memoir

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.

Inside Mostly Books!

And the outside.

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!)

Dunnyzine t-shirt
And a whopping big mug!

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!

The Well Dressed Puss

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Ah, what is the well dressed cat wearing these days? At work I saw a few sporting Knick’s attire (dogs wear it better I am afraid), some need newborn baby style onesies to keep them from a surgical site (kinder than the cone of shame if it works), and there is this strange meme on the internet to put them in yoga pants, which turns out to be a stunningly bizarre look. I may have mentioned that we have a policy against dressing the cats here at Deitch Studio and they seem to be grateful for it. Once again, this seems to be a fundamental difference between cats and dogs. I have handed over many a branded bandana to a pup at work and most seem to embrace it.

This off IG. Oh my…

The imaginary sartorial bliss of these well drawn felines from 1908 certainly provides a counterpart in the space of time and imagination. I’m hazarding a guess to say this artist (it is unsigned) is an early US pretender to the Louis Wain throne.

These four gentleman cats all duff hats, jackets – three have monocles, two have walking sticks – one sort of shillelagh-esque on the end. Each kitty has a different model hat, but each one is stylish in keeping with the period. I was actually in New York City’s oldest hat store yesterday, JJ Hats, founded in 1911. It was doing a fairly booming business, and I admit I made a not insubstantial contribution to their income for the day. (Maybe some hat related posts in the near future. I stocked up.) It was there, several decades ago, that I purchased the black Stetson cowboy hat Kim wears as one of his first birthday gifts from me.

It’s actually currently under scaffolding but it looks like this!

Hats of all kinds on display.

These kitties have a variety of top hats, a stove pipe and a sort of bowler/deer slayer model. They wear fancy pointed shoes and dressy sort of smoking jacket style coats – one with a boutonniere. Their trousers, some cuffed and others not, all have a decoration down the leg I associate with tuxedo pants. (I just looked this up, the stripe down the side of tuxedo trousers is to hide the seam and give them a more cohesive look. Who knew?)

Tempted to buy Kim a new straw hat…these can survive a rain storm.

Even their collars represent a variety of styles of the day, mostly the high, white stiff ones that would have been attached by a few buttons, although our fellow in blue with the top hat seems to be wearing a different, long flat one. We have a few different cat kinds here too – from stripe-y short hair to a fluffy Persian look. Hands (paws) are mostly conveniently tucked in jacket pockets, with the exception of one gloved one holding a walking stick on the end.

The top of the card poses the question, Are we top-notchers on dress? Well, look at our clothes. This seems to arise with a bit of smoking detail around it. Behind the gentleman cats a vague landscape of mountains and perhaps water and grassy fields is sketched in. I would have thought these natty kitties belonged in a more urban setting.

Hats purchased.

Someone has written, Love to Leslie From Margaret at the bottom. It is addressed to Master Leslie H. Stauffer, 5314 Addison Street, West Philadelphia, PA. It was mailed from Braddock PA on February 5 1908 at 9 AM. I always think about these lucky children getting these fun cards in the mail at the turn of the century.

Cookie is, of course, always in formal dress, even when napping behind Kim on the couch.

As it happens, Kim and I head off to Philadelphia shortly. He will be reading at Partners & Son bookstore tonight. I hope to report on that and a whole bunch of other Deitch Studio activity around Kim’s book, How I Make Comics tomorrow so stay tuned.

Dorm

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: At work we have graduation for our interns and residents at the end of the month, but I think folks have already mostly packed up their kids at school and have started the summer. I have vague memories of each of my dorm rooms although I never went in for decorating them much. (Yes, given my post-college attachment to stuff that seems surprising, yes?) As I remember the dorm rooms were designed to be impervious to hanging things on the wall. Early on I attempted a poster or two which promptly peeled from the wall and I gave up. I was an art major however so it isn’t like there was stuff around.

