s Family.”
Q: What muld you state or in your opinion what
is this story about?
A: This is a parody Ofa television show called
One Man’s Family which was—rather a radio
show in the ’40s.
Q: Its characters in that story, whar does it show?
A: The characters, all of the characters in the
show, One Man’s Family, have been replaced
with genitals.
Q: Could you be more specific?
A: Well, they have been replaced with a genital
of the sex appropriate to the gender Of the
character in the radio show, One Man ‘s Family.
In other words, the female character in One
Man’s Family has been replaced by female
nitals, and the male with male genitals.
: Wbuld it be fair ro state that story is about
how this one dong ‘s family goes through a day?
A: Yes. It’s humor. that of reducing people to
only their genitals. as if they had no other facets
to their lives, no hobbies, no interest, they only
existed as procreative elements. It is a satire of
an American life and family relationships.
Q: As a seller, would you like to separate this
type of material from children ‘s material or not
allow children to see rhis rype of material?
A: That particular story, I wouldn’t Object to any
child seeing that. It’s a humor story.
THE COURT: only because it’s fun in yur
oplmon?
YRONWODE: Yes.
THE COURT: That ‘s the only reason yu would
let a child see it?
YRONWODE: Yes. 1 don’t think there is
anything harmful in that story. It’s Istuffl like kids
would write on their notepad lin schooll.

Yeah, there were all these court actions taken against comics, and Cat Yronwode is defending them admirably. And this is what she gets as a thank-you in the Comics Journal:

She apparently talked to much. Women! Hah! What a funny joke!

Trina Robbins is interviewed in The Comics Journal #53, page 56 (she was having problems getting Wet Satin #2 printed):

SHERMAN: Could you recap the difficulties you had?
TRINA: The printer, who was the midwestern printer
who has printed all of Krupp’s comix.
SHERMAN: Including Bizarre Sex?
TRINA: Including Bizarre Ser. Which 1 use as a classic
example because there was one cover of Bizarre Sex where
the cover was so awful it actually had to be covered with
a white paper cover on the stands. (Bizarre Sex
Came from Alpha Centauri Looking for Love , ” which had a
giant vagina attacking a city skyscraper. I He was willing
to print Bizarre Sex , but he wouldn’t print our book. He
called it pornographic. And when he was asked why this
was pornographic and not Bizarre Ser, he said, “Well. men
draw Bizarre Sea.” These are his words. t’ It was all in
fun. It was a satire.” And Wet Satin wasn’t a satire; it was
taken seriously. Yet, we have this review from Screw—I
have an editorial in Wet Satin #2 and in there I say that
Screw , which is by no means a feminist journal, gave us
this fabulous review in which they said that the whole
reason that Wet Satin was so good and what saved it from
being a really dreary feminist diatribe was the fact that we
all had a sense of humor and we were able to poke fun at
ourselves and that it was satire, that it actually was fun-
nier than the men’s books. So you see we’ve been censored
in the miawest.

Amazing Heroes #174, page 9:

NEWSLINE
FRIENDLY FRANK’S DECISION OVERTURNED
The obscenity conviction of Friendly
Frank’s Comics employee Michael
Correa has been overturned by an Il-
linois State Appelate Court. Correa
was originally arrested in November
of 1986 for selling allegedly obscene
comics to an undercover policeman.
In a unanimous decision, the three-
man court ruled that the books in
question—including issues of Omaha
the Cat Dancer, Bizarre Sex, Weirdo,
and others—did not constitute obscene
material: “We hold that none of the
cartoon comic books on which the
State based its prosecution constitutes
patently offensive hard-core obsceni-
ty.. .. Consequently, [Correa’sl con-
viction and sentence must be re-
versed.”
Correa was arrested originally on
December 10, 1986, by an undercover ,
police officer in the Lansing, Illinois,
Friendly Frank’s store he managed at
the time. After first visiting the store
on Nwember 28, 1986, and then pur-
chasing copies of Omaha the Cat
Dancer, Weirdo, Bizarre Set, The
Bodyssey, Wéirdo, and Murder, police
officer Anthony Van Gorp in
December and took Correa into cus-
tody.

Bill Sherman writes in The Comics Journal #72, page 128:

File this under Commendable Deviations.
After eight issues of a repetitive (if
successful) anthology format, editor Denis
Kitchen’s Bizarre Sex turns its pages over
to an issue-length “funny animal novel.”
The idea is to give Reed Waller’s 42-page
story a ready audience (Bizarre Sex is one of
Drupp’s steady sellers), a decent break for a
relative unknown. I have to wonder,
though, what it means when a work this
fine has to find its way into underground
publication beneath another title. What
does that say about today’s comix audi-
ence?

