Evreything Plus the Kitchen Sink Edition!

[Hogan's Alley]

Dear fellow comics fan:

It’s been a while since we’ve sent out a newsletter, but we wanted to
make you aware of one of the most interesting books on cartooning to
cross our desks in a while. “The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis
Kitchen,” published by Dark Horse, collects the cartooning output of
the visionary Mr. Kitchen and includes a biographical essay that tells
the remarkable story of his path to becoming one of the most
influential publishers and editors in modern cartooning. (Full
disclosure: the fact that the editor of Hogan’s Alley worked as a
freelancer for Kitchen Sink Press for a few years in the 1980s and
1990s doesn’t influence our saying that Denis is also one of the
nicest guys in the industry.) We recently spoke with Denis about the
book and the light it sheds on him as an artist, publisher, editor and
person.

HOGAN’S ALLEY: I remember talking in the late 1980s to Dave Schreiner,
Kitchen Sink > Press's late, great editor, about a book collecting
your cartooning work. He said, with only a hint of exasperation, that
"the cartoonist is difficult to work with." What happened to bring
about the project now? Are you no longer difficult to work with?

DENIS KITCHEN: I'm the easiest person in the world to work with, Tom!
The central complication with the original "Oddly Compelling" book was
that I wasn't merely the cartoonist but the publisher as well, and
Dave's boss. The cartoonist in me wanted the collection, but the
publisher in me felt some discomfort: I thought it could look self-
serving, so I went back and forth. The best time to do it, we agreed,
was 1989, the 20th anniversary of Kitchen Sink Press. My first self-
published comic kicked off KSP, so that gave me the right comfort
level to publish a collection. Dave started in. We created a press
release and "Oddly Compelling" was part of our 20th anniversary
trading card set. But our schedule for '89 started filling up, and I
was having doubts again. I finally killed the book. Nearly a decade
passed when my marketing director Jamie Riehle suggested that we do
"Oddly" in 1999 for the 30th anniversary. Editor Robert Boyd was
assembling an updated version a few months before KSP faltered and
collapsed in January 1999. So again, no book.

The following year, in 2000, I was on the CBLDF [Comic Book Legal
Defense Fund] celebrity cruise when Diana Schutz, the senior editor at
Dark Horse, approached me about doing a story for her Maverick
anthology. We talked about the jinxed book, and she said she'd love to
edit it. But after Kitchen Sink died I was busy reinventing myself and
involved with lots of new projects and clients. It took nearly another
decade before I could begin pulling together the book. And even then,
it was with Charles Brownstein, John Lind and Diana on my case. Maybe
I am difficult, Tom.

HA: The book's biographical essay describes a childhood without a lot
of disposable income and a family that knew some trying economic
times. How would you say those beginning influenced you, either in
terms of your own outlook on the world or your approach to business?

DK: My blue collar family background and loss of my father at an early
age was such that I never even dreamed about any kind of business
career. I certainly did dream about being a cartoonist, but in those
days there was no clear career path to cartooning. Virtually no one in
my extended family went to college; most never finished high school. I
worked my way through a state college, majoring in journalism. If I
had even a clue I'd become a publisher, I would have taken business
classes, accounting and marketing. I took nothing of the sort. Yet I
had a knack for business, self-publishing from thirteen, starting a
college satire mag, and then starting "Mom's Homemade Comics" while a
senior and self-publishing and self-distributing it. Even then, I
never intended to start an actual publishing company. I simply wanted
to be a cartoonist. But the times were strange: the Vietnam War was
peaking, I was caught up in the counter-culture with its own craving
for self-identity, including comix. I saw opportunity. I was
incredibly green, but hard work, enthusiasm and naiveté can sometimes
offset the lack of an MBA.

HA: In the book, you describe a visit with two of your biggest
influences and mentors, Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman. Separately
but during the same visit, they gave you very different career advice:
Will said to follow your artistic ambitions, and Harvey said the world
needs a good publisher. How did you process that advice? How did you
come out of that visit?

DK: I had already made up my mind to leave publishing and return to
drawing when I visited Will and Harvey in New York. I knew I'd get a
stern argument from Will and encouragement and support from Harvey. I
was certain what each man would say when I gave them the news. My head
was completely twisted when each went 180 degrees on my expectations.
I remember flying back to Wisconsin in something of a mental fog. As
much as I thought I knew these men, I had misjudged both. Will was a
great artist but a hard-nosed business guy who had in many ways
mentored the growth of KSP. Yet he understood my misgivings about
business and my wanting to return to the creative side. Will counseled
that answering to myself was the most important thing. Harvey,
meanwhile, was easy to typecast as an artist's artist but not someone
to expect business advice from. He had famously, in hindsight, made
some business missteps with MAD, Humbug and such. But Harvey was much
sharper than given credit for in that vein. He had a clear and very
firm understanding of the medium's needs and put that above my
artist's ego. His unsentimental analysis, heedless of my own intent,
was tough to shake. Regardless of the direction I was about to take in
my forked road, I came to love and respect each of these guys more
than ever following that trip.