Two out of the three dorm rooms I had in college (one year I lived in London) were in the original or at least early buildings of the college. Connecticut College has these beautiful, old stone buildings and at least one of my rooms had original leaded glass windowpanes – I was on the ground floor and folks would occasionally take a short cut in via the window. I don’t pine for my college experience a lot, but this photograph does make me think about it. I always enjoyed the history of the college when I was there. It had been more than a decade co-ed at that point, but the ghosts of industrious, smart women past always seemed to lurk pleasantly around.

Katherine Blunt, first woman President of the college and the dorm named for her. We just called it KB.

I had a hot pot but wasn’t one of those people driven to attempt to cook a lot in my dorm room. I had a dark pink comforter on the bed (it came to NYC with me and stayed with me until it was in shreds a number of years later) and not much else in the line of decor. I have two coffee mugs from those days and quite unconsciously I happen to be drinking from one right now, also a dark pink. The other is a heavy old fashioned white stoneware one that I nicked from the dining hall. (Kim was just drinking out of it the other day and complaining that it doesn’t hold enough coffee which is a fair criticism.)

I purchased this photocard from a woman who said she collected this very thing (early dorm room photos) and if she was letting this one go, I do wonder what her collection looks like! It is an interesting genre – clearly the urge to document an early experiment of living on your own as a young person was strong. There is nothing that dates this postcard – it was never used so no postmark. It could in fact easily be Connecticut College, which was founded as a women’s only college in 1911.

A careful look quickly reveals that this is a woman’s room, purse hanging from the chair was the first clue, although it is overall quite feminine really – the chafing dish (the early 20th century equivalent of a hot pot – kids probably are allowed microwaves now!) which sits nicely on a side table complete with a flower cloth is another significant indicator. The carpet is flowered as well, and the dresser has a lacey doily. It is covered with photographs, as are the shelves above and we can even see a few more in the mirror.

Palmer Library, Connecticut College for Women New London. This was turned into classrooms I think when a new library was built well before my time there.

Pennants hang all over – one in the mirror says Amsterdam, but the others are for schools or places I don’t recognize and since I can’t have both a mirror and magnifier I have trouble reading. A pincushion, a calendar (which I cannot read the year or the month on) and a few other baubles decorate the walls and an envelope is also pinned to the board next to the calendar on a sort of pinboard there.

There are two chairs and I wonder if this room was shared and we are only being shown one person’s half. At Connecticut College the majority of the original dorms has single rooms with only a few suites of shared rooms. (Newer dorms introduced in the 1960’s had more double rooms.) However, this could also be a guest chair.

The seller had several other versions of dorm photos for sale (presumably rejects from her collection) – all great although the others appeared to all be men’s dorms, often with them in the photo. I would have purchased more, but they were relatively expensive and I was already loaded up with cat cards. I assume, as there were fewer woman’s colleges, that there are fewer photos of their rooms so I like that aspect of this one. You get the feeling that it was a moment when after much hard work it was just right and she had to take a picture.

Write Soon

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Saturday is dawning very bright and hot again today, although it promises to be a bit better than the last few days which have felt much July than June. We shall see. There could be ice cream in my future.

We here at Deitch Studio are regrouping after a long week of work including some promotion for Kim’s, How I Make Comics. Kim taped a podcast yesterday with Harry Siegel (I even got to chime in), and that will be showing up on Lit NYC in about a week we are told. (Kim has done two others, one with Amusing Jews which can be found here and another with Robin McConnell on Inkstuds, which has not come out yet.) Next week we head to Philadelphia for Kim to do a talk at Partners and Sons bookshop and then things seem to calm down a bit as we drift to New Jersey for the summer in about a month. We will have the summer to recoup.

I try to take my part-time job as the in-house promoter for Deitch Studio seriously. Yesterday the interviewer asked if I was going to pursue doing a podcast with Kim. (I ventured some speculation on that in a post here.) I answered honestly that maybe after all the initial promotion for the book is over. Right now we are pretty deep in it without starting anything new – yikes!

Artwork advertising for the gig next week. I love seeing a selection of my toys in this one!

