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.
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!
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.
Cover of upcoming book.
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.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I continue my second part, tulip treatise today with an odd alignment that came out of tulip talk recently here at Deitch Studio. As occasionally occurs here over leisurely morning work, reading and discussion sessions, Kim and I meandered through both my tulip triumphs in New Jersey and his interest in this book and comic as outlined below and these posts were born. Welcome to The Black Tulip and part two of the Pictorama post.
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I commence with a full admission that before I met Kim Classics Illustrated comics were at best known to me in a theoretical way – a sort of punchline to a joke about not having read a school book assignment – as in clearly they read the comic book version. I confess I have never actually read one to date.
A pile of the comics within eyeshot, next to Kim’s desk, while I write this morning.
A number of years back Kim discovered a guy on 86th Street who was selling them. Not every day of the week, but most weekend days and maybe a few others piles of them on a table with their bright yellow logos being hawked. Over time they began their siren song and Kim was lured into slowly acquiring both those remembered from his youth and then ones he had missed along the way. Slowly his collection grew if haphazardly. I can’t remember now if the fellow gave up before Covid or it was the pandemic that did his periodic business in. And it wasn’t a constant flow, but an occasional addition would be made via eBay. Although he might give a quick look when I was with him it was generally a mission he completed on his own – an excuse for a walk on a nice day and presumably some comics chat.
A better look at that pile. This is just the tip of the iceberg of Kim’s collection.
Kim, a voracious reader and particularly of classic literature, seems like an unlikely candidate however most recently he uses these as sort of massive supplemental illustrations to something he is reading. (The man is devoted to illustrated fiction in all its guises.) A large trade paperback on the history of Classics Illustrated found its way into the house recently and, although he is a committed Dumas fan, his purchase of The Black Tulip I believe was a result of his reading of that. The novel is on its way so he has not commenced reading it yet.
Classics Illustrated (which has lodged in my brain as Classic Comics) had a 30 year run, from 1941-1971, launching with The Three Musketeers. With printing and reprinting and the collecting of them, it can be a deep and largely affordable vein of comics collecting. If Kim were writing this there would be color and lore I cannot provide – thoughtful observations about the various artists who illustrated them, some who were wrapping up a career during the heyday of comics.
The opening pages of our rather tatty copy.
The Black Tulip (based as noted on the novel by Alexandre Dumas) was illustrated by Alex A. Blum (1889-1969) and I would say his illustrations are definitely part of the appeal of the comic. The story takes place during the tulip craze in the Netherlands of the 1600’s after the introduction of the plant from the near east in the preceding century. As you probably know, tulips were wildly sought after and the bulbs traded like gold or cocoa on a world exchange. Fortunes were made and lost in tulips and even poor and middle class families might stake their fortunes on the waxing and waning of them.
Queen of the Night variety of tulip – appears to be pretty much as close as we come to black.
The plot of the novel is the race to develop a truly black tulip and the nefarious individuals who would do anything to capture a $100k guilder prize for the development of it. (For the record, a true black tulip does not exist even today and a very dark purple one called black is as close as one comes.) Since Kim is planning to read the original novel as well so I will have to ask him if they explain why black seemed so desirable – I prefer red and orange among others myself. (It should be noted that blue does not exist either – only a sort of lavender to blue.)
The jolly cover caught my imagination and a stroll through the comic is not disappointing. For the record, there is a column in the front cover called Student Boners which claims to be funny mistakes made on regional state exams – along the lines of Name two explorers of the Mississippi – answer: Romeo and Juliet. There is a bio of Dumas and encouragement to read the full novel at the back. Throughout there seems to be a layer of an in the service of sort of self-conscious educational mission.
The back of the book – free comics tattoos with your purchase of 10 issues.
Along those lines also included at the back is a plot summary of the opera Boris Gudenof (what did kids make of that?); a bio of Alfred Nobel (Inventor of Dynamite!); and an unrelated short story about a dog. Kim informs me that the books had to be weighted with a certain amount of text in order to get a book rate for mailing. (This is part of the eventual undoing of the company as they ultimately lost this status.) There is an emphasis on the great literature these are based on (There have been no greater story-tellers than these immortal authors) and on reading in general.
