Tag Archives: comics

Last Gasp 40th Anniversary Art Show!

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Four decades • 300+ comix • 250+ books • A Who’s Who of Lowbrow Art

Last Gasp turns 40 this year and to celebrate, we are throwing a party and art show at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco.

The Last Gasp 40th Anniversary Art Show assembles a top-drawer lineup of artists – the haut monde of lowbrow. Over the past four decades, Last Gasp has published hundreds of artists in the underground comix, kustom kulture, pop surrealism and street art movements.

Artists in the show include:

Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Glenn Barr, Mark and Vaughn Bode, Robert Crumb, Richard Corben, Rob and Christian Clayton, Guy Colwell, Ron English, Tony Fitzpatrick, Christopher Felver, Camille Rose Garcia, Justin Green, Charles Gatewood, Bill Griffith, Rick Griffin, Ed Hardy, Jay Kinney, Frank Kozik, Joe Ledbetter, Carol Lay, Adrian Lee, Michael Manning, Chris Mars, Mats,  Paul Mavrides, Scott Musgrove, Albert Morse, Junko Mizuno, Liz McGrath, Laurenn McCubbin, Mitch O’Connell, Annie Owens, The Pizz, Mark Ryden, Michael Rosen, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Dori Seda, Winston Smith, Stanislav Szukalski, Larry Todd, Eric White, Robert Williams, Basil Wolverton, Attaboy, Aye Jay, and many more to be announced.

Writers, including San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane DiPrima will do a reading.

Design radicals GAMA-GO will produce a limited edition tee shirt for the event.

21 + over; Free and open to the public

When: April 1, 2010, 6pm until late
Where: 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna Street, San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 974-1719   www.111minnagallery.com   Contact: Jay Howell

About Last Gasp
Last Gasp is one of the largest and oldest publishers and purveyors of underground books & comics in the world, as well as being a distributor of all sorts of weird ‘n’ wonderful subversive literature, graphic novels, tattoo and art books.

Last Gasp was founded in 1970 by Ron Turner. Last Gasp’s first publication, Slow Death Funnies #1 came out on the first “Earth Day,” April 15, 1970. Subsequent comics included the all-women’s comic It Ain’t Me Babe, and Skull Comics. Over the years they have published, and in some cases brought to light, some of the most respected and talented artists working today, including such luminaries as R. Crumb, Mark Ryden, Justin Green, Bill Griffith, Frank Kozik, Todd Schorr, Winston Smith, Spain Rodriguez, and Robert Williams to name but a few.

Ron Turner’s enthusiasm for underground comics, and in particular their autobiographical aspect, has been the driving force behind many groundbreaking publications. Last Gasp published Justin Green’s highly acclaimed confessional Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary in 1972, a book that became an inspiration to many artists now working in the autobiographical style. “Art Spiegelman, who won the only Pulitzer Prize for cartooning, has said he would never have started to do the autobiographical story of his family (in the graphic novel Maus) unless Justin had done it first. And Robert Crumb said the same thing,” said Turner.

Today, Last Gasp publishes 12-20 new titles per year, focusing on Lowbrow and Pop Surrealist artists, as well as graphic novels. The company has 18 full and part-time employees and is based in San Francisco. In addition to publishing, Last Gasp distributes for large and small publishers worldwide, providing a steady countercultural stream of books and other printed matter that spreads over six continents.

Last Gasp books have been glowingly reviewed in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Juxtapoz magazine, The Guardian (UK), Hi-Fructose magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Austin Chronicle, American Book Review, and The Los Angeles Times.

Co-publishing partners include La Luz de Jesus / Billy Shire Fine Arts, Porterhouse Fine Art Editions, San Jose Museum of Art, Grand Central Art Center, Smokemuse, JaPress, Moulinsart, Presspop Gallery, Ignition Publishing, NewSkool/Analog, Laguna Art Museum, and many more.

The readers of the San Francisco Bay Guardian named Last Gasp the Best Local Publisher in 2009.

First publications: Slow Death, 1970 (comic); Breather’s Guide to Invisible Air Polution (book) 1970

Gilbert Shelton Autograph Party at Oat Willie’s

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Gilbert Shelton, underground cartoonist and author of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy’s Cat, Wonder Warthog, and Not Quite Dead, will autograph copies of his work at Oat Willie’s Campaign Headquarters, 617 West 29th Street, Austin, TX, on the afternoon of Friday, March 12, 2010.

No stranger to Austin, Shelton began his art career at the University of Texas Ranger student humor Magazine in the early sixties, where he was a frequent contributor and began the groundbreaking Wonder Warthog comic series.