[…]

Waller’s characterization, however, falls
down with his antagonists, the political
and moral forces that drive Omaha into
dancing in a decadent private club for
international diplomats. That these moral
movers and shakers turn out to be hyp-
ocrites is no surprise, but Waller ultimately
overdraws them into power-mad mavens
on the brink of incoherency. “Omaha’s”
final pages, where Waller’s villains gets to
explain themselves, comprise the last deft
part of the book—as out of sync as if Doc
Doom made a walk-on in the last scene of
Threepenny Opera.
And yet Waller’s art (and an effectively
Open-ended final page) keep the book from
falling apart. Nicely detailed penwork with
an effective placement of blacks and greys
gives the book a lightness that’s especially
effective during “Omaha’S” erotic se-
quences. Occasionally, Waller’s insistent
focus on his characters obscures their
movement from one scene to another (for
. example, an exterior Of Charlie’s Restau-
rant, aboveground site for the under-
ground club, is unfortunately omitted from
a sequence showing Omaha and her friend
Shelley entering the club from the streets),
but it’s hard to quibble when Waller draws
his characters in such a physically ex-
pressrve, manner.
I don’t care if Stewart the Rat ever sees
the light of print again, but I wouldn’t
mind seeing more of Omaha and Chuck.

Edit 18 month later: I’ve now bought a copy of the first printing of the first issue of Bizarre Sex, so let’s have a look. What was so horrible that Kitchen Sink decided it could no longer be printed?

I asked Denis Kitchen about it, and he didn’t have a clear recollection why Kitchen Sink switched out the contents of #1 with the contents of #2 in the mid 80s, but he said it sounded likely that it was because this Grass Green story (and besides, #1 sold much better than #2).

And just as with Kitchen Sink in the 80s, I don’t really want to show any snaps of this story when it gets going, because doing so is probably illegal in most jurisdictions. The story is about a nine year old boy and his fourteen year old sister having sex, basically.

It has a happy ending, though.

What makes this even weirder than it already is… is that this is Kitchen Sink, right? They kept the sex stuff to a minimum (for an underground publisher) because they were using a printing press in the Midwest who balked at publishing too explicit material. And this is pretty sincere porn — there are jokes there; sure, but it’s porn. Of the grossest kind. So… it’s just weird.

Tim Boxell does a couple one-pagers of really bizarre sex.

This is Dan Clyne, and it’s a bizarre piece, even for him. (See Hungry Chuck Biscuits Comics and Stories.) But it’s got two guys kissing, so that’s something.

Tim Boxell does a long, absolutely gruesome story about a guy maiming, torturing and killing people who want to date his sister, and finally does the same to his sister. It’s revolting, and I’m not showing any of the really bad pages.

I don’t know who did this, but it’s a relief to read at least something that’s almost normal.

So… what the fuck? My question now isn’t “why did Kitchen Sink stop printing this train wreck”, but rather “why on Earth did they ever print it”? It’s all designed to shock and make people nauseated (except those that were masturbating to it instead). Was the point to out-Underground the other companies or something?

Where are my pearls! It’s clutching time!

This is the fourteenth post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.

Snarf (1972) #1-15 edited by Denis Kitchen and others

This is, in a way, Kitchen Sink’s most long-running series. Not in the number of issues published, but in time span. The first issue was published in 1972, and then issues were published regularly until the start of the 80s, when it took a pause, and then started up again in the mid-to-late 80s and ran until 1990.

So it’s an 18 year stretch.

I had about a third of these issues as a teenager, but the rest are new to me, and I’m excited about (re-)reading these.

Kitchen isn’t a very chatty editor normally — most Kitchen Sink books don’t have a vocal editorial presence. But here Kitchen actually gives an introduction of the artists featured. It’s pretty low key, though.

The name of this book, Snarf, is probably meant to evoke all those other Mad-derived humour magazines? And indeed, we start off with a longer piece by Kitchen himself, and it’s a Mad-ish parody of hard boiled crime stuff. And it’s funny.

But this is an underground comic book, so we get a variation on the “there’s a fly in my soup” schtick that I can’t recall ever seeing before (by Tim Boxell). His other contributions are even more deranged. Amazing!