As I sit here, Kim is writing a letter to his friend Zach Sally about Zach’s book, Folrath, which he sent to Kim via a friend at MoCCA recently. Cookie is enjoying the approximately 30 minutes of sun she gets on a certain chair each morning this time of year. Blackie though is having an off morning not eating his food and I am eyeing some meds I might need to put in him to help.

The coffee is on, the smell wafting into the living room, (the end of a loaf of Orwashers excellent sourdough bread awaits us as toast) and I realize I truly digress, but it has been on one those weeks and Saturday morning finds us a bit exhausted. Fresh Direct will be dropping off some groceries soon, however other than maybe making a quick soup I would say this weekend is all about collapsing a bit and resting up.

Orwashers last weekend. It is always so cheerful and jolly that I find myself taking pics while waiting in the line that generally goes out the door.

Meanwhile, for the main event today (if a bit belatedly and far down in this post) I share an embossed, die-cut style cat card purchased last weekend. A scaredy cat threatens I’ll get my back up if you don’t write soon! The cat has a deep 3-D quality and highlights (you can see he even casts a small shadow), which make him stand out further on this paper which has a faux linen quality and tooth to it. He is a true miniature version of a German embossed Halloween decoration. There is no copyright or publisher’s information on the card.

On the back there is a postmark of Janesville, Wisconsin, with a June or July date I cannot read, 1908. Rather plaintively it says, Why don’t you ever write to – Lucy. And it is addressed to Mrs. M. C. Vosburg, Ft. Atkinson, Wis. R.F. D. No. 3. Poor Lucy. So I guess this card was chosen to the point here. I do hope Mrs. Vosburg wrote to Lucy eventually.

Schimdt’s White and Gold Band

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: With Memorial Day behind us, and despite the fall-like weather this Saturday as I write, I thought I would pull out this postcard purchase. It both celebrates the summer season ahead and the town where my mother grew up, Long Branch, New Jersey. I snatched it up at a sale recently and will take it to the house in New Jersey where, among the images of cats, are a number of early local Jersey shore photos and postcards, an homage to my family’s history in the area and my own.

I find that Max Schmidt (1850-1951) was a violinist who immigrated to the United States in 1886 from Germany. He lived and worked primarily in New York City, even reportedly with the Met Opera at times, so this summer gig for his 24-piece orchestra was a short hop away and his orchestra enjoying some limited fame of the time.

Not in my collection.

Here is the Band White and Gold in all their 1909 glory on today’s card. Although it is somewhat standard of all the musicians with their instruments in hand, there are a few interesting elements. I like that the trumpets all have flags (pennants?) advertising the band hanging from them – three tubas, two more tuba-like things and so many drums! Behind the musicians is a sign that says Band White and Gold and a sort of gong hanging below it. At the bottom (a bit hard to read) it declares, Max Schmidt Celebrated Band White & Gold Ocean Park, Long Branch, NJ.

They appear here to be on a stage set of some kind and a careful look to the back reveals a painted column and some foliage. As best I can tell the area around them on the outside of the stage looks like a cave entrance. Most intriguing however are the three men, just behind the fellow I assume is Max himself (small child seated on the floor next to him), and they appear to stand behind wood stumps with anvils, hammers in their hands. I assume this is part of the opera music they were known to play. Tucked away, all the way on the left side and hard to see, is a harp.

This card was mailed on August 23, 1909 from Long Branch. It only says, Love from, Minnie. It was mailed to, Miss Amelia Freuzel, Sayreville, N.J. The card, produce by The Rotograph Co. NY, City was printed in Germany.

Another not in my collection.

Meanwhile, this was the heyday of the band concert and his sported striking white and gold uniforms. They were hired in the summer of 1909 to play outdoor concerts in Ocean Park. (If I understand it, Ocean Park was subsumed by what is now known as Seven President’s Park – if wrong Jersey folks let me know.) Their repertoire would have been popular band music, evidently combined with excerpts from operas. At the time Long Branch was the summer haven for the very wealthy and even Presidents. (The most outstanding remaining example is Wilson’s summer home which now forms the core of what became Monmouth University’s campus. I understand that there is a building which will house Bruce Springsteen’s papers quite nearby.)

