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'A well-told, powerful story' –Robert Crumb 'Stunning. Horrifying. 'An exemplary demonstration of
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'Hysterically funny!' –Boston Globe "Brilliant!" –Newsarama 'An incredibly likeable book.' CBG Fan Award winner 152 pages, SLG Publishing, $15.95 ...................................
'The funniest book of the year.' The original Eisner-nominated memoir of my memorable (and smelly) career as a garbageman. 52 pages. SLG Publishing, $6.95 ...................................
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INTERESTING SITES: APE indy comix expo in San Fran
AWESOME COMIX SHOPS: Laughing Ogre - Columbus OH Atomic Books - Baltimore Quimby's - Chicago Copacetic Comics- Pittsburgh Green Brain Comics - Deerborn MI Jim Hanley's Universe - NYC Astound Comics- Cleveland Comic Relief - Berkeley CA The Beguiling - Toronto Big Planet Comics - DC area Million Year Picnic - Cambridge MA Big Brain Comics - Minneapolis Zanadu Comics - Seattle Lucky's - Vancouver BC Monkey's Retreat - Columbus, OH Starclipper Comics - St. Louie Comix Experience - San Fran Last Gasp - San Fran Comikaze - San Diego, CA Meltdown Comics -LA, CA Dark Star Books - Dayton, OH Austin Comics - Austin, TX Pitka mies - Helsinki |
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Hey, feel free to friend me on Facebook. I'm a social media slut. I friend anyone who asks. Of course, you'll read nothing but lies on my page.
Dec 24, 2011 Merry War on Christmas Everyone It's not Christmas until you hear Shane and Kirsty and the most heartwarming Christmas song ever written. Enjoy, you scumbags, you maggots, you cheap, lousy Faggots.
Derf Fridge Magnets! Proof that I'm a lousy capitalist. Here's the test line of Derf Fridge Magnets, too late for Christmas Shopping. These were supposed to ready months ago, but there was an unfortunate delay. I'm working with Big Fun Toys here in Cleveland on a line of Derf Swag. T-shirt transfers and coffee mugs to come. Sorry, but at present these are only available in Cleveburg, at the two Big Fun locations. Eventually, I may add them to my webstore.
Dec. 16, 2011 Joe Simon dead at 98
Above: the place where dreams are made. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby (seated) in their New York studio, circa 1941. Wow! The last giant of the Golden Age of Comics has passed away. Writer Joe Simon, along with his partner, artist Jack Kirby, were the most-respected creative team in the industry. Working in the early days of Timely Comics (which later morphed into Atlas, then Marvel), they gave the world Capt. America, and a host of bizarre, less popular heroes, like The Vision, Blue Bolt, The Black Owl, The Red Raven and The Fiery Mask. They bolted for better pay and better treatment to rival DC Comics, where they produced some of the finest titles of the era: The Sandman, The Newsboy Legion and The Boy Commandoes. Later the duo pioneered supernatural comics, westerns and invented romance comics. After Dr. Wertham and the infamous The Kefauver Committee almost destroyed the comix biz, Simon and Kirby went their seperate ways. Kirby, of course, achieved far greater success and fame when he partnered with Stan Lee in the 60s and ushered in the Marvel Age of Comics.
Simon eventually retirned to comics, too, but never came close to Kirby's greatness. Instead, he created some of the most bizzarre characters in comix history. Brother Power the Geek was a mystical mannequinn brought to life by hippies. Prez was the first teenage president. The Green Team, Boy Millionaires were eco-crusader richboys (how preposterous is THAT?). None of his titles lasted more than a few issues and were reviled by fandom for their indeciperable goofiness. Looking back on them now, they're hilarious! His only minor success was The Sandman, not his earlier crimefight, but the actual Sandman, who puts people to sleep! It was the final collaboration with Kirby. Simon's passing comes a mere week after that of Jerry Robinson, the great Batman artist of the 40s and the creator of The Joker. Dec. 15, 2011 More on the Craigslist Killer If you haven't been following the story of the latest Craigslist Killer, you're missing a fascinating tale that goes well beyond the lurid attraction of a new serial killer. This one has it all. A bible-thumping murderer with a doughy teen accomplice, preying on desperate men in the rubble of the economic apocalypse.