But the winner in the sheer, incomprehensible drug induced (presumably) insanity goes to Wendel Pugh. He has comics in all the early issues of Snarf, and they’re all nigh unreadable. I’m not sure whether it’s genius or … er… what’s the opposite of genius…

So Snarf is off to a good start: It’s a very solid first issue. Which makes the second issue such a let-down: We start off with a Pete Poplaski thing where the … joke? … seems to be that this is a Polish hero.

Perhaps you had to be there.

Grass Green shows up with his tedious super-hero parody thing, and the rest of the issue is almost as dull.

But at least Kitchen’s honest.

Around this time, Kitchen started publishing Will Eisner’s Spirit, and we’ll get to that later in this blog series, but Kitchen’s gotten a good cover out of him. (Making fun of hippies, of course.)

And Ed Goodman/Pete Poplaski gets in another dig at the hippies: They’re all booshwah fakes, apparently,

The early issues have several strips by Dutch cartoonist Evert Garadts, and they’re… odd. They’re really odd. But funny. This one’s the best one.

And we round off with some more digs at hippies.

Kitchen demonstrates just what makes a comic an underground comic.

A lot of the stuff in the early issues looks pretty rough, and so does this thing by an artist going under the name of “Grisly”. But it’s so unhinged! Fabulous!

And finally things start looking up, art wise: Howard Cruse becomes a regular. First with (what I guess are) reprints of his Barefootz newspaper strip, but he appears in most issues from now on with original material.

Such deals! You can make a minimum of $75K without lifting a finger!

When reading interviews with Kitchen, he often touches upon how Kitchen Sink was seen as being “too nice” compared with the West Coast undergrounds, and he mentions Cruse as being an example. And I guess I get what he means — Cruse draws very cute characters. But… nice?

Justin Green stages a great marijuana debate, but I’m not sure whether this is the great debate?

Wow. An early Harvey Pekar strip. And with a more cartooney art style, courtesy of L B Armstrong, than he’d prefer later.

It’s a pretty untypical strip from Pekar altogether.

Like I said about Cruse not really being “too nice”? Right.

After issue five or so, Snarf is really on a roll. We get one amazing cartoonist after another, and all the weirdos from the first few issues are gone. It’s now totally professional… but still quite odd editorially. It’s no longer really a pure humour magazine, what with Sharon Rundahl’s auto/biographical stories. It’s a pretty fascinating story, though, and I love her artwork.

Snarf switches to white paper from newsprint, too, which makes things look sharper.

Rundahl criticises underground comics.

We get, basically, a whole bunch of underground artists that you’d expect to see, like Trina Robbins, which is always nice.

Kim Deitch does a number of three-ish-page strips that are all quite puzzling. Many of them don’t really go anywhere, and seem to want to be expanded into longer pieces.

Heh. A strip by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly.

That’s a good Little Lulu (from Howard Cruse).

Like I almost said about Rundahl up there — these pieces are pretty incongruous in this context. Here’s a story about a tragic ballet dancer, and… I mean, it’s really good, but I wonder what Kitchen’s editorial policy here was? Just soliciting his favourite artists for work, without any sort of guidance as to content or theme or anything?

But the thing is, these issues read really well. This strange mix of randomness doesn’t feel off — it feels natural, somehow.

Hey! Didn’t I read this Rick Geary piece about Charlie Chaplin somewhere else recently?

The final issue of the “classic” Snarf run petered out in 1981, with each issue published with a greater lapse of time between them…

… but then in 1987, the title is resurrected (and is back on newsprint again), and has a new co-editor Dave Schreiner. (I’m guessing that Schreiner took over completely by the end.)

It’s a new era, and we get a whole bunch of new contributors, like J D King…

… and Mary Fleener contributes an awesome one-page strip. Cubismo!

PS Mueller does a whole lot of pages for the revamped Snarf, but starts off with some gag cartoons. The rest are more traditional comics, and are really… odd. I mean, in that they read quite straightforwardly, but seem to be about nothing.

The first issue of the new Snarf is chock-a-block with new, hot talent, like Chester Brown.

And a random Omaha the Cat Dancer five-pager?

Some of the older generation of comics artists show up, like Jay Lynch, but it’s mostly new people.

… and Howard Cruse, with the infamous Creepy Snuff Porn strip, where he puts the Meese commission on porn into a stack and stabs, rapes and kills them off. I seem to remember this strip being… er… slightly controversial at the time?