The fortunes of the town, like many, have waxed and waned over the decades. Despite my grandmother living in a residential area on the outskirts in the house my mom grew up in (I wrote about that house in a previous post here), the downtown area and even the waterfront was largely down at the heels during my childhood. The shopping district was usurped by an enormous mall (which in turn was ultimately killed by online shopping and an outdoor shopping center) and only a few essential stores hung on. There was a Foodtown supermarket by the train station (which I shopped in a few times when my sister was in the hospital across the street), a paint store called Siperstein’s, which mom frequented. (A quick look online and it appears to still be there, selling wallpaper and blinds now as well. It may be a chain.)

Another from the internet not in my collection.

There was also a library which for some reason I found more interesting than both the tiny one in Rumson (the Oceanic Library – I must write about it one day), and the much larger and more modern one known as the Monmouth County Library. (It is out by Trader Joe’s so I have seen it and it has been expanded further since my childhood.) We didn’t go to the library in Long Branch often as it was a bit more out of the way, but we’d stop in occasionally and there was just something especially warm and inviting about the children’s section. I wish I could remember what books I found there, I was already reading chapter books, but it would likely be a false memory. I want to say the later Alcott children’s books like Jo’s Boys. Below is what the library would have looked like in my childhood (albeit more beat up) although it is a much more contemporary and entirely different building today.

Undated photo of the Long Branch public library via the internet.

In addition, there was another smaller commercial area closer to my grandmother, where my great-grandparents once had their bar and restaurant. (I wrote about the blue willow ware plates – the blue plate special plates – which I inherited and use. The post is here.) My vivid memories of that area from childhood were a Dunkin’ Donuts we frequented and the rarified early McDonalds. My parent’s accountant was also there – may still be for all I know but I doubt it. (Sadly, later in life, it is also where the funeral home the family used is and that is what I associate with it now.) There was a laundromat (strange word now that I look at it) nearby we sometimes used in the years before getting a washing machine although there was one closer to home, in Sea Bright, that I remember best. Mom may have been doing laundry for my grandmother.

And so the march to summer at the shore begins again today, even if I am drinking hot coffee and eyeing a sweater for my trip downtown in a bit. However, I’m sure there will be more shore and vacation posts coming soon.

Crying Kits

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today I have cat tales. Cats are of course the foundational interest of Pam’s Pictorama although we do stray – Kim’s comics, the occasional dog. We are All Pam, all the Time, but albeit not quite cats all the time but much of the time.

Today’s card came as a purchase from the most recent incarnation of the postcard show and we have the Boulanger card with crying kitties to consider. I’m not exactly sure what in particular Maurice was thinking about. We have a dark gray and white matched pair of kittens who are looking at each other with tears running down their faces. The white one is a bit pudgier and a smidge bigger than the gray one, one with yellow eyes and the other a very light green.

In my opinion Boulanger (b. 1910, d.o.d. unknown) was something of a pretending to the Louis Wain (b. 1860, d.o.d. 1939) throne so to speak, as there are a few decades of overlap between them. I reckon there was more than enough demand for the images produced by two cat artists. (Some prior posts for Boulanger can be found here and here. Louis Wain Pictorama posts abound but a few are here and here.)

This image is evidently called, Tendrement (Tenderly) and on some versions evidently in German it is also written, Apfelblüte. Daut un daut lüschen Hoffen – Apple Blossom. That sweet, soft glimmer of hope. I did wonder about the image of weeping pusses. It does raise the issue of who you might have sent this card to and what their reaction might have been. Mine was not sent and does not have any useful information on the back.

Yesterday was a major cat event here as Blackie has been doing sort of poorly with a lack of appetite. Ahead of the holiday weekend I managed to get him into his local vet in the late afternoon. Have I ever mentioned that Blackie seems to have an uncanny need to go to the ER on a holiday weekend or otherwise inconvenient (reads as more expensive too) times? He does. Long story short, no sooner had we gotten home than the vet called to tell me that after looking at his tests (a small amount of ketones in his urine) he needed to go to the ER.

