If you are interested in comics history and design issues, master letterer Todd Klein has got the blog for you. And now he’s done some real archaeological digging by discovering the creator of the Batman logo seen above — which was in use until 1965.

So who REALLY ruined comics? Was it former DC executive editor Dick Giordano? As the DCU show runner from 1983-93, Giordano oversaw the comics during the rise of the direct market, the widening of DC’s material, and the twin peaks of DARK KNIGHT and WATCHMEN. But reached in retirement, he has regrets, among them the rise of grim and grittiness during the period.

Marketing and some DC execs thought it was folly. A story line set in the future? In a format never tried before (48 pages, square bound with a cover price more than double the current price point)?: “We’ll be killed!”

Road map? Flying upside down was the most fun, so that’s what I did.

The Dark Knight Returns additionally helped start the “grim and gritty” trends in comic storytelling that still exist today. That was an unintended result, and I am truly sorry it happened. Comics are much too dark today. Er – in my opinion …

Meanwhile, David Brothers fingers another culprit with “Grant Morrison ruined the X-Men” , although you may find his definition of “ruined” different than you are accustomed to.

BTW, it has been quite a while since Morrison came back to DC after then-publisher Bill Jemas drove him away with his shenanigans. It’s worth noting that no matter what shenanigans DC has undergone of late, they were never so dumbass as to drive away Grant Morrison.

Shel Dorf, comics fan, letterer, and the driving force behind the early years of the San Diego Comic-Con, passed away yesterday from complications related to diabetes. He was 76.

Growing up in Detroit, the young Dorf organized fan gatherings and conventions, including the “Triple Fan Fest”, an interest he took with him when he moved to California in the late Sixties. Together with Ken Krueger and other enthusiasts, Dorf put on what become the mighty San Diego Comic-Con. As Mark Evanier writes in a personal reminiscence:

It was his friendship with so many heroes that led him to help put on the Detroit Triple Fan-Fairs in the sixties and then, when he moved to San Diego, to rally fans there to start something similar. I met him in late 1969 or maybe early 1970, shortly before a one-day con that he organized as a kind of “dry run” for the larger convention he hoped to stage. He was enthusiastic. He was optimistic. He was passionate, not just about the convention but about the wonders that could occur just by assembling so many talented creators and fans in the same building. As it turned out, he was right.

Dorf remained Chairman or president of the show for many years, although he was estranged from the show and those running it in recent years. His health had been poor for quite a while, and he was hospitalized for the last year of his life; he died with his brother Michael at his side.

Dorf was also the letterer for Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon newspaper strip for the last 14 years of its run, something he was very very proud of, and he was the inspiration for the character Thud Shelley. Jack Kirby, with whom Dorf is pictured above, on the right, included him in Mister Miracle as Himon.

There’s a Shel Dorf Tribute website, which was set up during his illness, with remembrances of the early days of the con, photos and more. The Comics Reporter and The San Diego Tribune have further obituaries.

Much more here.

When R. Crumb does a book tour, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Thus, his appearance Tuesday with Françoise Mouly in Richmond, VA has gotten lots of online coverage.

Here’s Harry Kollatz Jr. at RichmondMagazine.com.

Last night, R. Crumb entered with a pratfall that seemed to surprise the University of Richmond’s director of museums, Richard Waller. Waving and smiling, the artist tripped off a platform, his arms flailing and cap flying, and went “SPLAT!” But he dexterously rebounded with a grin. Perhaps this demonstration of agility came from the physical regime of his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, herself a noted cartoonist.

Chris Pitzer has a report on the talk as well as a panel with Anders Nilsen, Kim Deitch, Hope Larson and Gabrielle Bell that was part of the week’s festivities.

The panel discussion brought in Gabrielle Bell, Kim Deitch, Hope Larson, and Anders Nilsen. All fantastic comic creators coming with different views and histories of making comics. So, that was kind of troublesome, since I wasn’t really sure how to tie them all together. Erling stepped in and suggested the scope should probably fall into creation, history (with a nod to Crumb), and publishing. He also suggested a few questions, which turned out to be very helpful.

