In response to my entry about a famous comic-book image used by poet John Ashbery in one of his collages, rtbinc wrote to point me toward a New York Times article from September about Ashbery’s artwork, which includes other examples of him making use of comic art.

You can see the most obvious one below.

In this instance, the origin of the art is at least more directly acknowledged. Here’s what Holland Cotter wrote about this particular piece:

The insouciant Pop-ish sensibility in some pieces owes a debt to Mr. Brainard’s brilliant collage work, as in Mr. Ashbery’s “Diffusion of Knowledge,” with its pair of all-American comic-strip superheroes mounting a spirited defense of the Smithsonian Institution castle in Washington.

That’s Fighting American to the left and the Guardian to the right, both created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Here’s what those characters look like in their natural habitats:

I’m afraid I can’t point out the exact panels or covers from which Ashbery took his images. Can you?

The Spring 2009 issue of The Paris Review includes a series of collages by famed poet John Ashbery. Evidently, he became fascinated by the collage concept during his years as a student at Harvard in the 1940s, and returned to the form in 2008. The magazine prints a dozen recent examples of these, 11 inside, and one on the issue’s cover.

Dan Chiasson, who wrote a brief introductory blurb to explain what we’re about to see, delves into the symbolism of these collages. He says:

“The background elements often depict possible pasts: people on go-carts, a scene in Rotterdam of men in bowlers, and the teetering, top-heavy trucks of the twenties. The foreground elements seem to express elation or relief at having escaped those pasts to make the art he has made and keeps making.”

Symbolism is all well and good, but if you look at the color component of the collage above, you’ll note that Ashbery didn’t just use any foreground element. That man with his hands over his ears was taken from one of the most famous pieces of comic-book art ever published.

Do you recognize him? I may be the only regular reader of The Paris Review who could identify him immediately, but I’m sure that in this venue, I’m not the only one.

You’d think the source would be worth mentioning in any interpretation of the meaning of this collage. I chalk this up to another case of those concerned with supposed “high culture” failing to be aware of supposed “low culture.” Because the origin of that image matters, whether or not The Paris Review or Ashbery scholars acknowledge it.

I could say more about why that particular man is so important, but I don’t want to spoil it for those of you for whom that image doesn’t cause an immediate “I know that face!”

So—a show of hands please. Who out there can recognize that famous face? Many of you, I hope, or else I’ll be severely disappointed.

A simple yes or no will do to start, so you don’t spoil it too quickly for the puzzled.

This was too, too sad …

I could almost weep.

A review by John Seavey over at fraggmented takes a look at the Scarecrow stories I wrote for Marvel Comics more than three decades ago and finds them wanting.

Luckily, Seavey is so hilarious in his description of the plot that I couldn’t help but laugh.

Besides—when I wrote those comics, I was just a tadpole. He’s probably right about everything!

Here’s my favorite part of his review:

And finally we get “The Scarecrow.” No, no, not that Scarecrow. No, not that Scarecrow either. This is an entirely different Scarecrow, who is … um … he lives in a painting, and there’s this cult that hates him, or maybe he hates them, and he’s getting revenge on them for, um … something, but they want the painting, and there’s a demon, and this guy keeps vanishing, and he’s got the power to … do stuff, I guess, and … it’s all actually more than a little confusing.

There’s more, which you can find here.

Whether he loved them or hated them is almost beside the point. The fact that anyone is still bothering to think about these at all so many years later is flattering enough!

Do you remember where you were over the 1972 Memorial Day weekend? I do!

I spent every hour I could at Manhattan’s McAlpin Hotel attending the 1972 EC Fan Addict convention. I paid my $7.50 entry fee and got to hang out with the madmen (and one crazy lady) behind one of the most amazing comic-book companies ever.

And I have the button to prove it!

Those of you who couldn’t make it to New York back then are able to catch up with a report in the pages of the September 1972 issue of Graphic Story World magazine, one of the high-end fanzines of the day. (And if that cover boy below puts you in mind of Watchmen‘s Nite Owl, well, that’s not him. It’s just … The Owl, a character created by Jerry De Fuccio and Mart Bailey for a potential newspaper strip in the mid-’60s.) (more…)

It’s true! Paul Levitz has left the building. Why, I read it only yesterday.

At least … it seems like yesterday …

Actually, though, he announced his retirement in the 100th issue of his fanzine, The Comic Reader. The Comic Reader started out called On the Drawing Board, which, at the time I started subscribing as soon as I read a mention of it in a DC comic, was being edited by Mark Hanerfeld. But Paul took over in October 1971, and by this issue two years later, dated August-September 1973, he was ready to call it a day.

Here’s the cover of his farewell issue:

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Roger Langridge‘s tribute to the King is the coolest thing I’ve seen all week. But then, since I recognized every reference, I guess I’m the target audience.

Langridge, the creator of Fred the Clown, apparently drew this for a convention program book, and according to his blog will be auctioning off the original for charity.

One of the problems with censorship is that what we can imagine is usually far worse than what’s actually being censored, something which I realized while reading the next graphic novel to be bowdlerized by at patron at my local library. I already told you about what he or she did to Wonder Woman. What was done to the Justice Society of America is even more amusing.

The latest collection to get the Wite-Out treatment is JSA: The Liberty Files, which is a bit ironic, don’t you think? A book with the word “liberty” in the title being censored?

As before, the book is filled with numerous instances of what I assume to be words such as “hell” or “damn” or “Christ” being obscured. But what this censor doesn’t seem to realize is what happens in the mind of a reader when facing such blanks, or as in the case of the page on display, replacements, such as the kind encountered when watching movies which, as the euphemism goes, have been edited for television.

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I’m trying to navigate the mind of a censor, but unfortunately, I’m getting a little lost in there.

I stopped by the Handley Regional Library in Winchester, Virginia this weekend, where I picked up about a dozen graphic novels so I could play catch-up on comics I’d missed. One of them was Wonder Woman: Bitter Rivals, a collection from four years ago (which shows exactly how much catch-up I desperately need to do).

While reading through the book, I discovered dabs of Wite-Out wherever a character might have said “hell” or “damn” or “christ.” I can’t tell for sure what was deleted in any of the panels, because the Wite-Out has been laid on so thick that I can’t make out the original lettering even when I hold the page up to the light. I guess I’d have to track down an unbowdlerized copy of the book to tell exactly what was being censored.

In any case, check out the first word balloon here for an example of what some library visitor did after he or she was offended:

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How would you like to buy a copy of Spider-Man #51 for only 20 cents? Or get a 12-issue subscription to The Fantastic Four for only $1.75? No problem! Just make sure that you have your time machine set to take you back to 1968.

Here are two mimeographed fliers sent out by Marvel Comics and received by me forty years ago, one selling back issues and the other hawking subscriptions. The ink is fairly faded, but if you click on the image several times, you’ll be able to view readable copies.

I got these in the mail on April 26, 1968, presumably because I was a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. I know the exact date because I scribbled that information on the back of one of the sheets in the clumsy handwriting of a 13-year-old. I guess that seemed important at the time.

Note that on the subscription flier, someone—maybe even Fabulous Flo Steinberg, perhaps?—had manually crossed out the offer for Ghost Rider subs, since the final issue of that character’s run had been cover-dated November 1967. (That would have been for the western hero, as opposed to the not-yet-invented motorcycle-riding one.)

I remember how, in response to this solicitation, I taped nickels, dimes, and quarters to index cards, mailed the whole sticky mess to 625 Madison Avenue, and waited anxiously for the issues I’d somehow missed. I wish I could do that again!

Don’t you?