The little man, feeling more himself, today.

Of course, these days the kitty emergency room is at the hospital where I work. So yes, on what should have been an afternoon off I was hopping in a cab and rushing Blackie down there. (Kim, still recovering from back surgery did the first vet trip but we decided he should stay home for the second.)

I took him fully expecting that he would need to stay overnight. A young resident saw him and ran some more tests. Blackie hates going to my place of employment, but this time I had reason to bless working there. He enjoys a low-key celebrity status as an employee kitty (people came and visited with us and even with him in the back, reporting out to me) and despite it being the Friday night before the long weekend, one of the senior docs who has seen him before came by to have a look at him.

She mentioned as had the other two vets, that he had a lot of bowel not moving in his intestines – kitty constipation. The difference was she gave me instructions for giving him a tiny kitty dose of Miralax. Since eating and resolving constipation were the main issues we decided I would bring him home – he has an appetite enhancer and an anti-nausea drug. Even when we came home last night, he was ready to eat! That combined with the Miralax appears to have set him absolutely right today. I woke to a hungry boy cat and a rather impressively full litterbox. Yesterday reminded me of why I love the hospital where I work. Yay for Blackie!

Noted

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It is threatening to be a hot summer’s day in May today – we are having now you see it, now you don’t warm weather here in Manhattan this spring. We whiplash between our light down filled jackets and sleeveless dresses, and I gather today will be the latter. I am heading to New Jersey to get the dahlias in for the year. They sit out the winter in the garage, tucked in paper bags, but for all the fickleness of the weather I think we are past frost here and I want them to have maximum time to bloom.

After yesterday’s excitement of reviewing Kim’s new book, I am afraid I have created a hard act to follow. I hope this Wain card from the recent postcard show does the trick – a palate cleanser of cat images to get back to the general business of Pictorama.

Upon reflection I realize I was slow to cede to Wain adoration – I resisted for quite a long time (overpriced postcards I remember thinking), but when I fell, I fell hard. I am a Wain addict. Few things dependably make me chuckle than a Wain image even if I have seen them many times before. A few of my past tributes can be found here and here but there are many!

His cat postcard parade is an almost endless variation playing on human foibles and attitudes – sardonic, malevolent, self-satisfied, mystified, distracted for starters. There are types too, fat, thin, businessman, solid citizen, and of course troublemakers galore. For types he is partial to tabbies – those nice decorative stripes I suppose. They can be a variety of shades. Today we have a gray tuxie which seems a bit exotic for him.

Today we have a Raphael Tuck & Sons card with four choral kitties – a cat quartet. Each holds a score which is inscribed, Nothing New Latest New Songs. Starting on the end with our pudgy, contented (self-satisfied?) fellow, gripping his book with both paws. He’s a fat cat in the best sense. (Somehow, we know these are all boy cats, yes?) Next to him is a small and skinny gray tuxedo, sporting a red bow looking a tad waifish, paw on tummy to help him emote. The two on the end are sort of a matched set of two colors of tabby, one has a blue bow for good measure and the music books they hold are a variety of green, red and blue. Each has a singing pose all his own showing his enthusiasm for his chorale endeavors.

When we look closely there is eye color variation and I assume Wain figured he could goose that a bit without anyone noticing – these cats have eyes of yellow, green and blue! They all are looking in different directions too which packs a smidge of action into this small image – and each singing with a different level of enthusiasm. Tails are curled in a variety of ways and directions, whiskers as well as eyebrows help complete the expressions. All these details are what Wain swaps out within his mental inventory of images he uses again and again. Finally, he supplies a sketched in shadow on the ground and nothing else aside from his signature which is sort of a visual element anchoring that side of the card, fat cat tail on the opposite side.

The title below is, The note duly reached in what I assume is Wain’s hand. Below that, in remarkably similar but lighter script someone has written, Hope I shall see you Thursday, Grannie. It was addressed to, Master C. T. Travers, Woolfanger, Warlingham, Surrey. The cancellation year is hard to read but appears to be August 13, 1905. Can I just say, how much fun must it have been to get a postcard like this when you were a kid? Yay for Grannie! Clearly enough that this card has survived more than 120 years.