A page from a story to be published next year called Apocalypso.
As I alluded to above, these comics were a fixture of Kim’s childhood and a recently completed page from an upcoming story for his next book shows a young Kim and a friend in a room littered with them. (We had some discussion over which covers would be featured.) As for me, well my generation had Cliff Notes (which also took a final bite out of these comics) instead. I never read them, but I am sure they were far less romantic and potentially interesting as Classics Illustrated and in addition I doubt that anyone collects them today.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s an overcast Saturday morning here in New York City and there is a light bit of snow blowing outside. This has put my deep desire for a late morning run in question and makes me vaguely peevish. Kim has misplaced several key drawings for his next story (five or so luscious large pencil pages) and is slowing spreading the latter part of an almost finished graphic novel across our one room apartment in search of them. The pages have not left the apartment so we know they are here. A thorough search of piles of original art is underway. A certain frantic undertone to the commencement of our weekend here at Deitch Studio.
The desk in question, being searched.
Meanwhile, Blackie is snoring softly behind me on a very large box which contains an air fryer. While I am a bit curious about air fryers I never would have purchased one (let alone such a large one) except we’ve been informed that a city mandated gas inspection, which commenced Friday, has our cooking gas turned off. It will take a minimum of 6-8 months, but many buildings report that it has taken up to two years or more. (Yes, you read that correctly – they are turning off our cooking gas for what could be years.)
The model chosen after reading the NYT Wirecutter and other reviews.
I have moments of thinking that maybe it would be worth getting involved in City policy long enough to eliminate this bit of idiocy which is based on an incident where someone tied out an illegal gas line with a garden hose and the building ultimately blew up. Manhattan, perhaps all five boroughs, are looking now to eliminate gas cooking. This is a concept that could ultimately roust me from my perch here in New York City – gas cooking is beloved to me.
Life without making soup seems dreadful so I purchased this as well. Let’s see how I do with these new toys.
So, for now and despite Blackie’s fondness for the aforementioned box, I will spend this weekend unpacking the air fryer and an Instant Pot. (I cannot live without soup. One of several recipes can be found here.) I will rearrange our tiny kitchen and somehow fit these new appliances in – some of my beloved larger pots and pans can live in the oven I guess. (An ode to a dying fry pan can be found here.) Of course the adventure of learning to cook with them remains – I suspect you will receive further details. We have a microwave as well which I have generally only used to heat leftovers, but will be pressed into service. I have tried to amass groceries for easy execution at first, baby steps.
Blackie in full possession of the air fryer box.
Maybe the toaster can live in our storage locker and give us back another 12 inches of counter space? Electrical outlets have become prized real estate overnight and we are grateful for a renovation which added one. Additionally, there are two electric burners which the building assigned to us as a stove top. I hear rumors that the power draw for them is huge and that they cannot be used in tandem with the other appliances. Note taken, but I think we can look forward to the odd days when we space on that and blow a fuse.
At work Covid is stealthily making its way through the office again. We talk about it less, but staff are sick with it or living with people who have it. Most of the rules and protocols have fallen away and we are left to our own devices, instructing people to stay home and test – five days clear? I think there is a sense that people will just get it and get it again and again, but we do need to think about the people for whom it can be dangerous for various reasons, or like me have someone in their life who is fragile physically.
A pot of soup from a former post.
Along those lines my mom was diagnosed with pneumonia last week, not surprising given her immobility. I have home tested for Covid, but will go out and get a PCR test in case I need to go back to New Jersey. I mentally add it to the list I am making for this weekend.
I have long thought that TS Eliot had it wrong – it is January not April which is the cruelest month. For me it has uneasy memories of illness commencing and death, truly the nadir of each year which then needs to be reincarnated annually. (Oddly I am a bit distrustful of August too.) There is a gentle but persistent, burgeoning insanity that is barely kept in check in the month of January.
