Awaiting the Collapse: Selected Works 1974-2014 by Paul Kirchner
This third collaboration between French publishing house Tanibis and comic book artist Paul Kirchner is a collection of the artist’s works, most of them initially published in counter-culture magazines in the 1970s and the 1980s and some dating from his return to comics in the 2010s. Roughly a third of the stories star Dope Rider, the pot-smoking skeleton whose psychedelic adventures take him through colorful vistas equally reminiscent of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western films and of the surrealistic paintings of René Magritte and Salvador Dalí. These stories were originally drawn for the marijuana-themed magazine High Times, but were also for Kirchner an excuse to create his very own brand of visual poetry. Another third of the book is a miscellaneous collection of comics originally published in Heavy Metal, Epic, National Screw, and other magazines. These stories range from the loony (the sextraterrestrial invasion of Earth in “They Came from Uranus”) to the satirical (“Critical Mass of Cool”) and the outright subversive (if you ever wondered what games toys play at night, read “Dolls at Midnight”). This book also features a broad selection of the covers Kirchner made for the pornographic tabloid Screw in the 1970s. Awaiting the Collapse finally contains a previously unpublished essay by Paul Kirchner about his career and his influences, which helps put in perspective the works published in this book. Book will be securely wrapped for shipping.
Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood – Limited Edition Hardcover 2003
No dustjacket.
FANCY ANIMALS…HUMAN BEANS…NAKED ALIENS…by Bill Pearson and Wallace Wood
This is a three portfolio set (sold as a set only) published in 2002, with very low distribution, twelve plates in each envelope. 8.5 by 11 inch black and white plates. Woody showed up at my apartment the day before Christmas (his last Christmas) a surprise because he was living hundreds of miles away at the time. It was snowing so we were stuck there in my place for three days. Included in this set is the story of that visit, in which, out of desperation, I showed him one of my sketchbooks and asked for his opinion of how I could turn the sketches into finished drawings. He had been sitting at my drawing board most of the time, a place where he felt comfortable. He’d lost his sight in one eye after a stroke, but my drawings were large, and I won my secret bet that he couldn’t resist putting some ink on those sketches. He looked through several of the sketchbooks, and ended up inking about 40 drawings. Years later I finished them (backgrounds, connecting lines that didn’t quite come together) gave them names, and had them published in these three portfolios. Some nudes, but not pornographic…rather amusing, Wood’s and my sense of humor. If you buy more that one book, a refund from the single package postage cost will be sent.
FANCY ANIMALS…HUMAN BEANS…NAKED ALIENS…by Bill Pearson and Wallace Wood
This is a three portfolio set (sold as a set only) published in 2002, with very low distribution, twelve plates in each envelope. 8.5 by 11 inch black and white plates. Woody showed up at my apartment the day before Christmas (his last Christmas) a surprise because he was living hundreds of miles away at the time. It was snowing so we were stuck there in my place for three days. Included in this set is the story of that visit, in which, out of desperation, I showed him one of my sketchbooks and asked for his opinion of how I could turn the sketches into finished drawings. He had been sitting at my drawing board most of the time, a place where he felt comfortable. He’d lost his sight in one eye after a stroke, but my drawings were large, and I won my secret bet that he couldn’t resist putting some ink on those sketches. He looked through several of the sketchbooks, and ended up inking about 40 drawings. Years later I finished them (backgrounds, connecting lines that didn’t quite come together) gave them names, and had them published in these three portfolios. Some nudes, but not pornographic…rather amusing, Wood’s and my sense of humor. If you buy more that one book, a refund from the single package postage cost will be sent.