Above: alleged serial killer Richard Beasley is wheeled into court for the first time. Beasley refused to talk, wouldn't walk on his own, wouldn't even raise his head. Richard Beasley (above) is the accused serial killer. He's confessed nothing and, in fact, is not cooperating at all, even as the FBI links three (so far- who knows how many bodies are out there?) murders to him. It reminds me just how unusual Jeffrey Dahmer was, a serial killer, who, when finally caught, immediately confessed everything, even murders that the cops never could have pinned on him otherwise. Most serial killers are pathological liars and go to their graves denying everything. Anthony Sowell, who strangled 11 women here in Cleveland, is one of those. Dahmer, at least, provided answers, if not comfort or closure, to the victims' families and friends. Beasley's unemployed victims were lured to their doom by a Craigslist ad that offered a caretaker position at a rural farm. Beasley and his teenage ward "interviewed" the victims at a local mall foodcourt, drove them to a remote location and then Beasley killed them with a bullet in the back of the head. Reason? Unknown. And, again, Beasley isn't offering any answers. The teenager, 16-year-old Brogan Rafferty, from a well-to-do Akron suburb is also in jail and facing murder charges, a trial as an adult and a life flushed right down the shitter. “I think about this and know that there is no way God would do that to me,’’ he recently wrote to his Dad. It was HIS PARENTS, under orders from Jesus, who handed their boy over to a career criminal and con artist who they befriended at an Akron mega-church. It's unclear how much the lad knew of the crimes, or what his involvement was. Beasley could clear him, of course, but he obviously isn't going to and will likely drag the boy into hell with him.
Above: Noble County, Ohio, very near the sight where two bodies were The murders occurred in Noble County, in the rolling countryside 100 miles south of Akron (and 150 miles due south of Cleveland,where I write this). It's a strange, alien land. This isn't picturesque like nearby Amish Country, with its quaint Amish farms and thriving tourist hamlets, this is the real rural Ohio. It's a sinister place of poverty and blight, where destitute residents are slowly consumed by bitterness, despair and drugs. Oxycontin and pain killers are the drug of choice here, and the numbers are staggering. Outside of hipster urban enclaves like mine and posh yuppie suburbs, this is what Middle America is really like, the lawless tribal regions. In nearby Portsmouth, Ohio, once a thriving factory town on the Ohio River and now a crumbling refugee camp that offers hard evidence of just what the One Percent have done to us, one in 10 babies test positive for drugs when they are born. The only highlight for these Appalachian poor is the start of hunting season, which is treated like a state holiday. Schools close so kids can accompany their families as they blast away at game in the woods. This isn't the happy, smalltown America of Andy Griffith's Mayberry. It's a place where anger and paranoia and ignorance festers. It's a fitting setting for the killing grounds of a serial killer. Rural Ohio is where the American Dream crawled to die. The FBI has taken over the case, much to the chagrin of the smalltown police force. Then the prosecutors in Noble County and Akron wrestled over who would try Beasley, with Akron's headline-grabbing prosecutor winning out. She can barely contain her delight. This is a story that is as much a part of the Great Recession as Bonnie & Clyde and their fellow gangsters were of the Depression, although it likely won't achieve the romanticized mythic stature of those tales. All have same threads of brutality and of economic holocaust. The victims were people no one gave a shit about, in a hardscrabble wasteland that no one gives a shit about. Add to Beasley's crimes the internet and Jesus and you truly have a monster for our times.
Dec. 14, 2011 Sorry the site was down yesterday. My soon-to-be-former webhost neglected to notify me that their name servers were being changed. They didn't have current contact information, I was told. Which is curious, since I have no trouble receiving a monthly invoice from them. Rocket From the Tombs!