After graduation Shelton moved around the country searching for creative opportunities, stopping at Cleveland, New York, and back to Austin to attend graduate school. He tried various stints at humor and automotive magazines and a brief stay as Art Director for the Vulcan Gas Company, a psychedelic rock venue in Austin.

Finally, Shelton moved to San Francisco in 1968, hoping to join poster artists Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelly, and Wes Wilson in creating posters for the exploding rock scene there. He and three other Texans pooled their resources, bought a printing press, and formed a company, Rip Off Press, to create, print, and publish rock posters.

But, as Shelton put it in a 2006 interview, “I wasn’t as good (as a poster artist) as these guys, but I discovered I could do comic books. And, we discovered that our printing press wasn’t good enough to print posters, but it was good enough to print comics.” The rest is history.

Over forty years later, Shelton has produced 14 Freak Brothers titles, as well as several collections. They have been translated into so many languages that it is easier to list the exceptions: every language except Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and the African vernaculars. Over thirty million Freak Brothers books have been sold
worldwide.

In addition to the Freak Brothers, Shelton is the author of the companion series Fat Freddy’s Cat, and has coauthored five titles in the series Not Quite Dead , the peripatetic adventures of the “worlds least famous rock band” with French cartoonist Pic. He was also a contributor to the Zap! underground comic series,
numerous fanzines and other publications, and was the creator of the drug dealing board game Feds ‘n Heads.

Old and new friends of the works of Gilbert can see him at the Oat Willie’s autograph party Friday, March 12th, at a show at the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture, on March 13th and at a panel discussion at SXSW on Monday, March 15th.

The Art of Hergé

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A nice Christmas treat from the New York Times & Los Angeles Times: kind words about our series The Art of Hergé.

“…devoted not just to the cartoons but also to Hergé’s impressive, sometimes glorious work as an illustrator and graphic designer.”
Bruce Handy, the New York Times
on the Last Gasp series The Art of Hergé

“gorgeous”
Jennifer Schuessler, the New York Times Papercuts blog
on the Last Gasp series The Art of Hergé

“…Philippe Goodin’s handsome three-volume survey…”
Charles Solomon, the Los Angeles Times

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The Art of Hergé
Volume 1: 1907-1937
978-0-86719-706-8

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The Art of Hergé
Volume 2: 1937-1949
978-0-86719-724-2

Proud of Best Erotic Comics

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In their current Sex Issue, the SF Bay Guardian reviewed Best Erotic Comics 2009.

Here’s a snippet of what they had to say:
“Best Erotic Comics, an annual collection of the best and brightest of kinky comics, is yet another reason to be proud of our sexy Bay Area, published as it is by legendary, local institution Last Gasp.”
Here’s the rest of the article.

Preview and interior images for Best Erotic Comics 2009.

Original Underground Cartoonist: SPAIN

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Spain Rodriguez is one of the original Zap cartoonists and a fascinating figure with a lot of great stories. He’s having an art show and will be speaking at the Cartoon Art Museum this Thursday, Sept 17.

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Here’s the invite:

The Cartoon Art Museum proudly presents Spain Rodriguez: Rebel in Ink, a retrospective exhibition celebrating the art of seminal underground comix creator and San Francisco legend Spain Rodriguez.

Rebel in Ink looks back on Rodriguez’s 40-plus years as a comic book artist, providing the most comprehensive gallery exhibition of his work to date. In the late 1960s, Rodriguez was one of the pioneers of the underground comix movement, through work on such groundbreaking publications as The East Village Other, Zap Comix, and the first underground tabloid, Zodiac Mindwarp, which was created by Rodriguez. Trashman, one of Rodriguez’s best known creations, was an icon in underground newspapers of the 1960s and 1970s. Rodriguez was an early pioneer of online comics as well, and he collaborated with the late comics historian and writer Bob Callahan in the 1990s on The Dark Hotel, which was featured on the popular website Salon.com. Rodriguez has also been active as an educator at various Bay Area colleges and schools. Among his more recent works are numerous illustrations for the mainstream press, several anthology comics collections, and the critically acclaimed Che: A Graphic Biography, a 2008 graphic novel depicting the life and times of Che Guevara.

The opening reception for this exhibition will take place on Thursday, September 17, 2009 from 7:00-9:00pm. Spain Rodriguez will look back at his long and storied career in a discussion moderated by Cartoon Art Museum founder Malcolm Whyte. This event is free and open to the public.

Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-CAR-TOON
www.cartoonart.org

New Reviews for PELU and Best Erotic Comics

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Dusty Horn reviews Best Erotic Comics 2009 for Carnal San Francisco:

“Just as the world at large is growing to acknowledge the value of comics, the shelves are hit with a cute, unassuming trade paperback overflowing with half-octopus girls, bull-cunnilingus, drunk pistol-whipping, unprotected male sodomy and an abundance of demon fucking, to say nothing of masturbation, queers, and sexually aggressive females.”

Read the rest of Dusty’s review here.

Michelle Smith reviews Junko Mizuno’s Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU for Comic Book Resources:

“I’m not one who enjoys weirdness for the sake of weirdness, but in Junko Mizuno’s hands, the absurdity of certain situations makes me laugh out loud, which is a pretty rare occurrence.”

Read the rest of Michelle’s review here.

John Thomas reviews PELU in his Mecha Mecha Media column for Yuuyake Shimbun:
“As the title suggests, this is not a kid’s book, but is the mind trip one would expect from Mizuno. Pelu is a fluffy alien who travels to Earth (don’t ask me how, you wouldn’t believe me) in order to find a bride. The adventures Pelu begins in this big volume are sometimes cute, sometimes shocking, and always original. Pelu is like finally getting the story behind one of Mizuno’s surprising illustrations. Pelu will not be for everyone, but I enjoyed this title even more than Pure Trance. I didn’t love everything that happens in Pelu, and I think it is hard to connect with the characters, which is probably by design, but Pelu certainly kept be guessing, which I did like.”

Junko Mizuno signing at New People

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Thanks to everyone who came out to see Junko Mizuno and get copies of her new book, Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU! And thanks to New People for hosting the signing! Deb Aoki wrote an article about the signing and did an interview with Junko as well. Same Hat also has some pics and a post about the signing and New People.

Junko Mizuno signing Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU

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Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU

Junko Mizuno will be signing her new book, Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU Vol. 1, on Saturday, August 22 at 2pm at NEW PEOPLE The Store in San Francisco’s Japan Town.
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PELU is a cute extraterrestrial critter who travels to Earth to find happiness in the form of a bride. Prepare to be astounded as the search for fulfillment takes him from the surface of his fantastic alien planet to an off-kilter modern Japan inhabited by aspiring enka singers, sassy girls, paint-sniffing bad boys, sushi chefs with unspeakable secrets and the body-switching students of a mysterious high school.

Preview PELU here.

PELU has been getting great reviews. This is your chance to meet Junko and pick up a signed copy of her newest release!

NEW PEOPLE
1746 Post St.
San Francisco, CA 94115
Saturday, August 22, 2pm

Praise for Little Fluffy Gigolo PELU:

…Fluffy Gigolo Pelu suggests that her work is only veering into more vividly mischievous territory. It offers a look at an exercise that is comparable to taking the broken crumbs from the bottom of a bag of candy and trying to melt them into a lollipop – bright and supposedly sweet, but deformed and foul smelling where it’s burned. Pelu’s stories of alienation, unconventional pregnancy and huffing are overtly cracked, but the view that it presents of less incendiary subjects like office work dreariness and career dissatisfaction similarly fit into its scheme of candy colored unhappiness.
…noting the diversity of Earth’s population, Pelu leaps into a magic mirror hoping to find someone like himself. His mad anti-trip-to-Oz whirlwind is captured in a montage of dreary meetings, lottery wins, and over eating – framed by a psychedelic expectoration of bubbles.
Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu features enough dire absurdity that it’ll force you to laugh.
– Scott Green, Ain’t It Cool News

Whether her stories titillate you or not, it’s hard to deny their unique place in the world of manga. Sans narrative, they’re vintage candy wrappers that you hold on to because you know you’re going to want to just look at them again sometime down the road. In that respect, maybe Little Fluffy Gigolo Pelu is the lovelorn-tragedy-laced Laffy Taffy of the bunch.
…is there enough love on our cruel planet to include a vomit-green, bow-tie-wearing cotton ball like Pelu? Maybe the answer lies in volume two, but I’m digging the journey so far.
– Joseph Luster, Otaku USA

…certainly does not disappoint if you love Mizuno’s mix of cute / grotesque humor.
– Deb Aoki, About.com Guide to Manga

Beautiful artwork and character designs that find the sexiness in Japanese “kawaii” pop culture. Unapologetic in pushing the envelope in decency and standards.
– The Anime Almanac

The book is filled with bizarre, disturbing, but utterly engaging adventures, like the chapter where Pelu’s friend the Space Hippo arrives on Earth, eats too many unfamiliar foods, and ends up vomitting an acid-like substance all over the town’s local poodle ranch.
– John Jakala, Robot 6