And at Comics Worth Reading, Ben Towle has a blow by blow. Since Mouly is moderating each stop of the Crumb tour, we were wondering how she would keep it fresh, but based on this, it’s clear she’s not playing pattycake:

Next on the screen was Crumb’s two-pager, “Don’t Touch Me” (from Snatch #3) which depicts an apparent rape, followed by the “punch line” in the last panel: “I never get to come!” In a rare bit of almost-regret (maybe? almost?), Crumb recalled showing this strip to a woman he knew and being genuinely surprised by her horrified reaction. Mouly wondered though if it wasn’t his intention to shock. “I intend to shock–but I don’t want them to run away in horror!” he replied. The discomfort in the room became almost palpable when he glibly remarked about “all women having rape fantasies, right?” and mentioned that “even Freud said all women were masochistic.” Then, after a moment, “Let’s move on…”

BONUS: A picture of Crumb from 1968, taken by animator Ward Kimball, and hosted by Michael Barrier:

Ward Kimball gave me this snapshot of Robert Crumb, the great underground cartoonist, when I interviewed him for the first time, at the Disney studio on June 6, 1969. The photo is dated December 1968, which I believe is when Ward first met Crumb, in San Francisco. I was publishing Funnyworld in those days, and Ward had written to me about Crumb in November 1968: “Have you seen Robert Crumb’s new comic book, ‘SNATCH’? I dare you to run reproductions from this public hair-raiser in ‘Funnyworld.’” (No, I didn’t take him up on that dare.)

[Thanks to the fellow who wrote to us in what looked to be Romanian to send us this link.]

John K. recalls a ’90s classic: Stimpy’s Invention:

Stimpy’s Invention was 2 months late because of Nick delays and because they hated it and sat on it.

The next year, they told us to make more cartoons like Stimpy’s Invention and Space Madness.

WARNING: I’ve gotten reports that clocking on the link activates a Trojan Horse so proceed at your own risk.

Last year, blogger Dick Hyacinth presented the world with a time-consuming project — compiling the 2007 best comics of the year lists into a critical consensus — much in the manner of the Village Voice’s old Pazz and Jop critics poll. He started doing the same for 2008 but suddenly, right in the middle…he disappeared, full on Edwin Drood style.

Now, in the manner of Steven Spielberg’s reconstruction of Stanley Kubrick’s A.I., , Sandy Bilus has gathered together Hyacinth’s notes and compiled a Best Comics of 2008 Meta-List:

Methodology: I gave each critic 550 points. Critics who wrote unnumbered lists distributed their points evenly among the books on their lists, while critics with numbered lists distributed their points according to a formula created by Chad Nevett. I only counted lists that had five or more books; for numbered lists with more than 20 books, I only counted the top 20. I also only counted general “best of” lists, not lists limited to a certain genre or type of comic book.

We’ll direct you to the post for the entire list, but the #1 book won’t be a surprise, and the top 20 are a warm reminder that comics are fucking awesome these days.

[Right, the cover to the final book on the list.]

The child is father to the man…or else there is always room for redemption and wisdom, Saul of Tarsus style.

A few weeks ago, Jeet Heer unearthed a newspaper profile of Fantagraphics co-publisher Gary Groth at the age of 17. The young Groth was even then interested in publishing — the profile was published in no less an outlet than the Washington Post — but his feelings then were somewhat…well, unevolved.

As Steve Duin shows with an editorial on Superman from Amazing Heroes a mere 16 years later, things had changed.

Superman is an American Symbol, though; notwithstanding his humble beginnings at the hands of Siegel and Shuster, Superman was sold to the American public by a company who couldn’t care less for “courage and humility,” and stands as the successful marketing of pop mythology, and like a political candidate who offers image, bombast, and demagoguery over substance and ideals, Superman has come to stand for values he never consistently realized as a creation. He’s the ultimate America icon — he can be sold, marketed, and merchandised, whose image can be replicated on everything from pillowcases to beach balls to underwear.