Above: Rocket From the Tombs tear into an otherwordly Sonic Reducer. Those sad folks who follow this blog know my obsession with the mythic proto-punk pioneers, Rocket From the Tombs. It is, bar none, the most influential band no one has ever heard of. They emerged from the gritty Cleveland underground in 1974, played only a handful of gigs, didn't release a single recording and dissolved in 1975 in an explosion of fists, fury and insults. What was left behind were breathless accounts of legendary shows of unmatched ferocity, a few low-quality, bootleg recordings and a handful of songs that stand toe-to-toe with the discography of the Sex Pistols, Clash or Ramones. It's an injustice that those songs are better known as covers by Guns-n-Roses, the Ramones, Peter Murphy and Pearl Jam. "In those eight months they wrote songs that would become punk anthems: "Ain't It Fun," "Sonic Reducer," "Final Solution," "So Cold," "What Love Is," "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "Amphetamine." And they played them like there was no tomorrow. There was no tomorrow. They'd used up tomorrow. The band blew apart in July 1975 after an apocalyptic soundcheck that scared the bejeebers out of headliners Television. One faction went on to create the avant-garage rock group Pere Ubu, the other punk stalwarts The Dead Boys." My pals at Smog Veil Records released the classic collection The Day the Earth Met Rocket From the Tombs in 2003, compiling and restoring virtually every precious scrap of recorded artifact, and the surviving members of the band stunned everyone by reuniting, with Television's Richard Lloyd taking the place of Peter Laughner, the tragic genius who overdosed at age 25. They've done short tours in the years since and even recorded a new album, Barfly, an album that, of course, can't live up to the Tombs legend but does feature a thunderous anthem in I Sell Soul and a couple other nice moments. Give them their vanity project. They, after all, deserve it. Their first sold-out appearance in Cleveland at the much-loved Beachland Ballroom back in 2003 was the event of the year. I had a chemo treatment the day before, so my ticket was sadly given to a friend. When they re-appeared a few years later, I was once again in a sick bed, this time with radiation damage. It seemed I would never see them live. So imagine my delight when a quiet announcement was made a month ago that RFTT was doing a short tour for their new album, and a stop at the Beachland was scheduled. I bought my ticket that day. The years have not been kind. Frontman Dave Thomas, a zaftig 300 lbs. in 2003, has shed half his weight. With Pere Ubu, he stalked the stage, waving his arms maniacally like a crazed street preacher at a bus station. Now, he moves stiffly, with a cane, and mostly stands squinting emotionless into the crowd. Cheetah Chrome's flaming red mane is long gone. He looks like a punk Uncle Fester, but still hammers out the same monster riffs. They take the stage, eerily lit from above, looking like a Lynchian carny troupe. As they rip into the opening number, the truth is revealed: decrepit or no, this is a sonic monster of a band! The set ended with 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, an apocalyptic opus that climaxes in a wall of white noise, followed by Sonic Reducer, Ain't It Fun and a finale of Final Solution. It crashed over the crowd in waves, a nihilistic tsunami that weakened knees and left eardrums throbbing. It was the kind of live music thrill that inspired Punk Rock & Trailer Parks. It's something that I felt all the time when I was young, but is a rare occurrence now. Ain't it fun when you tell her she's just a cunt It's such fun No one wrote songs like this in 1974. Few write songs like this now! I'd be surprised if Rocket From the Tombs toured again. They'll likely limp off into the fog and return to the nether realm of underground myth.
Dec. 11, 2011 Another cartoonist nailed for plagiarism Another editorial cartoonist bites the dust. Jeff Stahler, longtime cartoonist for the Columbus Dispatch, is the latest mainstream type to get busted for swiping ideas. Last month, Tulsa cartoonist Dave Simpson, a serial plagiarist whose crimes go back decades, was banished from the profession. But he was a mostly unknown hack. Stahler is one of the profession's bigger names.
Above is the Stahler cartoon that led to his suspension and resignation.
And above is the New Yorker cartoon that Stahler plagiarized.