Amazing Heroes #159, page 76:

In fact, my favorite storyfrom Dan-
cin’ Nekkid with the Angels is
‘ ‘Creepy Snuff Porn, ‘ ‘ a story that suc-
ceeds precisely because its single-
minded vicious attack is so over-the-
top that it passes beyond disgusting
into the realm of the kinda cute.
—CWM

The Comics Journal #117, page 63:

Snarf itself is an amusing amalgam
of contributions from a new generation
of idiosyncratic talents. Although a few
Of them might disagree, a number are
relatively well-known and “established”
artists. Howard Cruse is represented by
“Creepy Snuff Porn,” a spirited, rude
defamation of the Meese Commission by
an artist outraged by the findings and
recommendations of that Commission.
The piece has the impassioned effrontery
of the most audacious underground mate•
rial of the ’60s, and in the era of Reagan
puffery, it’s a relief to encounter genuine
anger.

Or perhaps it wasn’t controversial at all?

The sheen of Rand Holmes’ artwork is something to behold.

Mark Landman’s doing his computer artwork stuff…

… and Dennis Worden is really, really deep. I mean, you can’t get any deeper than regurgitating creationist talking points, can you?

An independent thinker if I ever saw one.

There was something in the air around this time? Several strips with teensy teensy panels. Did this come from a Mark Newgarden influence, or was is just a mini-comics thing? Burk Sauls does a pretty neat page, anyway.

But the major news here is… Joe Matt! I had forgotten that this was the venue he pioneered his early autobio strips! He’s in all the final five issues, doing this stuff, and it’s awesome.

Cruse takes a harrowing look at the Nancy pelt industry.

Is Frank Stack underrated? I don’t know; I think most people like his stuff, so perhaps he is correctly rated… but I just adore his line. Look at those houses in the first three panels? Gorgeous! Look at those stairs in the fourth panel with the different hatching on every step? I love it. Every panel has something to gawk at.

Gary Dumm is more … er… draws less attention to his line. But here’s a rare Dumm/Crumb/Pekar page.

A reader, in the first and last letters page in Snarf, calls Worden out on his bullshit.

So, the revived Snarf started out with huge enthusiasm, but then it falters, and we start getting… cheaper fill-in material. Like reprinting some Basil Wolverton.

And translating some Edika from French. I mean, I’m not complaining, because this is just totally perfect and awesome, but I think this probably means that Snarf wasn’t selling any.

It’s not that these are bad issues or anything. They’re chock full of great stuff and surprises like Sharon Clayman and Al Via’s very edumacational strips.

*gasp* Gerald Jablonski! This is not as insane and unique as his later work has become, but it’s still sui generis. Fantastic.

Joe Matt gives us some further tips.

Schreiner says there will be a 16th issue, but that never happened. Fantastic cover by Joe Matt, though.

*gasp* Richard Sala.

And then the series is over.

It’s a pretty weird series — it started off strong, then it floundered, and then it became a really solid 70s underground anthology, before being resurrected as an even better late-80s alternative anthology.

But it didn’t really have a strong identity? Howard Cruse is the artists that appeared in most issues, I think, but beyond that, there’s not really a lot to tie things together.

The Comics Journal #63, page 226:

SHERMAN: I guess for my final question, briefly: how
would you produce an average Krupp title, like one Of
your anthology books?
KITCHEN: Well, anyone who reads our titles regularly
knows that I have certain favorites and certain regulars
who I like to use, who I tend to use more than some of my
competitors, and they have their own favorites. Still, I
try to inject new talent into the anthologies. I try to
devote several pages an issue to fresh faces, and on the
other hand try to resurrect some of the “Older” talents
who dropped out of sight for one reason or another,
people like Justin Green and Kim Deitch, who are not
very active.
SHERMAN: The Banzai book.
KITCHEN: That’s right. If it’s a theme book like Dope
Comix or Bizarre Sex or Corporate Crime or something
like that the basis for starting a book is to ask someone
if they’re interested in doing a story for this title, and
they may say, “No, but. I’ll do something for Snarf
because I’ve got a funny story; I think you’ll like it
And so I have a complex set of charts in my office on
which try ‘to keep a running track of titles. Since
they’re not monthly and I don’t have cover dates I never
have to worry about rushing something to press by
September 1st or be at the mercy of a “national” dis-
tributor.
SHERMAN: So, gathering enough material for an issue
is sort of a cruise?
KITCHEN: I wouldn’t call it a “cruise.” The lack of
firm deadlines is simultaneously a strength and a weak-
ness. A single slowpoke artist can hold up a book when
other contributors have conscientiously submitted their
material on time. This can cause a title to drag on
interminably at times. Death Rattle #4 is five years in
the making. Now I do try to put out the titles at least
annually. The Spirit is the only book I do that has a
schedule, the others I put together as quickly as is
realistic. Partly Pm limited by our schedule which by
now calls for one and a half or two books a month and
that’s determined by, basically . cash flow and circulation
reports and that changes. When the graph is going up ,
I average two or three titles a month; when the graph is
going down, I average one or two books a month—but I
digress here.