Mykal the Dog’s The Big Blog of Kids’ Comics! is what you’d expect. Jack Bradbury! Al Fago! Good stuff.

For our 21 days of Halloween celebration, Stephen Gettis reminded us of his Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time!!! blog in which cartoonists imagine famous authors and works of lit. Mucho Halloween appropriate art there, including stuff by Bissette, Mignola/Zulli (who both did Dracula) and Eric Powell (Jabberwocky), and a fair share of Lovecrafts, Poes, and others.

But we found this image of The Lord of the Flies by Skottie Young the most bone-chilling. Perhaps you’ll agree?

Young’s latest work is the best-selling adaptation of THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ with Eric Shanower. You can see much more spooky stuff at his blog in the above link.

Via Paul Karasik, we learn of R. Crumb’s controversial new theories in biblical scholarship. Later: the Nebuchadnezzar/Gabby Hayes connection.

To commemorate last week’s Banned Books Week, Stephen St Walley tracks down all the comics mentioned in Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and adds links to downloadable versions.

Obviously, many of the below comics are not intended for children. While all of them were probably read by children, they were not necessarily the intended audience for them as far as the cartoonists were concerned. Harvey Kurtzman’s Frontline Combat, for example, was written with a military audience in mind, and Kurtzman frequently received fan letters from men in the military.

While it’s hard to imagine what was corrupting about the heartwarming sight of Santa bringing toys to urchin tots, the snorting bull on the cover of ALL TOP indicates that sordid thrills may, indeed, lie within.

Speaking of Los Bros, their Facebook Fan Page has an incredible pageant of photos through the ages. Here, an early publicity shot.

According to an article in the Sunday New York Times, The Twilight Zone turned 50 years old last Friday.

It’s easy to mention “To Serve Man” or “Time Enough at Last” as your favorite episodes, but what are your favorite “hidden gems?”

Here are a few of mine:

- “Long Live Walter Jameson” - Just how old is Kevin McCarthy’s history professor?

- “Back There” - A time traveler (Russell Johnson aka the professor from Gilligan’s Island) tries to save Lincoln.

- “Will the real Martian Please Stand Up?” - Which diner patron is part of an alien invasion?

- “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” - A rural man (James Best aka Roscoe P. Coltrane) shows up at his own funeral.

- “Steel” - Lee Marvin takes place of his robot boxer in a fight likely to kill him.

Tip of the hat to Peter Sanderson for pointing out the article on his Facebook.

This long article in the NY Times Magazine talks about Carl Jung’s mysterious Red Book, a journal he worked on for years which contained his most profound ideas but which has never been published — until now.

This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval tome.

Jung is, of course, one of the founding fathers of psychology, and his invention of the idea of the “archetype” has been a life preserver for many a comics writer as they sought to explain why the adventures of men in tights punching one another was of some import.

Of some interest to us in the present instance is that Jung’s great book has got lots of pictures in it. Our correspondent Torsten Adair sent this to us with the provocative title “Carl Jung: Proto-graphic novelist?” We wouldn’t go THAT far, but let’s jut say that if he were still around, he’d probably have a booth at Comic-Con.

Edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly, The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics is perhaps the most seminal historical comics anthology since A Smithsonian Book of Comic Book Comics, and a powerfully persuasive document arguing for a more linear, storytelling-based tradition of comics. It’s also full of comics by Harvey Kurtzman, Walt Kelly, Jules Feiffer, Carl Barks, Andre LeBlanc, Sheldon Mayer, and more that is so mouth-wateringly gorgeous that you will just sit and stare at it for hours on end. To wit, a few sample pages, provided by Abrams. Click for full sized versions.

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Boing Boing has an exclusive excerpt of Crumb’s GENESIS, out this week, and you know they chose Chapter 19, the one where Lot has unexpected houseguests. Good times.

Back in the late ’80s, Morley Safer sat down with the MAD crew.