Stahler was nailed earlier this year for stealing an idea from humorist Andy Borowitz and now has been busted lifting a New Yorker cartoon. His editor defended him after the Borowitz stink. A lot of people in the cartoon biz thought Stahler got away too easy, especially since he had previously lifted an idea from fellow cartoonist Mike Lester. But when yet another plagiarism charge surfaced last week, Stahler's support vanished and his editor suspended him "indefinitely," which means the lawyers were getting everything in order before firing him. On Friday, Stahler beat them to the punch and resigned. I suspect the only reason he lost his job this time is because his editor was embarrassed when the story popped up on Poynter.com, a journalism site that everyone in the biz reads. I just don't get it. I've met Stahler a couple times over the years. Our careers both started around the same time in Columbus. Seems like a decent guy. He's not untalented, so this thievery is a real head-scratcher. But like most of these mainstream guys, he's totally derivative. They all ape each other, and mimic former greats, mostly Jeff MacNelly, and the difference between copping styles, jokes and tired humor devices and outright plagiarism is a fuzzy one. In other words, the mainstream editorial cartoon community is keeping its collective head down on Stahler's firing. Because they ALL do the exact same shit, or damn close to it anyways. Stahler crossed the line and he took the fall. The others are praying it doesn't happen to them. The Dispatch has always been a dog of a newspaper. It's hard Republican in a town that is increasingly hip and liberal. The last Democrat the Dispatch endorsed for president, no lie, was Woodrow Wilson in 1916! Its standards are low and the paper is exceedingly dull. It is, however, very profitable and owned by a powerful local family, The Wolfes, who have finger in every pie in town. The Wolfes, in fact, just bought the "alternative" weekly paper in Columbus, one that had always critically monitored the inner workings of the Dispatch. The Wolfe Family already owns two radio stations, the biggest tv station, a group of monthly city magazines, a free entertainment weekly paper, and a 22-paper suburban newspaper chain. They have a stranglehold on media in the state capital that is unrivaled anywhere in the country, and have happily abused that power for decades. Their influence over state politics is absolute and insidious. They are the Koch Brothers of Ohio and the primary reason why a FoxNews host and Lehman Bros Exec was elected governor of this wretched state. So this scandal couldn't happen to nicer clan of One Percenters. Except that, to date, there's been no mention of it in the Dispatch or any of its subsidiary media. Nothing. Not a word, not an apology, nada. In fact, Stahler's cartoons are still archived on the Dispatch website! And there likely won't be any mention, since there's virtually no other independent Columbus media outside of the Wolfe Empire to report on the scandal! I, of course, started my cartoon career in Columbus, at Ohio State in the pages of the school paper The Lantern. We in the journalism school regarded The Dispatch and the Wolfe Family with contempt. Back in the day, I was scolded by the Dispatch's editorial page editor and told that I would never get a job with his paper and faced an uncertain future in newspapers if I didn't learn to temper my views and knock off the tasteless jokes. Dude was sure right about that!
Nov. 28, 2011 My Friend Dahmer pre-order! We're just four months away from the book launch, friends. Amazon has the pre-order page up and running and this week both the soft and hardcover is a whopping 35 percent off! Spend the extra $5 for the hardcover. It's really sweet. Don't know how long this sale will last. Amazon prices fluctuate inexplicably, like gasoline prices at the Stock Exchange. Last week, a couple of the review copies (the crappy edition publishers run off on the cheap and send out to reviewers pre-publication) made it onto the Amazon Marketplace as "used." It's like finding all those promo "not for sale" copies of LPs in the used bins at record stores when I was a kid! Looks like my publisher brought the hammer down on them, cause those copies are gone now. Nov. 28, 2011 Hey thanks to everyone who came out to the Genghis Con in Cleveland last Saturday. Met some great fans, sold enough crap to buy all my Christmas presents, made some good contacts and laid the groundwork for a couple speaking gigs. And then, post con, retreated to a nearby pub for good food and conversation about comix and muzak. A good day! You Can't Make Stuff Like This Up...
