Mr. Deitch Goes to Washington: Part Two, Books!

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Another on the fly post as we finish day one of the SPX con and head into the second and final day. Today we hopped out of the hotel early and jumped into an uber to explore a rather promising bookstore I had read about.

While Second Story Books (here) has several stores, it happens that their warehouse venue is right near our hotel. I didn’t know what to expect and it is hard to say what it compares to.

*Panel on Underground Comics: Yesterday and Today at SPX yesterday.*

It is very large, with bookshelves in rows that run about 7 feet high. The sorting system was a bit opaque at first. I saw many interesting old volumes but was frustrated at first to find that Fiction mostly meant books of relatively recent vintage.

I began to think that maybe it was another interesting and perhaps ill conceived decision and that nothing would come from it. However, as I got the hang of the different classifications and nooks and crannies where early long forgotten fiction might reside, my pile began to slowly grow. Between Kim and I (mostly me) I feel like we are more or less taking home our body weight in books, as shown above. The real news is that when we checked out everything was 50% off the price marked and that made me want to go back and buy even more!

*Kim leafing through some comic books at Second Story Books.*

We came back to the con having just opened its doors and so we dove in to get an overview. Now, given how comics adjacent I am, perhaps I should not say this, but I rarely purchase new comics at cons. Maybe there is something I have read about and waited to pick up, or the book of a friend, or a reprint I want but considering that 96% of every con is small presses or individuals hawking their wares, I really don’t transact with them. Frankly I don’t find it an enviroment which encourages finding new work that interests me.

However, much to my surprise, right out of the bag Dot of the Mid Century caught my eye. This book by Art Hondros, a series I think of 5 now, is his attempt to honor the story of his great aunt who lived in Baltimore and was employed repairing manniquins. (When I think about it it surprises me a bit that manniquins break routininly enough to employ someone repairing them, but then again I have seen a lot of busted manniquins too.)

Well, I haven’t read it but Art looks like he can draw the heck out of a story. While I was talking to him about Dot, Kim was looking at another book, Legion of the Damned which is adapted from a lost silent film from 1928 by William Wellman starring Gary Cooper and Fay Wray! Wow! We purchased both and I spent the rest of the day telling everyone about him as he seems like quite a find. (He knew Kim’s work but seems to have only ever read Hollywoodland – a fine book but a bit rarified as not the easiest to get. Ed: the subsequent reading gives Dot the thumbs up and Legion of the Damned not so much.)

This con is big – larger than New York’s MoCCA although smaller than Comic Con and without the big budget films, animation and COS play element. It is pure comics albeit small press ones.

Eventually we needed to collapse and have lunch in the hotel restaurant. While we were nibbling on our shrimp roll and crab dip, Gary Groth brought Tim Lane over to meet Kim. Kim is a big fan of Tim’s work and the feeling is mutual so they jumped right into a conversation until it was time for them to go off to lunch. While Kim headed up to the room I went in search of a warm cardigan with a friend who stopped by. Despite the DC heat and humidity, it is freezing in the hotel – especially in the rooms where the panels are being held. I was tipped off and since even the Amtrak seemed over-ac’ed I found my way to Uniqlo and bought and oversized cardigan which I gratefully wrapped around me at Kim’s pan

*Shelves of books at Second Story Books where I spent most of my time and money!*

I think Kim and I were pretty surprised at the energy in the room and were regretting not getting a smidge more down time. Like a sprint that turns into a marathon. Signing gave way to a panel – John Kelly, Kim, Denis Kitchen, along with two younger women who both seem very interesting Raquelle Jac and Heather Loase. The subject was underground comics at their origin versus now.

We are kicking today off with a tour of Warren Bernard’s personal collection – I am very excited for some Felix! After that it is more con ahead and then finally home to Deitch Studio NYC and Cookie and Blackie.

Mr. Deitch Goes to Washington

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: As I write this we are on an Amtrak speeding toward Washington, DC. We have just consumed sandwiches from Vesuvios in Penn Station which were remarkably good if also incredibly expensive. However, you can pay a lot for mediocre or even bad food in Manhattan, let alone in Penn Station, so I am satisifed. (Simultaneous with writing this Kim informed me that his sandwich was not as good – sometimes it pays to be a vegetarian.)

Most of you know that we are making our way to our nation’s capital where tomorrow (yesterday to when this is likely to be published on Saturday) for Kim to speak at the Library of Congress. Yay Team Deitch!

Needless to say, this has resulted in Kim grinding away at a talk about the arc of his career. He has it constructed in long hand on large sheets of paper tucked into the front pocket of our rollerbag. With a huge tip of the hat to our friend Bill (@kartalopoulos) who pulled together the core of the images for us, we managed to add about 40 slides to it. (I will spare you the drama of some of the assembly!)