However, the pages in question above have been located at last. Kim is now contentedly inking a page which was his intention when he discovered the pencils missing, so a calm has returned to the house. He has promised to bring me a cup of take out coffee from the diner so I don’t have to face the electric burner and coffee pot quite yet. Blackie has moved onto the bed making way for me to unpack the air fryer and at least for the moment the flurries have paused so maybe I will get my run in. January is half over, we’re turning the corner and soon February will dawn a bit brighter.
A bit of Deitch Studio effluvia that surfaced this week.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Elephants are a sub-genre here at Pictorama, a casual collecting category here at Deitch Studio. (A few previous elephant posts can be found here and here and an especially Deitchian one here.) Without really trying or thinking about it we have amassed not that many, but some choice elephant bits, and when this one caught my eye the other day (in the middle of negotiating a very large purchase to be revealed in a future post) I didn’t miss a beat before adding him onto the bill.
He is wonderfully modeled with his elephant skin well defined, nicely wrinkly just like the real thing. His trunk is proudly up – I’m a trunk up girl although I understand that there are those who believe good luck result only from down as well as those of us who believe in up. (And I gather still other cultures which believe either will do and all elephants are lucky!) His trunk is curled up onto his head, revealing short tusks and his empathetic elephant eyes.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I am very pleased with the shade of red they saw fit to paint him and find his worn and chipped spots create a nice patina effect rather than take away from his appeal. I have some trouble imaging him all neatly painted actually, but I am sure I would have adored him as a child if I had seen or been fortunate to receive him in his nascent state.
He is, as the title of this post implies, a bank, small slot at the base of the back of his head – albeit a small bank which could only have held a few dollars worth of silver saved by an industrious child. His bottom is painted a wonderful sea green and Vanio 1936 is embossed in the bottom.
This one credited to the Minneapolis Art Institute Collection.
Mr. Google doesn’t reveal much about Vanio, but these banks are referred to as penny banks since they are so small. I saw examples in two different greens (one for sale on eBay – I’m very tempted to buy a mate, one example belongs to the Minneapolis Institute of Art), black and a dusky white in addition to my red. There would have been a key for the bottom, a few examples had theirs, but it would be hard to see on my example. They made a fairly righteous Scotty dog bank too in a similar array of colors.
Scotty version of a Vanio penny bank for sale on eBay at time of publication.Bank bottom on mine – oddly I paid less than $48 for him, that is an old tag.
This elephant wandered into the house just as Kim was designing the decor in a 1940 room in a new story that will go in his upcoming collection, How I Make Comics. He added our fellow in, turning him into an ashtray which was more appropriate for the story. Shown below, I close by sharing a bonus detail from the pencil sketch here – look out for the finished product in his next book in the story called The Two Maries.
Kim’s pencil sketch for an upcoming story called The Two Marie’s.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Here at Pictorama we enjoy certain inflection points during the year and the great Valentine reveal is one of them. Today is the day and welcome to all!
For those of you not in the know, each year my wonderful husband (Chief Artistic Genius and eponymous creator here at Deitch Studio, Kim Deitch) creates a Valentine’s Day drawing for me. Discussion about it begins seriously after Christmas and a period of development is followed by execution in early February. (A few examples from prior years can be found here, here and one that even features the Jazz at Lincoln Center orchestra as cats here.)
Some years I have very general thoughts and other years I may have more input. This was a rare year when I had a very specific request. I wanted an actual portrait of our cats, Cookie and Blackie! It is a perfect fit into my collection of images, usually vintage photos, of people and their feline friends. (These make up a whole sub-genre of images here at Pictorama so poke around the archive if you want to see some!)
Sadie and Dottie in a recent portrait by @crownandpaw.
You see, it started months back when a couple of kitties I follow on Instagram, Sadie and Dottie, had their portraits done. Sadie is a tuxie and her sister Dottie is, as self-described, a sort of cow spotty white kitty with black spots. Sadie and Dottie (@sadieanddottie) have a robust 13.3k followers and despite what you might think, I don’t actually follow a large number of cats on IG. There’s a cat in Japan, white with a comical big black mustache, who is dropped into my feed occasionally (name in Japanese so I don’t know), and a calico named Fudge who I like to see once in awhile. However, cats actually make up a smaller portion than antique jewelry, although more than rundown old houses for sale.