Steve Monaco writes in The Comics Journal #116, page 62:

Kitchen Sink puts out some of
the most underground-like titles
being published today, but they’re
also one of the very last publishers
to put out the genuine article as
well. And this time around, their
most noteworthy title by far is the
latest issue of Snarf, one of the last
anthology undergrounds to remain
an on-going series. Sadly, and
somewhat ironically, this most
recent issue of the first
one published in years, is by far the
title’s best, so—wouldn’t you
also the last issue of the
title’s run. Snarf says its goodbye
grandly, though, and the book
serves as both a warm, fitting
farewell to undergrounds them-
selves and a fine example of what
made the best of those old comics
so memorable. Unlike earlier
issues of Snarf, which tended to be
erratic, the quality of the work
published in is consistently
high. Still basically a weird humor
title, the new issue has good work
by Chester Brown and the Fried-
mans, a truly great cover by Will
Elder, and a piece on the Meese
Pornography report by Howard
Cruse that no one should miss.
Until this issue, I was never a big
Snafffan, but now—if this really
IS goodbye for the title—I think I’m
going to miss it quite a bit.

Ah, Snarf 10 was originally meant to be the final issue? I guess that explains why that issue in particular was so strong — a final send-off.

But then they made more, which was a good choice.

The Comics Journal #111, page 74:

RINGGENBERG: wæs “Suffering Celeste”
intended for the regular Barefootz title that you
CRUSE: No. I had Snarf in mind. But
Celeste was long, 12 pages. Denis felt a Story
I’d done for an earlier Snarf had been just
too long for the book.
RINGGENBERG: Which one was that?
CRUSE: “Cream of the Genes” in Snarf
The book didn’t do well despite a Kurtzman
cover, and Denis felt that taking up nearly
half the book with one Story hadn’t been
a good idea. So “Suffering Celeste” was
handicapped in finding a slot. Then the
Supreme Court decision came down and
made it all moot.
Then when Denis offered me the chance
to do Barefootz for Comix Book, “Celeste”
was still far too long. Besides, it didn’t have
tones, and Stan Lee wanted Barefootz to
have tones. And the passage of time had
changed my style. “Suffering Celeste”
looked wrong. It looked primitive.
However, the real reason I didn’t include
“Celeste” when I finally got around to put-
ting together Barefootz Funnies was that
had become aware that parts Of it might
come across as sexist.
RINGGENBERG: Like the bit where Bare
footz loses his temper and pins Celeste to the
wall with a chair?
CRUSE: That’s Barefootz’s only little
moment of macho, and it’s quickly under-
mined. And the fact is, it was satirizing
machismo. Barefootz wasn’t being himself;
he was playing the role of Ramrod. But the
fact that Celeste reponded positively to his
violence, that it got her hot, was something
that I realized wasn’t going to go over too
well in some circles.
It would’ve been a different matter if I
thought women would be wrong to be
annoyed. But, despite my good intentions
when I drew it, I wasn’t at all sure they’d
be wrong.
Y ‘know, Steve, this is going to seem like
a strange conversation to people who read
this. No one has read the Story that we’ve
been talking about!

This is the thirteenth post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.

Dirt Ball Funnies (1972) #1 by Tyler Lantzy and Dan Molidor

Most of the stuff in this book isn’t “comics” per se, but there’s a couple of narratives… like this one… about the Pope calling God to make all hippies into squares.

But most of the stuff is just absurdist randomness.

Some of it approaches genius.

Most of it is pretty dire. This feels like it could have been in a college newspaper or a fanzine or something? It feels very low effort; something 18-year-olds would do while sniggering at each other?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Sounds like how real research is done.

Comix Joint gives it the lowest score possible, a 6:

As for Dirt Ball Funnies, it sold out its 1st printing within a few months and had a 2nd printing of 10,000 copies. But to be honest, it really isn’t a very good comic, though some of the humor is pretty decent, with entertaining titles like “Fighting Father Bob,” “Ripple’s Believe It or Cram It!” “Marijuana (The Killer Drug),” “Become A Brain Surgeon at Home,” and “I Was A Doper.”

Well, I assume that’s the lowest score; I haven’t seen anything lower yet… Oh, Quagmire got a five.

This is the twelvth post in the Entire Kitchen Sink blog series.