*The group enjoying the display at the Library of Congress.*

Early this morning we placed poor Blackie in the bathroom of our apartment where he will sadly be imprisoned for the next four days. Because he requires shots and is a skilled hider we could not figure out another solution that would ensure that the cat sitter (a lovely brother and sister duo from work) cat snag him and give him a shot. I can only say this didn’t go especially well and I remain concerned about him – and the bathroom door which he is clearly clawing his way through.

We kick off tonight with a signing after we get settled at the hotel for a bit – assuming this train chugs along as expected. The balance of the weekend is spent at the SPX small press convention. Kim has been twice before but it is my first time. I hope to be showing you some excellent bookstores and an antique store I have scoped out for our down time.

Friday dawned rainy but the sun came out and the humidty rose. We were treated to a splendid special selection of comics from the Library of Congress collection. Mind blowing to see Popeyes, Yellow Kids and Gasoline Alley cheek by jowl with Roy Crane and Krazy Kat – they had a daily Krazy Kat, love the dailies!

Then off to Kim’s talk. Lots of gentle ribbing about me getting him into a new suit for the event and he did look extremely handsome. Kim took us through 60 years of comics in his How I Got My Start in Art, chock-a-block full of about 40 odd images. There was plenty of time for questions and even a few were thrown my way which was sort of fun.

Kim’s relief at being down was palpable! We join a large swath of the group for celebratory pizza for lunch. After I took us on a bit of a goose chase to an enclave of antique stores and an rather superior used bookstore. Wild goose chase because although it was close to the hotel it was far from where we had lunch. Nonetheless, purchases were made (Kim is tucking into a Howard Fast book on Valley Forge and a bio of the director Carol Reed; I am sporting a jade ring in rose gold and reading a British juvenile series, The Five Series – more on that if worthy.)

Tonight was the celebration of the 50th year of Fantagraphics, Kim’s publisher, and we toasted them and now let the con begin!

Weather

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I have a philosophy about summer weather in the greater New York area. It is my belief that July is always worse weather than August and therefore I generally push my vacation to August because otherwise it is spent inside clinging to air conditioning and I might as well be in the office. (Furthermore, I would say that June is just too early in the summer for vacation and too busy at this particular job as well – although the June weather was lousy this year as well.) However, during the long beachy summers of my childhood the hot, sunny days of July were a feature event, better than the cooling days of August. It was prime summer. However, every single day that it rained did seem like a crime against my vacation.

I think for the most part we on the East Coast of the United States can agree however, that thus far this year the weather has been extreme and really a bit wretched. In addition to many days of heat over 100 degrees, we are now dealing with an air inversion, a heat dome trapping the smoke from wildfires in the north and turning our days tea-colored with a vague sense of the End Days hanging about them. Meanwhile, Kim and I need to make a trip downtown and both today and tomorrow threaten additionally with downpours.

British beach holidays have long been fraught with the likelihood of rain and the population intrepid about them in spite of that. I am guessing this one, from August of 1927 was no exception. Bonzo and his pale Ooloo, huddled companionably under an umbrella. Bonzo looks like his toy counterpart a bit more than his illustration and comics self and the black cat is a bit more generic than Ooloo. (For two Ooloo posts have a look here and here.) Although I will say, I have never been sure that Ooloo had a very decided design.

Here he (she? never sure) sports a big read bow that matches the umbrella and they look at each other fondly. No one is actually holding up said umbrella – a careful look just sort of shows it floats over them. Bonzo has a paw stuck out as if checking to see if it is still raining, although it is teeming down. Little drips come off the edges of the umbrella as if to assure the viewer that it is indeed keeping them dry despite the rain pattern across the image.

Above them it says, The weather, old friend, doesn’t matter a jot; But a card for Remembrance just matters a lot. (Jot isn’t a word you see a lot, right?) It should also be noted that there is no copyright or publication information on this card, helping to confirm my suspicion that it is a total swipe.

*Blackpool evidently just had this flat Felix instead of a stuffed one. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.*

On the back, in pencil and as best I can tell it says, Blackpool Hello Dear, I am enjoying the last of my holidays and around Blackpool but tomorrow I leave for Liverpool and from…I’m…you. And in the top right corner, Love from P. Limson. It is addressed to Miss L. M. Horsepoof, Gedling, Nottingham. It is dated, as noted above, with a cancellation from Blackpool on August, 24, 1927 at 10:15 AM.