However, Sadie and Dottie’s mom and dad somehow manage to provide followers with a pitch perfect and pleasant stream of kitty triumphs and frustrations doled out at just the right pace. On some long, stressful days sitting down for a few minutes of treat time or bird watching (and chirping – which in turn makes the ears of my kits twitch as does the treat time meow) is the perfect antidote. Often I share a good post with Kim (and occasionally Cookie or Blackie), usually while sitting on the couch together, or in bed. I’m sure if Cookie and Blackie really understood they would be peeved at my defection of attention as it is they are just mildly annoyed by the thing in my hand which prevents two handed petting at times.
Sadie and Dottie (media stars that they are) have had their portraits done several times and it got me thinking that we really needed was a Kim Deitch portrait of our pair. I mentioned it to Kim who promised me that he would make me a grand one. Somehow months later as we were discussing my Valentine I decided that it was the appropriate moment and I knew he would deliver.
I was also thinking about years ago when Kim did a spectacular portrait of his friends Jay and Kathy with their Sphinxes and I was thinking of a picture that combined both elements of kitties romping in their usual pursuits and a straight ahead portrait of them – and today’s Valentine is it!
Kim Deitch portrait of Jay Rogers and Kathy Goodell with their cats and collection.
In addition to their likenesses front and center, their typical Cookie and Blackie romping is shown around the border. We have: catnip banana munching; chasing (Kill the Guy! the only game they play together); each shown with their own style of water drinking from a mug; neck biting (the denouement of Kill the Guy – but also sometimes B just walks over to C and starts biting her neck); Cookie chasing her tail and of course eating! Eating is their favorite activity and they would do it on demand if we allowed – but no. Here at Deitch Studio we have wet food at twelve hour intervals 6:00-6:00 and dry food in the interim.
It’s the Kim Deitch Valentine ’22 reveal!
I am shown sporting a star-patterned sweat shirt I actually wear most winter mornings agains the chill. (I am wearing it now as I write this, paired with my elephant toile print pj’s which I wrote about once here. It also highlights some morning cat activity here at Deitch Studio.)
Cookie, despite having left kittenhood far behind, still chases her tail almost daily. It is largely a morning occupation for her and if you know her you can see a fit of it starting to come on her as her tail seems to (rather independently and enticingly) commence twitching in a come hither sort of way. Sometimes it takes place in the tub (dunno why, but it does) and occasionally she combines it with trying to scare someone coming into the bathroom by popping out from the shower curtain. I call this her cat joke. Go Cookie!
The maniacal expression on Blackie’s face as he gets yelled at for biting Cookie’s neck here cracks me up! I am yelling, No neck biting! no doubt. Meanwhile, while Cookie is in charge of requesting fresh water (there is a division of labor between them always – for example it is Blackie’s job to wake us for food in the morning, although Cookie observes from the doorway), Blackie likes to drink his water standing up at the flat files in a quasi-human sidling up to the bar kind of pose. Line ’em up and keep ’em comin’ barkeep! Cookie prefers a more traditional go at it.
Blackie posting in front of his picture the other morning, perched on my desk chair.
I think Kim has done an entirely excellent job with the center portrait likenesses as well. Blackie is quite handsome and debonair – he knows he is a very good looking fellow and he is displaying a certain stuffy cat dignity here. Cookie has her more mercurial expression – paw resting lightly on that wild and erratic tail of hers.
Although wall space is always a premium here at Deitch Studio and Pictorama, I am tempted to get this one up somewhere. It is a great favorite already and my loving thanks to Kim for executing my request so splendidly and lovingly! Kim, you’re the best! Happy Valentine’s Day to all.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today we are celebrating some recent apparel acquisitions, both which came to me in fairly unorthodox ways. Both are notable for baring a passing but undeniable resemblance to Kim’s sometimes comics avatar Waldo and other Deitchian cat characters.