So I leave you to revel in this smidge of Wain while I pack up my gardening togs and head out shortly. Look for some New Jersey pics on Instagram later.

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!

Scratch That

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: At the heart of my collecting are odd bit postcards and photos that just appeal to me and today it is one. It has been a little while since I have featured a real one-of-a-kind photo postcard that was made of someone’s pet – my indulgences at the postcard show have turned up more illustrated cards and professional photo postcards. However, in some ways these one-offs epitomize something about why I collect cat photos.

Photos are usually tributes to the puss in question, many mice caught, had kittens and the like, today’s is a different sort of good kitty notice. It took me a bit to realize that this missive declares that this Miss Cat (I believe kitty to be a girl), sweet little thing we see in the sun here, has not scratched our sender.

Beauregard is a very thoughtful cat and was always extra careful around mom.

Now, I am the first to say when you live with a kitten, you generally walking around like the bleeding wounded on some horror film set, arms and hands particularly mangled, until you convince them that there are things for scratching (and biting for that matter) and slowly it ceases.

It must be said that an odd flaw in my beloved Blackie is he never learned to use a scratching post or box. His sister Cookie is happy to tear furiously into one, as are the Jersey Five. I have set scratching boxes up in strategic places and they are used not only for scratching but Peaches in particular likes to sleep on them, as if on a little cardboard throne, as well as tear them to bits.

Mr. Blackie without a care in the world, showing his tummy recently.

As a result, we occasionally get a negligent scratch from Blackie’s nails, although he hasn’t actively scratched either of us since kittenhood. I used to worry about those kinds of unconscious scratches with my mom and her cats. At the end of her life her skin was very thin and as a diabetic, scratches could be a problem. However, her cat favorite lap cat Beau always seemed to be extra careful and we rarely if ever had a problem. In an adult cat clearly scratching is a clearly a sign of unhappiness – Back off buddy! You’ve crossed a line.

The cat in the photo reminds me of Peaches. She’s a terror and to my knowledge no one has actually ever touched her. She will get within two feet of me when I am putting out food and that’s it.

Our kitty here has been captured in a benign mood, although something has caught her attention out the window. She appears to be white with some stripe-y patches on the bottom half of her and some of the same color up around her head and ears. She’s not a kitten but does appear to be a fairly young cat. We see just the tip of her curled tail, mirrored by her shadow on this small table – she is barely staying still enough for this photo to be taken. She’s a sprightly cute little thing – clearly a scratcher though!

There is a cannister, such as would hold something like flour, behind her. (Dollars to donuts that got knocked over eventually if this was her favorite viewing table.) Puss is a little sassy, you can tell that from this pic. All this is captured in this circle printed at the top of the card.

Cookie likes to curl up under my desk. This was her during a zoom call last week.

Under it, the fellow in question has written, “Hasn’t scratched yrs” Yours Samuel Jackson. It was mailed from Schenectady on June 11 at 11:30 (maybe 12:30, hard to see), 1906. It is addressed (to the best of my decoding ability) to Miss Emma Crisppen, Coxsackie, N.Y. It arrived in Coxsackie at 4:00 PM of the same day. A miracle by today’s standards we cannot imagine. (Not that they could imagine sending an email or this blog post in all fairness.)

So there we have it, our slice of time out of 1906, very close to exactly 120 years ago today.

Ring Tale

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: So once in a while I drift a bit and devote a post to another of my passions, antique jewelry. (Sorry, cat folks – more and more on those to come.) I recently devoted a post to an amazing ring I purchased of Cupid chasing Psyche in the form of a butterfly. (That post can be found here.) Today I need to start by saying Kim purchased this for me, knowing I had a serious hankering for it, and of course that makes it a bit more special. Thank you! I love it!

Although I admittedly have a sort of insane fondness for opals (a post or two about them can be found here and one on a very beloved boulder opal ring here, if you are somewhat new to jewelry posts), and their constantly shifting shafts of light. My other passion, highlighted today, is a bit of a story or symbol I find motivating. I like my collections where I can see them (photos lining the walls here at Deitch Studio and increasingly in New Jersey.)