Pictorama readers well know that in my mind Blackpool holidays at the beach in the 1920’s were best known for having your photo taken with an over-sized Felix. (A post with a number of photos from Blackpool can be found here.) This would of course be reason enough alone for me to opt for a summer holiday there, weather notwithstanding. Instead, next weekend we decamp for our New Jersey shore digs. A few posts between now and then but we are starting to get ourselves ready.

Fishy Wain

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I tossed this into a purchase pile recently as clearly somehow these are Wain or Wain-ish cats; however I would bet dollars to donuts that Louis never saw a payday for this one. However, having said that, I cannot easily locate another version of this image online, only one other copy of this card itself.

A few posts back I discussed the history of New York postcard producer Franz Huld and much to my surprise this morning, his credit runs along the side of the front of this card, Huld’s Correspondence Series No. 23 Franz Huld, Publisher, New York. (That post of an entertaining card about the Catskills, Hanging on the Moon, can be found here.)

Meanwhile, just yesterday Pictorama had a post about another innovative early postcard maker but in Germany. I think of that one as more of a high end (photomontages and trick photography) and our US friend Huld as sort of creatively low end if you will. (I am only on my first cup of coffee today so stay with me a bit.) Huld had a much briefer run in the business and never on a huge scale of production and maybe wasn’t above a bit of image thievery. Just a thought anyway because this card looks distinctly culled from something else and does not bear the Louis Wain signature nor credit however those are Wain cats.

This card was mailed but the postmark has been torn off therefore I cannot accurate date it. If I put it roughly at 1910, Huld is coming toward the end of his several years of production but still active and in upstate New York. However, the real smoking gun is that Wain was living and working in New York from 1907-1910, but only doing newspaper work. He was producing two newspaper strips, Cats About Town and Graymalkin. There is evidently no record of him producing postcards here. So my guess is that Huld lifted this image somehow from a newspaper illustration and craftily “repurposed” it.

One of the few images I could definitely tie out to this period of New York newspaper work. I do think there is some under-valued and interesting Wain work published in newspapers. While much of it was repurposed and collected, I have definitely seen work, mostly for sale as tear sheets, that I have not seen elsewhere.

On the card we have two grainy Wain cats, one yellow fellow attacking a meal of fish – his mouth in an “O” of expectation. I like the way his paws manage to hold the implements in a logical way which I would personally find challenging if I was drawing this. The orange, grumpy, cat looks on in expectation holding a three-prong fork and knife up like he might bang on the table with them. Next to them in script it reads in neat script, This is no Fish Story. Again, while maybe in the quirky style of Wain somehow perhaps misses the mark?

*Detail of a Christmas page done by Wain that I purchased and wrote about last December.*

The sender of the card has underlined the above and written, No-sir-ee – Dearest Ross; How are you enjoying your vacation. I am having a fine time. Love to all, Bradley. It was mailed to Master Ross W. Guernsey, Schoharie, Scho, Co. New York. As I mentioned before, the stamp and cancellation has been torn off so no date and no point of origin for the card. (In sorting out the address a bit the internet told me that Ross W. Guernsey was a life-long resident of Schoharie, New York. I have no way of knowing if that seems true or AI just sort of winding me up.)

Our friend Mr. Huld was sadly certainly not the only one taking advantage of Louis Wain and liberating his work for his own purposes. This is perhaps though the most egregious and evident example I have run across. Still, I remain grateful for a snippet of Louis Wain I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. I intend to continue to sniff out some of this newspaper work in its original form.

How I Make Comics: Part 2

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Wowza. It has been a busy few months here at Deitch Studio and since we are getting ready to hit the pause button for the summer, I thought I would do a bit of a round up on things here. As Pictorama readers probably know, as Kim’s book How I Make Comics emerged into the world, he was barely a week out from back surgery and that complicated things a might. (A post on some of that can be found here and here.) Nevertheless, we hit the ground running and book promotion continued apace and grown like topsy.

I am not sure of the difference, but somehow when Reincarnation Stories came out it seemed to be less. Kim’s last event, at Columbia University, was just a week or so before the world shut down for Covid – seriously just under the wire. There were events and reviews but somehow there just seems to be so much more this time, maybe Covid just obscures the memory of it. (Full disclosure, I just asked Kim and he remembers Reincarnation Stories as more so this is just one woman’s opinion – or I just don’t remember it all. I did of course write a very biased review of Reincarnation Stories when it came out which can be read here.)

Reincarnation Stories has also been reprinted in paperback. It’s nice to see this old friend while out on the promotion trail!