Happily acquired for the Pictorama wardrobe!
The first came via a DM heads up from our friend and comics history expert Bill Kartalopoulos (@kartalopoulos) on Instagram one day. The supplier is called Yarrow Goods. They offer the shirt in black as well as the combo I purchased shown above, and they have subsequently introduced the same Doin’ Great logo in Japanese (no idea why), but nonetheless perhaps more interestingly, as a sweatshirt. If it was a hoodie there would be smoke arising from how fast I took out my credit card, but I think a large pullover one could be a great addition to my winter running attire layers nonetheless. I love the t-shirt although my consumption of cotton t-shirts is low. However, it could become my winter pj top once serious seasonal chill sets in.
Kim’s Alias the Cat.
In my opinion, it bears perhaps a more striking resemblance to the protagonist in Kim’s Alias the Cat. (For anyone fans who missed it, Alias can be purchased on Amazon here.)
Probably coming to the Pictorama closet soon.
The other shirt was much harder won and came over the transom in a very unusual way. One night over dinner we were watching American Pickers and I noticed that Mike Wolfe was wearing a really great baseball shirt which also sported a Waldo-like character with a dollop of Waldo’s joie de vivre.
Let me start by saying that a good baseball shirt is truly an essential part of the Pictorama wardrobe. My fondness for them pre-dates the prolonged pandemic embracing of ongoing at home casual attire, but have only risen in my estimation during this time. They seem to possess a multi-function quality which morphs from extra layer in bed, to a layer while running and not to mention a hedge against morning chill first thing for that predawn cup of winter coffee. I had a series of soft and thin cotton ones from The Gap which I literally wore to rags. Quite simply, I wanted this shirt and I wanted it badly.
Luckily I could read the words Hydra Glide on it clearly and that lead me to the makers of the shirt over at Dice Magazine. Not surprisingly (for those of you who follow American Pickers anyway) this turned out to be a motorcycle magazine.
Hmmm. Another Waldo kissin’ cousin?
American Pickers has long been a favorite of mine and I guess among the sins of my television watching Kim might favor it. My fondness for it goes way back and pre-dates an addiction to home renovation shows (I favor the ones with old houses in another part of the country I could theoretically afford if I sold our studio apartment) which I first discovered while on the road for work and became my go to over the past 18 months to unwind. (There was a long early pandemic period where we watch way too much CNN which I have entirely barred absent the sort of natural disaster which might make it necessary to briefly venture back.)
Off the Antique Archaeology Face Book page – toys!
For those of you who are not familiar with the show, it is essentially a low budget show on the History network with these folks who travel around the United States poking around old buildings, barns and attics and buying stuff to sell in their shop. They give some explanation about the objects along the way and although it leans heavily toward early motorcycles, bikes, cars and related advertising (which I have admittedly developed an appreciation for), toys and things more squarely in the Pictorama purview turn up. I have on occasion seen a wind-up toy and trotted off to eBay and purchased it. (See a post here although unidentified as such, and a great tin rollover Pluto I wrote about which can be found here.) Of course since Pictorama and Deitch Studio have acquire only policies we are unlikely to ever invite them to dig here.
Waldo, from Kim’s recent Reincarnation Stories, for comparison!
Admittedly, there are times when I while watching I wish they would have a better look at an object I’m interested in (oh man, wait, why aren’t they interested in that film poster? was that a Bonzo dog I just saw?), but on the whole it is a more satisfying than frustrating experience. The shop’s online presence, at a glance, does not seem to extend to the items sold in their stores so alas, no chance to score that foot long photo you lusted after in a recent episode as far as I can tell. However, all this to say, while beloved in their own way, they are not exactly who I would expect to look to for contemporary fashion.
Shirt has finally entered the Pictorama collection/closet!
