#comics destroy minds

[lew-basnight]

[lew-basnight]

For the longest time I've been nagged at by one particular line in Joe Frank's radio show Sleep, (one of my favorites):

And the time I stole the entire public address system from St. Vincent's Academy, selling it to Olympia Sheerpepper for $17, taking the bus to Palisades amusement park and spending the entire fortune watching Dr. Neff, the ghost raker, perform his gyrations.

No internet search ever brought up the mysterious Dr. Neff the ghost raker or his gyrations. For years I just figured it was part of the dream world Joe creates, like all the plausible-sounding yet slightly delirious businesses Ben Katchor includes in his comic Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. But someone else was also haunted by this, and provided links to real life ghost-debunker Dr. Neff, including a comic he appeared in

This plan. Makes no sense at all

[lew-basnight]

I did hourly comics this year but I'm having such a pain in the ass getting legible images I can post you're just gonna have to trust me

[lew-basnight]

what does “comics destroy minds” mean?

It’s an old riff on a Fredric Wertham line. Wertham was the point man in an anti-comics crusade in the 1950s. He was out to convince parents, teachers, legislators and everyone else that the medium of comics was inherently degrading and made people dumber and more violent. Hating Fred is a healthy hobby of mine and many other people who remember who he was. Because of Wertham and the so-called Comics Code, we lost thousands and thousands of pages of art from the first half of the last century. There were brilliant artists whose whole bodies of work were burned and trashed because of Wertham’s fearmongering. Fuck that guy

But anyway it’s my comics tag, which includes a lot of other forms of art that I’ve decided fall into the loose definition of comics. Because I’m good at making obscure jokes that nobody gets or likes, further alienating myself from my peers

[lew-basnight]

I was just thinking about how these ads from when I was a kid very much appealed to young people. Who else was the target audience for Red Sonja on a fighting bear with a big magic sword? Nobody else was doing ads like this. You can't imagine how many pages torn out of magazines with one of these ads was crumpled up under horny young people's mattresses. And Rumpleminz being notoriously candy-like, I'm sure there were a lot of sickly first-time drink binges where young people tried to get loaded on this stuff. Anyway someone was an advertising genius that's for sure

[lew-basnight]

Lest it get lost in the celebration of his disgrace (lol disgraced) and death, it is also important to mention that scott adams comic Dilbert was also a shitty comic. Like from a comics standpoint. It sucked. I was selling comics at borders when dilbert was ascendant and people kept saying "comics you do comics I love dilbert" and I was silently writing their name in my mind on the list of people with shit taste. In my personal rating system dilbert is the grateful dead of comics. Like why do people like this it sucks so bad

[lew-basnight]

I was walking through a college campus last year and saw a huge Daniel Johnston image, instantly recognizable, on a big screen running ads. I was ready to be pissed off, until I realized that today, his birthday, is Hi How Are You Day, which is a whole thing for college students and mental health awareness, which is actually great

[lew-basnight]

As a kid being dragged around by adults, most of the adults we knew had B Kliban books somewhere in their homes so I’d just go find the B Kliban and giggle