There have been three podcasts and all are available now. The first was with Amusing Jews (here) and then one with some interesting questions from Robin McConnell on Inkstuds. Robin has interviewed Kim before and this was a good discussion. His new podcast can be heard here. Most recently Harry Siegel came and taped one right here at Deitch Studio for Lit NYC. (I got to chime in for this one!) It is the longest and most in depth of the three and just went live yesterday. It can be heard here. So much for my idea of doing a podcast with just Kim and I – at best it will wait for a quieter time!

Yesterday we were in Philadelphia for a reading at Partners and Son bookstore. We hopped on the Amtrak and got in early enough to stop at a few used bookstores nearby I found online. We paused however to admire the sculpture in the station. Check out the wild relief, Spirit of Transportation, below.

Meanwhile the first shop was called Mostly Books and as Kim said, was the sort of rabbit warren of a space that you could spend hours and hours in and keep finding things. Obviously, we could only give it a superficial once over but came away with several books each. (Nothing like starting an afternoon of walking by buying some books to carry!) There was a floor and a half of bookcase after bookcase of books, dvd’s and cd’s. Prices were very good. I think if we lived there we would go frequently.

Then, after trying to follow the little blue dot on the map on my phone which tends to be a bit tedious and instead asking a local walking down the street, we found Brickbat Books. This is a lovely little store and to its credit it was full to the gills with folks. It is a mix of old and new books. We found How I Make Comics on a shelf in the back – our first sighting of it in the wild. (I took a quick pic which is up at the top of the post.) By that time, already laden with books, Kim acquired one more and signed their copy of his book at their request. (They spied his Mineshaft t-shirt and I was wearing a new Waldo one – see below and at the bottom for order link!)

Partners and Son is a lovely shop, all comics, graphic novels and related items. The proprietors, Tom Marquet and Gina Dawson, were so welcoming and organized. We dropped our bags there and went across the street to a French influenced bar-restaurant, Side Eye, for a quick bite. We immediately encountered the woman who had given us directions who asked if we’d found the store. Kim had an enormous burger and I had a polite (but very good) salad as it turned out to be a not very vegetarian friendly menu.

*The assembled group at Partners & Son.*

The crowd already had assembled when we got back to the store and it was a very nice audience. Kim read The Two Marie’s (my favorite story from the new book) and then answered questions which were many and varied, although mostly about his process.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, I was sporting the new Waldo t-shirt which John Kelly over @dummyzine made from a new design by Kim. A rather splendid mug with the image (nice and big, the way I like ’em) and some other Kim related merchandise are available here.

So we head into summer with a strong wind behind us promotion-wise. I think we are both looking forward to summer and catching up before Kim hits it again in the fall. Meanwhile, I offer that Kim is already about one third of the way into his next book, Living the Dream!

April Fool – Fun

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Kim and I traveled to the West Village for the (roughly) quarterly Metropolitan Postcard Club Show. Although I am not a member (something I continue to mull as I would do it to support them, but I am not sure my participation goes beyond going to the sales), I have been attending on a fairly regular basis for maybe as long as two decades. (For some reason it was one of the things I anticipated reappearing greatly after Covid.)

I remember it best for when I rediscovered it in an aging Holiday Inn on West 57th Street (an earlier incarnation had been in the New Yorker Hotel), on an occasion that fueled my Louis Wain postcard mania. Since finding its new home in the church, sales are Saturday only or, as was this one, Friday and Saturday since Sunday is church! My postcard enjoyment has not yet reached the level of taking a day off from work so we felt that perhaps the savvy dealers had gotten in first. Nevertheless, cards and a few other things (those things being featured today) were purchased.

More now than in its earlier days, there generally isn’t a lot of non-postcard offerings. (If I remember correctly, back at the Holiday Inn, Kim used to even find film stills and paw through some movie memorabilia.) However, yesterday one of the first things I saw was a small box of magazines and ephemera. The dealer was new to the show and said he’d bring more in the future as it was his primary gig and postcards secondary.

This Sunday supplement, simply called Fun was from the New York World, Sunday, March 30, 1913. The World had a longish run, 1860-1931 and was evidently a leader in the yellow journalism realm. It merged with the New York World-Telegram (which appears to have stumbled along in one form or another until 1966). It is, as noted, the April Fool’s issue.

*Page one of the color comics, this by Jack Callahan.*

This cover was drawn by William Steinigans, a New York World cartoonist who was best known for his work on a strip known as Bill’s Bad Dream which appears to me to be heavily influenced by Winsor McCay, a fellow cartoonist on the same paper. Steinigans (1878-1918) was a Connecticut born artist who had a series of short-lived cartoon strips. He taught at the School of Practical Illustration which became the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in 1956. A nice little history of him and his work can be found here.