I found the shirt with surprising ease online at DicE Magazine. However, of course it was an old item and they were sold out. Living in the age of the internet and feeling persistent, the show wasn’t even over before I had located it in Japan at a site called Webike. I ordered it, but will save you the excruciating details which played out over more than a month with additional fees and the shirt stuck at some sort of holding company, Google translation of the site failing me and a plea for help to the company going unanswered. (Don’t try this at home folks!)
Freakishly, just as I gave up, I went back to the original site and (yes!) scored one. Meanwhile, the wheels of Japanese commerce also eventually turned and yep, a second one showed about a week later. (Final cost to date unknown.) I now own two and frankly I like it so much that if they were less expensive I would give them to everyone on the Pictorama holiday list. For now I may just order another and tuck it away for a future rainy day – especially since I bet a bunch of you are hitting the website now.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today as promised, is a more Deitchian day than yesterday’s launch of this tale. I left yesterday’s readers hanging a bit at the point where, after Hurricane Ida, we found out that we had several feet of water in the basement of our high rise building in Manhattan, a basement where for decades we have kept a storage locker which (to some degree) alleviates life in a 600 square foot studio apartment. Hurricane Ida hit New York on a Wednesday night and Thursday dawned sunny.
Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain, the day after the storm.
We were banned from the basement which remained flooded, but the elevators made a cautious return online in the morning and I took a run and surveyed Carl Schurz Park and the East River Esplanade. Aside from several feet of water remaining in some of the lower spots, the park was okay and a clean up of broken branches and opening of storm drains was underway. The actual Esplanade, along the water, was washed clean by the rain and river water and to my surprise no detritus remained. Such flooding where I grew up resulted in everything from garbage to fish washed ashore. (Boats broken free of their moorings and would be found high and dry would await neighbors claiming them and even a mattress had to be removed from the yard after Hurricane Sandy.)
Since Kim and I were on the last leg of our vacation we had decided to head over to Dizzy’s, Isaiah Thompson was playing in a quartet of recent Juilliard grads I know from work and it was Kim’s first time back at the club since our recent reopening about ten days before. We walked across Central Park and skirted some areas that remained flooded, including Bethesda Fountain. As we walked a thought occurred to me and I asked Kim pseudo-casually, “So, um, were your notes for the Butte, Montana Details magazine story in the basement locker?” Kim said no, he didn’t think so. I thought otherwise, but nothing we could do about it right now.
The set was great that night and the waiter who knew me well from my many nights at Dizzy’s was happy to see me and Dizzy’s was starting to feel like home again. At the end of the evening I came back to the table to find him and Kim talking with Kim regaling him with the story of our trip to Butte. (Kim still sports a straw cowboy hat from a K-Mart in Butte and he was wearing it that night.) Somehow Butte, Montana was in the air. (I wrote about that trip to Dizzy’s and our vacation here.)
Carl Schurz Park the day after as well.
It was late Friday afternoon before we were allowed our first go at our locker. Puddles were still all around and an industrial fan was blowing. A cough of water spilled out when we opened the doors of the locker and a sort of river smell was everywhere. When we say water we use the term lightly because in addition to water from the East River and rain run off in New York City you are also being treated to sewerage.
The winter coats had gotten some of the worst of it, one was already molding which I threw out. The others I would ask the dry cleaner if he would attempt to clean them. (Of course they were up to their ears in bags of clothing from my neighbors when I got there.) He agreed and a few bags of wet clothes that seemed like they might stand a chance went over to them, luckily just a few doors down from our building.
An industrial juicer, some old editing equipment and the remains of a lightbox of Kim’s were trash. A light-up standing Santa, a tree star and some other holiday decorations seemed largely intact. By this time reports of deaths across the tri-state area had already begun to pile up (they were to top out around 24) and being in our basement, with a watermark about four feet high brought home the horror that it must have been for people trapped. This made us philosophical, but far from cheerful, as we tied up bags of clothing that would not recover and piled up other soaked possessions alongside our neighbor’s for the trash.
The intended splash panel of what would have been a 4 or 5 page story..