HA: Your career could be characterized as a tug of war between the
artist and the businessman. While the book celebrates the artist,
you're also known for the work of other artists that you published.
What were some of the challenges in reconciling your artistic vision
with the realities of the marketplace? Did the commonsense part of you
have to check the more idealistic side of your personality? I'm sure
you wanted to publish good work that you knew didn't stand a chance in
the comic market.

DK: You've summarized the dilemma exactly. The artist/businessman
conflict was often expressed in terms of aesthetic goals versus a
pragmatic marketplace. Understand that sometimes or even frequently
the stuff I loved also sold well. But I also published things I knew
would never come close to breaking even. An advantage I had over most
comics publishers for the first twenty-some years of Kitchen Sink
Press was that I was the sole or majority owner and thus I could
gamble my own money--such that there was--on my own taste. If, say, an
Eisner or Crumb book sold especially well, it was always tempting to
reinvest some of the profits into new artists, anthologies or riskier
projects. If the choice was to reward myself financially or publish
more interesting things, I erred on the side of the latter. That WAS
my reward in those days.

HA: You're quite candid in the book about the events in your personal
life that paralleled your professional life. You discuss your first
wife, Irene, who left you and your young daughters very abruptly.
Frankly, I was appalled at the apparent ease with which she abandoned
her children, and I was so impressed by how you kept your family
intact. This is a little off-track here, but I can't help but wonder
what became of Irene. Did she end up having a normal life?

DK: Irene was a complicated and very seductive woman whose sphere I
became caught up in when I was just out of college. She was a young
poet who many men were attracted to, including one of my married
professors. She even had an affair with the much older beat poet
Kenneth Rexroth. I knew she was a free spirit and hedonist, but I
proposed to her anyway. She accepted because she said I was the only
one who truly loved her. But she turned out to have virtually no
mothering instincts. She slipped away one night leaving a note that
she was sorry. Irene relinquished her parental rights in the divorce,
and I saw her only rarely after that. Our daughters almost never saw
her. She was using hard drugs and eventually collapsed while driving.
Doctors discovered five or six aneurysms in her brain, several
inoperable. She became wheelchair bound and before long, in her early
40s, she took own life.

HA: Your artistic style is idiosyncratic and easily identifiable as
Denis Kitchen. Who would you cite as your biggest artistic influences
in terms of how you actually draw? You talk about being influenced by
artists like Ernie Bushmiller and John Stanley, but their work was
very pared down and simple, as opposed to your own obsessive attention
to detail, stippling, etc.

DK: I think Basil Wolverton's noodle hair was a particular influence
early on. Bushmiller is simple, yes, but there is a geometric
precision to his simplicity, and the stipples on Nancy's hair are
pretty damned compulsive. But I never intentionally copied anyone's
style. It just evolved on its own.

HA: In the book, you mention a "two-day adventure" at Hef's Playboy
Mansion, then in Chicago, but you don't elaborate on the adventure at
all. Not one lousy anecdote. Do you really think you can tease us like
that? Spill it, man!

DK: Hah! You'll have to wait for the autobiography, Tom. Okay, here's
a tidbit. There was plenty of eye candy like Barbie Benton, Hefner's
main squeeze at the time, along with Miss April and scantily clad
Playmates who have the run of the place. But the visit didn't involve
any debauchery. At twenty-four, I got to hang for more than a full day
with Hefner himself, Sammy Davis Jr., Bill Cosby, Shel Silverstein
and, of course Harvey Kurtzman, who knew all these guys and who
brought me there for a "ten minute tour." Next to women I think Hef
likes comics best, so there were long conversations on undergrounds,
artists and such. Silverstein at one point told Hef that he should use
some of his money for a subsidized apartment where young cartoonists
could practice their craft without having to worry about rent and
food. Hef puffed his pipe and contemplated the proposal. I was already
preparing an application in my head when my "friend" Harvey curtly
dismissed the idea, insisting that artists had to suffer for their
art. That's a quick example. There turned out to be other mansion
visits in Chicago and L.A., but the first was by far the most
memorable.

HA: You've witnessed profound changes in the comics market since you
became part of it. While there's no single path to a career as a
cartoonist, how has the advice you give to aspirants changed over
time?

DK: One central difference then and now is specialized schooling.
Cartoonists, of necessity, were self-taught when I started: there were
zero opportunities to study comics history, theory or craft. There's
nothing inherently wrong with the self-taught approach. Masters such
as Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman and R. Crumb didn't need any courses
after high school. Cartooning is one of the very few professions where
either college or specialty courses may be unnecessary. I personally
don't regret getting a degree in journalism, but I still had to be
self-taught as a cartoonist. Today there are several accredited
cartooning schools. It's an important option to consider, especially
in the digital era where, say, mastery of a sable brush may not be
enough to succeed.