*Brudder Bear, says Paifue but strip evidently by Charles M. Payne.*

It was of course this (unlucky to some?) black cat sleeping on these stairs that caught my eye. He appears to be sleeping on a suit jacket and him and the jacket are going to get soaked thanks to this rotten kid spilling a bucket of water down the stair. The Sunday Fun section ran light on comics, a lot on bits of snippets of jokes and gag writing and fairly heavy on advertising.

*Greatest Nerve Vitalizer! Also, one of the cure all’s for drinking and the poem below.*

On the inside cover there is a bit of poem dedicated to April by Henry Tyrrell:

DONTS FOR APRIL 1

Don’t be too quick to wield your stick if from the rear there comes a kick:
Just be resigned, and look behind “PLEASE KICK ME” on a card you’ll find.
Don’t rashly go and smash your toe. (This being April Fool, you know.) Remember that the stovepipe hate is placed to had a hard brickbat.
Don’t try to hook the pocketbook that tempts you with its wadded look; else you’ll hear sung the cry of “stung;” from jokers who the string have strung.
Don’t be immersed on April 1st in business, and with care accurst. Take heed and note of all afloat, or they will surely get your goat.

The jokes and gag writing are very particular to the day with much reference to those new automobiles, women’s fashions and Wall Street. Another April Fool’s poem is further within and a page devoted a Love Story writing contest.

There was a two-page limited color comics spread – I like the one that features the adventures of some insects better than the other. The ads range from my favorite for Greats Nerve Vitalizer Known to not one but two offers to help someone stop drinking, obesity tablets and a Wonderful Offer to send 98 cents for Combination of 7 Articles which includes everything from a dainty ladies’ watch of a new composition metal that looks like SOLID GOLD to a sterling silver pocket knife.

*While inside you might find pills to end obesity, on the back cover you can get help gaining weight!*

Meanwhile, in the same box Kim scooped up what appears to be the second issue of pulp called Nickle Detective, February 1933. The name was changed after the first several issues, but the history is a bit obscured. Kim read one of the stories and reports that it is indeed readable. Seems like a bit of a steal for the $10 paid.

Thus is my first installment of the postcard show – not postcards at all as it happens, but interesting to us nevertheless.

How Kim Makes Comics: a Pictorama Perspective

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: The cats are lined up and bent over sheets of Bristol Board, brushes clasped in paws, working hard with tiny pots of ink at the ready. They produce their sheets in an anthropomorphic ballet as they pass them in an assembly line, one to another. Kim keeps a weather eye on their progress while creating the art they are inking. While I, on the other hand, dance through the room in my vintage custom cat decorated dress, bringing treats and encouragement – while also the voice of reason and sometimes critique. Waldo lurks in the corners or out the window, wrecking occasional havoc. That is how folks might imagine life here at Deitch Studio.

The reality is slightly different and Kim actually gives you a pretty fair sense of it in his latest book, How I Make Comics. (It is available now. You can snatch yours up here and here online or run to your local comic bookstore and demand a copy.) Our tiny one room apartment is depicted there, although much like when they advertised apartments for sale, it somehow looks slightly bigger and some of the piles exist but I am grateful it looks a bit neater. Cookie and Blackie wander through, but he has spared you my long chatty conversations with them.

*Kim’s workspace drawn in How I Make Comics.*

*…And a recent picture taken for an interview.*

Yes! Today is the day for my spousal and admittedly very biased review of Kim’s new book, How I Make Comics. For anyone who missed my earlier also biased wifely review of Kim’s Reincarnation Stories back in 2019, it can be read here. (And a new edition of Reincarnation Stories in trade soft cover can be found for sale here or here.)

What Kim has captured, to my thrill and delight, at the core of this book – is the unending conversation which is the background of our lives, much of which is devoted to developing storylines. Sometimes these are just little spurts of story. Kim will tell me something and I’ll say, Ha, there’s a story there! and he might spin it out a bit or I will read a wild snippet from the morning New York Times aloud and wind us both up. Some stick, most don’t. (As noted in the book, those that qualify earn a place on a bit of paper on his desk under the plexiglass he draws on.) I am the only one on social media and share the occasional choice tidbit – a cat that brings a stone to a fish store daily in exchange for a treat or the like.

*I love it when Kim creates new toys amongst my real ones. Detail from page 33 of How I Make Comics.*

Meanwhile, for those of you who like to see the Pam Butler character you will not be cheated. I sit here with my coffee, in my pajamas (Pictorama folks know I wrote about my favorite pair of pj’s in elephant toile here a few years ago) at my laptop, often on a weekend morning, while Kim sits next to me (really next to me, I squeeze past him each morning – while inking no less, talk about ballet) to get more coffee. He’s working and there is a stream of consciousness discussion between us. His desk complete with photos over his workspace is lovingly depicted in several pages – recognize any of those from prior Pictorama posts?