If you haven't been following the bizarre news coming out of the Buckeye State lately, you've been missing the type of weird-ass shit that provides me with so much material. You all heard of the dude with the private zoo (above) who released all his tigers and lions and bears and then blew his brains out. A Tiger then ate off the top of his head! Ohio is one of the few states where a citizen can own any kind of creature, with absolutely no regulation by the authorities. Why? Who knows. Just another of the inexplicable positions by the Southern Ohio Taliban that have run this state for the past 25 years. After this remarkable story unfolded and all the animals had been shot, local law enforcement called on the Legislature to outlaw these exotic zoos (there are several dozen). This went absolutely nowhere in the Statehouse, as this would constitute "the guvmint takin' away our rights." Guess Patrick Henry kept a collection of Amazonian pythons in his root cellar or something. Besides, everyone in the Lawless Tribal Regions of Ohio is armed to the teeth. They can take care of themselves! A glimpse of the Libertarian Paradise that awaits us all!
Then there's the Amish Beard-cutting Clan (above) that has been terrorizing the Plain Folk. The Amish are plentiful to the east and south of Cleveland. Drive 30 miles into the rolling countryside and you'll invariably encounter buggies and see Amish farmers working their fields. The Beard-cutting Clan is ruled by one tyrannical geezer patriarch, who dispatched these barber hit squads to shame those who dared challenge him. Police are calling it a Cult, although I'm not sure how that differs from an everyday Amish clan. Another example of religion driving people to do mad shit.
And finally, we have the latest Craigslist Killer, another story wrapped in wacko religious overtones. Three bodies have been discovered so far. Police state the pair pictured above, Richard Beasley, a local "preacher" who goes by the name “Chaplain Rich” accompanied by his paunchy 16-year-old ward, Brogan Rafferty, a junior at an upscale, suburban high school, lured men to their doom with a fake Craigslist job listing for a caretaker. The victims met the pair at a rural property and Beasley allegedly shot them in the back of the head. Two shallow graves have been found on the property. The most recent victim escaped when he heard the gun cock behind him and the instincts to bolt. Wounded, he spent a harrowing seven hours hiding in the woods until he found help. Internet tracks led the FBI to Beasley. This story is still unfolding and it is one of the strangest of recent times. Beasley is a career criminal with a long rap sheet who spent 15 years in prison over three stints. He lives in South Akron, a blighted shithole that once housed the workforce that manned the Rubber City's tire factories. My family, in fact, was based here. The factories and plentiful jobs are all gone, of course, thanks to out beneficent One Percent, and South Akron long ago sunk into White Trash Ghetto, a bombed out barrio of abandoned buildings and weed-choked lots with hopeless zombies staggering through the rubble. What remains is several large fire-and-brimstone churches that are so popular with lower-class hillbillies. Beasley is connected to The Chapel, a mega-church that advertises on billboards all over Akron and suckers the desperate and clueless. Beasley wormed his way into the church hierarchy and set up several street ministries, with church blessings. He ran a halfway house for the itinerant out of his residence, which police say was, in reality, a whorehouse. Beasley was also on the lam, having skipped bond on drug trafficking and prostitution charges. Apparently, The Chapel has never heard of "background checks" and Jesus failed to tip them off. Here's where it really gets weird. That's right, weirder than what I've already recounted. The parents of young Brogan, both brainwashed sheep who are members of The Chapel, recruited Beastly to "mentor" their son. He's been doing so for 10 years! Look at that dude! Would YOU hand your 6-year-old kid over to THAT guy? These are upper-middle class parents, too, not uneducated hillbillies. Why Beasley had this flabby teen in tow is a mystery. There are questions about how much the boy saw or knew. He is currently in the juvy clink and helping the FBI build a case against Beasley, who denies everything, despite a growing pile of evidence linking him to the three killings. The motive? Who knows. Beasley may have done it for kicks. Maybe there was some sick religious angle. He may also have been trying to steal identities, so Beasley could go underground and escape the hard time that was awaiting him. Beasley isn't talking. At least two of the victims first met Beasley for "interviews" at the food court in the Chapel Hill Mall (just a name, not affiliated with the mega-church). This is one of the malls I haunted as a kid! A third body was found buried in a shallow grave behind the now-dead Rolling Acres Mall, another of my frequent hangouts!
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