Antique bone skull set in a ring that is another favorite of mine. Ring designed by Muriel Chastanet of LA. Pams-Pictorama.com collection. They recently turned a slightly larger skull into a necklace for me.

Rings. Yes, I do wear several on each hand most days, and they are a constant morale boost for me. To have them either winking light at me or motivating me with their stories and symbolism can inspire me all day. The ring I am sharing today was on the site of a British vendor (@heart_and_serpent on IG or their website here) for several months before I caved and grabbed it up. I saw it once on Instagram and it caught my eye and then tugged at my brain. I just kept visiting it on her site – hoping it would not have sold. Luckily it had not and I realized that I really needed it. Somehow this one was meant for me I think and I wear it pretty much daily.

I am not sure the world at large currently shares my interest in a certain kind of cameo or intaglio rings. (Yes, I have bought another cameo ring, this one depicting Hercules, coming soon. I was deeply interested in the symbolism of his endurance and perseverance. Seems like a good message for me right now.) Their loss! Luckier for me as they don’t just fly out of the store and I have the sort of pause I tend to need before making a significant purchase I plan to wear frequently like I do these.

I must say, I can just get lost in the little story depicted on this ring. A woman in a long dress and her large dog (dog really sold it for me) are walking in front of what I think of as her house. The cottage is made of bricks and there is also a brick wall next to it – this creates great textures and there is incredible depth to the image. There manages to also be a sort of a bit of fence and bushes. Another house, with trees behind it, is in the distance and there are even clouds in the sky. There are sort of four layers to the space in the image.

This was unusual for me but something I found when clearing out stuff of mom’s in New Jersey. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

According to the seller, the ring is circa 1890 and the rose gold setting is 9k, which is a karat I think of as more frequently used in Britain than the US. Although in reality while I assume the ring is British (as it came from there and the 9k setting) I don’t actually know. The Victorian nature of the ring, the depiction and enjoyment of the natural world, is a bit of a giveaway though. I will add that the rose gold plays off very nicely with the shell cameo color. Meanwhile, let’s just say it is just as well I don’t live in Britain because I purchase a lot of jewelry (not to mention toys and photos) from there and can only imagine how much worse it would be if I could actually visit these folks and not pay shipping and now tariffs!

There is a mark where the ring was made a bit bigger and me, even with my somewhat arthritis swollen hands, can and do wear this on my index finger. (Index finger is somewhat new territory – I expect to get to my thumb one of these days. I have seen women wear old, chunky gold men’s rings on their thumbs and love the look. I have my eye out. Poor thumbs should not be jealously unadorned!) The majority of my cameo rings are actually quite small and I wear them on my pinky.

Lauren over at Heart and Serpent has many stunning mourning pieces in her generously stocked online store. (She just put a photo of herself up on her IG account today as it happens, sitting in front of some gorgeous early tiles, at a historic site I think.) I have a smattering of mourning objects (I wrote about one in a post here several years ago with a very moving story), although have not worn many of the pins lately as I wear fewer jackets to sport pins on, and I found the necklace I wrote about a bit fragile to wear frequently – no scarves to tug at it but even without that. (My jackets are also the display area for my collection of gold, school merit medals, also with encouraging messages like Improvement or Excellence. Those are credited with helping get me through some rough days as I found my footing at a new job. Posts about those can be found here and here.)

Antique horse cameo ring designed by the incomparable Muriel Chastanet Jewelry of Los Angeles. Probably the first big jewelry investment I made. Still a favorite. Pams-Pictorama.com.

I think my current job (raising money for an emergency animal hospital) has peaked my interest in dog imagery. I meet many more dogs these days and am giving them their psychic due. The large dog here definitely caught my eye and just between us, there is a very beautiful dog stick pin which has landed at Pictorama which may eventually find its way to becoming a ring or even fitted for a necklace. Cats watchout! The dogs are on the move.