I’m not saying that it is only in the morning that we chat extensively, but it is the most time we have together during the week when we aren’t eating dinner and exhaustedly watching our current passion on television. (While old films continue to play a major role in our watching, we have recently worked our way through a Japanese serial, Jin, from 2011, followed by the Canadian series, Anne With an E, ’17 and now just catching up with Breaking Bad, ’08. As you can see we missed the early to mid-20 teens in television and are making up for it now.) Depicted in the book is our Covid/post Covid configuration of the apartment and much of How I Make Comics has at least its genesis in those years. (There is one sole visual reference to mask wearing on pages 66 and 67 – a true passage of that story.)

It is funny for me (and somewhat enlightening) to see the comic book version of myself with my words coming out of her mouth. My role as critic and top rejector of not-quite-up-to-snuff stories is played out in this book. Pam Butler sounds a bit hard at times, although frankly I recognize precisely what she says as my very own words or ones much like them so no argument. On the other hand, how could I reject a story about a 40-year-old cat in Harlem? Although I guess I don’t really and Kim plays it out for us, telling in true rollicking Deitch style.

To step back and have a real fan girl moment, it is a just thrill to have this book in my hands. We both love its shiny, metallic cover which portrays us in a sort of grinning, gaping cartoon grin, cats flying off, Kim working hard at his table with me over this shoulder. Pages are piling up around him – that’s real too.

Last night Kim had a signing at Desert Island in Brooklyn and Gabe Fowler had thoughtfully stocked many of Kim’s earlier books and others were brought in by people for signing. It was a glorious bunch of Deitch to sort through – Beyond the Pale (my own square one first Deitch book purchase about a year before meeting him); Smilin’ Ed; even The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley (arguably Kim’s favorite book of his); even Hollywoodland, and the equally allusive Shadowland, which might be the best size and printing ever of one of Kim’s books and sold out so quickly that they are hard to find. Having said that the work is well represented in this new volume with the space needed to investigate the tiny details in the images. It was a mini-career retrospective which I pawed through with delight while he was signing.

Fantagraphics has thoughtfully brought out a great trade paper edition of Reincarnation Stories at the same time and I admit with both on the table I felt like a mom who can’t decide between her children who are both beloved. In many ways though, How I Make Comics is a logical heir to Reincarnation Stories and even has a reincarnation tale told within. I really like the physical design of the trade paper volume. Seems to me it will be a pleasure to read that way.

*Copies of the new softcover edition of Reincarnation stories showed up here the other day too!*

It is a special thrill for me to see one of my actual storylines developed in How I Make Comics, Rat-Haven. It has been given a liberal Deitchien touch, but the original bones for it were, as depicted, from me – a story that popped into my head full-blown one morning on the way to work. Meanwhile of course there are liberal amounts of performing elephants, romance, retribution, cat people and other Kim Deitch essentials teeming throughout this book. A pro tip: look at the front and especially end papers carefully and you will get a bit of a story postscript.

*A young Marie Deitch reveling in science fiction magazines.*

Lastly, I am compelled to share that my favorite story in this book is, The Two Maries. There are stories of his that I have gently rooted for Kim to tell over time, and this is one of them which I am so glad to see executed. To me it is the perfect blend of things (real and might have been) and the visuals of Kim’s mom, Marie, and her science fiction reading addiction is one of the highlights of this volume. It kicks off the sort of appendix section at the back of the book – these appendixes are sort of like the kitchen at the party where everyone turns out to be hanging out – savoring some of the best bits for last.

So that readers is my heavily biased review of Kim’s new book. A prouder wife does not exist than Mrs. Pictorama Deitch today! I say, enjoy!

MoCCA Fest

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is an interesting year for me to focus on MoCCA, the annual comic con manisfestation of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) now it its 24th year. I think Kim and I have been going to this comics fest since its early days at the Puck Building downtown. From there it bounced a bit and had homes at various locations including the Armory, Chelsea and now the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street. Sponsored by The Society of Illustrators (which probably deserves its own post covering its august history), MoCCA is an annual March event by which we tell the comics calendar here in New York City. Over time it has grown like topsy and there was a moment yesterday afternoon when I literally couldn’t move in the gathered crowd!

This year was a bit special for Deitch Studio because Kim’s new book, How I Make Comics, is being previewed there with advanced copies, a talk and signings. We are so excited to see the book at long last! So we had a bit more of a purpose there than our more usual ramblings.