When I started there were essentially four career arenas for a young,
aspiring cartoonist. The easiest path--not that anything is easy--was
to focus on advertising or illustration. I had freelanced on the ad
side, and applied for a newspaper illustrator staff position right out
of college. I was turned down for the latter, not because of my
portfolio samples, but because I didn't have a degree in art. Fate
granted me a favor because drawing images imposed by agency clients or
editors would have grown old fast in my case.

Animation has long been an option for the cartoonist who loves moving
images and who can be a team player, subjugating his or her style to
the direction of others. It can be a lucrative and a satisfying
career, but I never seriously explored it, even in that pre-digital
era, because I was personally drawn to print.

The third career option was a syndicated strip. That market was
certainly healthier back then, but the odds of breaking into the
syndicated market have always been very long. The market will only
bear a handful of new entries annually and even then the start-up
failure rate is high. But, conversely, the opportunity for fame and
fortune is the highest. I had a connection that would have somewhat
improved my odds, but I just wasn't attracted to the notion of drawing
the same characters day after day, so I never seriously pursued that
angle.

Comic books were the fourth path. Dominant companies like Marvel and
DC required that artists draw their costumed house characters on a
work-for-hire basis. Other players then, like Dell or Harvey, had
"funny" characters but the same kind of house styles and work-for-hire
cornerstones. I loved reading comic books, but those weren't appealing
working options for me either.

With the eruption of the burgeoning counter-culture in the late ‘60s,
just as I was entering the work force, I saw the opportunity to carve
out a fifth path in "underground" comix, a new frontier with no preset
rules, and I grabbed it. I was lucky in the sense that the unique
political and cultural times provided a crack in the closed system.
But every era offers unique opportunities. The key challenge for
aspirants is to be perceptive observers of the playing field and to
pursue the options that offer entry opportunities, reasonable security
and the greatest creative satisfaction.

So the first thing I generally say when asked about a career in
cartooning is "Look at the realistic options out there. Do any appeal
to you?" If you like drawing a character like Spider-Man, and don't
particularly care about ownership, give it your best shot. With
newspapers steadily in decline, the traditional syndicated market is
next to impossible to crack. So I don't encourage that option at all.
Advertising and illustration is more competitive than ever and these
days usually requires mastering skills beyond pure cartooning, such as
Photoshop. Animation likewise has also morphed enormously. Pure
drawing skills are important but other sophisticated skill sets are
almost essential to get anywhere.

With comic books, the good news is that there are many more publishers
and graphic novels have opened up things enormously, and the
marketplace has shown that it can support literary comics,. Nothing,
to me, is more liberating than that to a serious cartoonist/author.
Cartoonists are no longer restricted to superheroes or a kid audience.
A peer audience can now be reached and cartoonists can generally
expect much fairer work rules than before, especially in the book
world, where agents can help assure favorable deals. The comics/
graphic novel world is a fertile place to explore and I encourage
entrants to get a foot in the door wherever they can. The future in
comics is amazing.

The central question, always, with this path, is "What do you want to
say and do you have the requisite skills to accomplish it?" Self-
publishing in print is sill a viable way to gain experience and to
begin to attract an audience, but the internet is even cheaper and
offers the opportunity to reach a really sizable readership in shot
order. The Internet has made an enormous difference in almost every
aspect of modern life and comics are no exception: it gives emerging
artists a far better equivalent to the fifth option that I grabbed
decades ago.

HA: If someone had told the Denis Kitchen of the early 1970s that
someday a hardcover, color collection of his cartooning would be
published, what would his response have likely been?

DK: I suspect that on some level my ego would have said, "But of
course: that's part of the goal here." But I've always tended to be
self-effacing and modest, and in the early ‘70s there were virtually
no books about cartoonists. So more likely I would have said, "What
kind of dope are YOU smoking?"

_________________________________________________________

You can purchase a copy of this remarkable book (with a discount and
free shipping) by visiting http://www.amazon.com/dp/1595823603/?tag=hogansalleyma-20.
It’s bursting with beautiful reproductions of Kitchen’s art and great
photographs of Kitchen with many cartooning luminaries including
Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner and Robert Crumb. Also, if you’re in the
New York area from now through January 2011, the Museum of Comic and
Cartoon Art is hosting an exhibit of Kitchen’s work. You can learn
more at http://www.moccany.org/.

HOGAN IS TWITTERING: If you’d like to receive cartooning news and the
occasional cartooning-related observation from Hogan’s Alley, we’re
HOGANMAG on Twitter. We promise not to pepper you with inanities about
what we’re having for lunch, etc.

#17 NOW AVAILABLE: We’ve recently made our newest issue, #17,
available as a single-issue purchase. Just visit http://www.cagle.com/hogan/subscribe.asp
and scroll down until you see the distinctively cluttered cover of
issue #17. REMEMBER: If you’ve never experienced the wonders of
Hogan’s Alley, you can order a sample copy for a mere three dollars or
buy assorted back issues at that web page as well.

We continue to have a great time stocking our online store, where you
can purchase merchandise featuring classic comics characters and
cartoon art, at http://www.zazzle.com/hogansalley/.

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