The Ohio State University’s archives of comics-related material is one of the greatest collections of comics history and art on the planet. And now it’s getting a name and a renovated home, thanks to a grant from a relative of early 20th century cartoonist Billy Ireland. Read on:


The Ohio State University Board of Trustees today approved the naming of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in recognition of a $7 million gift from the Elizabeth Ireland Graves Foundation to support the renovation of Sullivant Hall, an historic building located at a main gateway to the university’s campus.

The project is estimated to cost $20.6 million and will be completed in 2013, at which time Sullivant Hall will house both the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum and The Ohio State University Department of Dance.  
 
“The Graves Foundation has made a critical investment to enhance the learning environment for students, faculty, and visitors from around the world,” said President E. Gordon Gee. “The revitalized Sullivant Hall will be a fitting home to two university treasures – the top-ranked Department of Dance and the world-renowned Cartoon Library and Museum. Naming the latter in Billy Ireland’s honor is a fitting tribute to a remarkable Ohioan.”

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UPDATE: At The Wrap, a THR insider  disputes the THR online only story, although, saying they’ll stick around through the lucrative Awards season isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for the future of the print edition.

Nikki Finke reports some changes for the Hollywood trades: Variety is going back behind a paywall online and THR (The Hollywood Reporter) is going online only. Information delivery evolves yet again.

This news unlocks some memories. Way back in the day, one of my first jobs was at The Hollywood Reporter — not, as some might guess, as a cub reporter but in the advertising department. My job consisted mainly — for the first few weeks, at least — of sending telexes and cutting people off on the phone, and it never really got any easier. The ad department was a madhouse, full of outsized personalities who labored under hellish daily deadlines. No one had a cubicle, it was all one giant room, and private moments usually turned into shouting matches as a spectator sport. From all this, I learned the fine points of not crying in front of your boss.

When I first started, THR was notable in that it owned its own printing press. Housed in a crazy quilt building that had once been a men’s haberdashery (and had the ornate dark woodwork to show it), the printing press was located in the back of the building, right next to the composition dept. where guys in jumpsuits cut film to lay out the paper. As I recall, it was a rotogravure press (although I may just remember it that way because I like the word rotogravure) and the quality was very good, if archaic even then.

The press room was an incredibly loud and stinky place. The guys who ran the presses were literally ink-stained and they rarely came out front, and when they did, they smelled of chemicals. (We were amazed when one of the women from the layout dept. married one of the pressmen; this was the first time I heard the phrase “There’s a lid for every pot” used in such a context.) Once in a while I would have to go back there to deliver late ad copy or something, and I’d track some of the smell back to my desk, or imagined it anyway. But it was still a kind of romantic notion that we were creating a newspaper from soup to nuts under one roof — from the reporters running out to screenings to those of us taking down the “For Your Consideration” ads, to composition to the press to the loading dock, where each day bundles of paper would be picked up for delivery, in the early hours, to land on some studio mogul’s desk each morning, along with Variety.

After Billboard bought the Reporter in 1988, the printing press was quickly sold and dismantled — there was no point to owning your press any more, with the costs of paper and printing so cheap at a big dedicated house. THR moved to a very rudimentary computer typesetting system called CTS that we all figured stood for “creates total shit” because it was a nightmare to deal with. The Reporter was never really cutting edge in technology.

The press room was converted to a lunch room, with a lone table and a tattered brown leather sofa. Most afternoons the music editor could be found fast asleep on this sofa, after another late night out at the Rainbow. (The Reporter art staff consisted mostly of people in bands, and it’s a miracle most of them even made it in to work — I know because I was usually there when they played.)

Although such knowledge is useless these days, working at the Reporter did give me a basic grounding in production that helped me navigate all kinds of turmoil during my print days. I learned a lot about repro and what could go wrong, and dealing with all kinds of production people and learning their concerns helped me solve problems when they arose. I learned a lot about four- and five-color printing, live areas, bleeds, specing ads from scratch and PMS colors, nitty gritty shit that’s all taken care of by pressing the return key these days. I also learned the flux, exhaustion and exhilaration of the daily news cycle, something that I’ve carried right through to blogging.

Now, I know HTML. And so does THR.