*Kim and Bill kicking off the talk and Bill’s copy of Kim’s new book here.*

However, the road to it was complicated this year and in part I write because I think you’ve had some hurried Pictorama posts on recent weekends. To start at the beginning, as snow buried New York repeatedly in March Kim and I weren’t doing our morning walk to work – not surprisingly, it was lousy walking. (I wrote about those walks not long ago here.) He’d had some pain and walking seemed to aliviate it, however without it, about a month ago we realized that he was having increased pain – and, alarmingly, trouble walking at all. A trip to the ER followed three Saturdays ago, and it turns out he had a severely herniated disc.

It was clear that surgery was in the offing – eschewing actual emergency surgery, we started on the bumpy road which led us to an operation last Thursday (micro surgery – I’d only considered this on animals via work oddly enough), although some issues kept him in the jug until a week ago today. (I liked the hospital okay enough although I think our animal hospital is much nicer – I’d much rather go there!)

*This was one of those rarified items that turned up – never saw this before!*

In general surgery seems to have been a great success. He’s walking much better, improving daily, although he needs to develop some muscle for any distance again. No bending, lifting or twisting – we seem to be good about the lifting but the bending and twisting, well…he tries. Most importantly for all involved, he was back in his work chair for pretty much full days starting on Monday – he’s made his halfway through the next book already and has a full head of steam.

*Kim’s messier (even) than usual work table and area shown here – as shown at the slide show yesterday.*

All this to say, it’s been a busy time on the ground here at Deitch Studio and we were on a deadline with MoCCA kicking off the book yesterday. I’m pleased to say it was a great day and really much fun. John Kelly of Dummyzine fame (@dummyzine) invited Kim to sit at his table for part of the day, joining Bob Camp of Ren and Stimpy fame. John is working on a long interview with Kim for Dummy which we look forward to coming out later this year.

*Mark Newgarden, John and Kim looking over some of John’s rare Deitch items.*

At lunchtime our friend and comics historian Bill Kartalopoulos (@kartalopoulos) did a great interview with Kim which covered process (what fun to see one of Kim’s pages go from rough pencils to a tight lay out and then to an inked page through the miracle of Powerpoint), but also delved into some family history which plays out in How I Make Comics. He spent some time on my favorite story in the collection, The Two Maries, about Kim’s mom and grandmother hitchhiking from Denver to LA in 1939.

*A young and very pretty Marie Deitch (nee Billingsley) shown here.* *I knew her in later years and was very fond of her.*

Yours truly and Pam’s Pictorama got a shout out as well – thank you Bill! And we were so pleased to see how many folks showed up for the talk – a thank you to those of you who made it.

Then it was over to the Fantagraphics table (Kim’s longstanding publisher and a big presence at the con) to sign advanced copies of the book and meeting folks which is always fun. I get to see some early, rare appearances of Kim’s work in volumes people have collected and want him to sign. Amazing! This fan girl is thrilled!

We’re back today for more – if you are around say hello! Kim is signing from 1-2:00 today and otherwise we will spend some time back with John and his other guests. I will man the box of original art for sale so come on by – and back to more traditional Pictorama next week!

Still Young

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: The year is still young enough flash this New Year card, found in the pile on my desk back here in our New York HQ at Deitch Studio. We made the trek back, cats tucked unhappily in their carriers, a few days ago, this past Wednesday. A food delivery (love ya Fresh Direct) will arrive in a bit. After spending the morning with you all here at Pictorama, I will finish unpacking us, break down a bunch of boxes that we moved art supplies and food in, and life will slowly resume its Manhattan manifestation until the summer when the whole crew will decamp again. I will of course be in New Jersey periodically looking in on the Jersey Five (cats) and continuing my efforts to convert Peaches to a pet-able house cat.

Like almost everyone around me, I have started the New Year with a bad cold which is hanging on tenaciously. Meanwhile, Blackie seems a bit morose which leaves us scratching our heads – we know he doesn’t miss the other cats there. Was his spot on a chair in the sun that nice? Or under another chair and near a heat vent? He’s eating but carrying an expression of world weariness. He hisses at Cookie as if he never met her before – something he does when we return to the apartment.

Okay, onto the postcard! I don’t know how I missed this brilliant card when piling up ones for New Jersey, but I did and I cannot wait a whole year to share it. This one has weirdly wonderful all over it. It wasn’t cheap but it was among some items I considered a bit of a bargain when purchased last fall.

I am a longstanding sucker for a good moon face and this one certainly qualifies; I could not ask for better. What really kills me is the weird little skirt-wearing body they have attached it too. (Is the moon a woman?) Weird nebulous feet on sort of fat baby-esque legs and the amorphous body is finished off with hands that look like they belong to yet something else. That moon head just floats though and is more substantial so at first you don’t put it together with the body, but then you do and chuckle!

The cheeky cherubs, in the arms of the moon, have a champagne bottle, held by one while the other toasts (or is it offering the glass to the moon?) with a glass full of bubbly. Dark clouds fill an even darker blue green sky behind them. Because it is dark it is hard to see but this card is lightly embossed, the cherubs in the highest relief but the clouds are gently shaped too, the moon’s dress also in low relief giving it texture. It wishes us A Happy New Year at the bottom in an Arts and Crafts writing so decorative it takes a minute to read it.

*Back of card – what is the aunt’s name?*

This card is postmarked on December 30, 1907, from somewhere in Pennsylvania; the town is illegible. To the best of my ability to read the brown ink script it says: Hello! Auntie: – How you feeling by this time red’d your letter this morning am very glad your roommate studys [sic] harmony once in a while. Your niece Ethel. It is address to Miss Grace Mangst, Warrin. Ohio D.M.J. No maker mark is in evidence on the card – which is too bad because these folks had something going on. I don’t usually hang seasonal cards but this one’s a gem.

Of course the big 2026 news here at Deitch Studio is Kim’s book, How I Make Comics is coming out in April. It is on pre-order – find it here. We find ourselves already deeply immersed in how to help launch this book. In the service of promoting it, I am toying with doing a podcast where Kim and I will talk about the origins of the stories and his history in comics. As I have previously with other intimidating projects (I know nothing about recording and editing), I share this with you all to help keep me honest about working on it. However, I am also asking you to weigh in on the idea. Is it a good one? Will folks listen? Or should I keep to my tip tap typing? Please weigh in below or leave a comment.

Deitch Studio: Christmas 2025

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Arguably the most popular day on the Pictorama calendar – the holiday card reveal – and here we are again! For the third year now, with Kim’s blessing, I have attempted all seven cats – the Jersey Five and the New York cats combined as the illustration. As has become our pattern, I draw it and he then redraws, traces and inks it. The cats have stayed true to my drawing as has the design. Us in the sleigh is more him and the moon has become a good old Deitchian moon. I think it is a fair melding hybrid of our styles.

Kim noted that the cats look a bit like balloons here – of the Thanksgiving parade kind. Some more than others – Stormy hovering over Christmas is the most balloon like. (She is a pretty dreamy kitty. One of the last of the strays mom acquired.) Evidently a slow moving sleigh now that I reflect on it.

For the record and the curious, the top row from left to right are Blackie, Milty, Gus, Cookie and bottom row, Beau, Peaches and Stormy. Milty is the oldest and Peaches and Stormy roughly tie for youngest and last into the house. Cookie and Blackie are the only ones from the same litter (our New York kits) and Blackie and Beau share their all black cat-ness.

As I do the card reveal this year I need to apologize a bit – it seems I have lost my address book which I have had since college. Although many addresses have migrated to my electronic book, many of the oldest ones have not and among those I don’t necessarily have emails or numbers to text either. Someone pointed out that the universe was trying to tell me something.

I didn’t see it at first but someone pointed out that Kim has candy cane horns – I must ask him if it was on purpose or if he was having subliminal Grampus urges. Now I don’t know how I missed it.

If you are new to the card reveal, this joint card project goes back to the first year Kim and I started dating (predating Pictorama by decades) and has developed over time. Some earlier examples can be found here, here and here.

As you read this on Sunday morning we will (hopefully) be packed up and on our way to New Jersey with Cookie and Blackie in tow. We spent today (Saturday) organizing and filling boxes and suitcases so the cats are suspicious – sleeping on the bed with one eye slightly open I’d say.

When we get to the house I am anxious to see if my holiday swags of evergreens have lasted on the front railings. I will take out my few holiday decorations – oversized colored lights will go in the fireplace, an elderly Santa made of lead skiing and a few other choice bits that will live on the mantle – one of the few cat free spaces in the house. (That of course is always subject to change if a cat is enterprising enough!)

*Hard to read beyond Mr. and Mrs. Will Claff. How on earth did this get delivered I wonder.*

I thought I would bookend this post with another card I bought this fall. Sent on December 23, 1914. It was sent from Brockport, NY but the address is hard to read as is the message. Of course it was the idea of the nifty cat pull toy on the front that did it for me, bow and all. I like the little poem too which says, I send this kissy kat because I cannot go like Santa Claus, to give my Christmas love to you, or kiss you – as I’d like to do. So a Merry Christmas to you all – a few New Year’s cards tucked away next.