Then there it was, a folder, now soaked, with Kim’s notes and photos from a trip to Butte, Montana to cover a story about a whorehouse museum which was closing there – one of the longest running whorehouses in the country, the Dumas Brothel, and also the last standing example of a whorehouse architecture imported from Amsterdam, way back in the 1890 (or so) when it was built and opened. We had made the trip back in about 2000 when Kim was hot off of two articles he’d written and illustrated for publications in Details magazine. These were, for lack of a better term, comics-journalism – a story for the magazine researched, written and illustrated as comics. The first was his visit to death row and about the execution of Ronald Fitzgerald. (Republished in the 2006 Best American Comics, this is the best way of seeing it now.) Kim’s story of visiting Fitzgerald and getting to know him, his story and family before attending his execution, had been well received by the magazine.
The result was the opportunity to pitch another assignment which turned out to be a story idea credited to my dad who had been talking about an early computer virus named Melissa in tribute to a stripper the engineer of the virus had known in Florida. That story was a fairly light-hearted romp through the stripper community of Florida with strippers who went by the name Melissa calling us at all hours of the night for weeks ongoing.
A choice page from the roughs for the Butte, Montana story.
As Kim’s then girlfriend (now wife) I knew one thing and that was if the next story was going to be strippers I was going along for the ride this time so we purchased a ticket for me to Butte and off we went.
Norma Jean Almadovar in front of the Dumas Brothel Museum.
The basis of the story was that sex workers rights activist (and former prostitute) Norma Jean Almodovar was helping to spearhead an effort to save and restore this nascent whorehouse museum, much to the displeasure of this down at the heels city which seemed just as glad to ignore or bury this particular chapter of their history. For better or worse, Norma Jean’s idea was to re-route some of the biker traffic heading to Sturgis for their summer rally for an evening outdoor concert to raise money for the museum. It was hard for me to keep my fundraising hat off when we arrived just in time for a meeting about how this would roll out. I always say about fundraising, especially around events, don’t try this at home, it is harder than it looks and you can easily lose more than you can make. Which, long story short, is pretty much what happened.
We toured the actual building which was fascinating. Based on the brothel buildings of Amsterdam, it was three floors (and a basement) around a skylight atrium. Each room had a sort of “display” window where the woman would advertise her wares and the cribs were somewhat larger and had more light with each floor. Newbies would start in the basement cribs (dark and claustrophobic, complete with tunnels to downtown so that one could transverse in bad weather, but perhaps also without being seen entering and leaving the establishment) and work their way up. The had been a robbery recently and some of the artifacts of the museum had disappeared, but in reality the actual structure was what was fascinating.
Some of the main concepts for the reconsidered Butte article.
While there we met interesting long time residents for background on Butte, including a doctor a waitress told us about, out on the edge of town. He’d treated miners back in the day and was retired now. We visited a guy who was known as the Santa Claus of Walkerville (a nearby suburb) who gathered toys throughout the year for needy children. (I had my photo taken with him which sadly I cannot locate for you right now.) Despite the summer heat he happily put on one of his Santa suits for the photo. We also met some folks holding a tent revival meeting in opposition to the whorehouse museum and frankly they also seemed like really nice people too.
The edges of Butte end abruptly into mountains and wilderness, almost like a cartoon town in the desert. Butte had (has?) a mall strip highway of big box stores and restaurants, but the original downtown with its buildings pristinely intact also remained. Among the surviving original businesses were a few bars and a Chinese restaurant where we ate one night. Much like the brothel (a few blocks away) the restaurant was said to have tunnels under it to other parts of town. Inside the restaurant each table was its own private booth which would have had curtains over the open side, affording privacy which would have allowed other activity within. (The New York Times just published a very charming article on this restaurant which can be found here.)
Bikers congregating as part of the Dumas Brothel rally.
Our trip ended with engaging with some of the bikers in a bar while trying to get our hands around this rally and directions for getting there. I have a license but don’t drive although I did on this trip. We had an SUV and all I can say is that it was a good thing that for most of the driving I had plenty of open space around me. However, I did park the car at the rally on the grass as directed and got it stuck – it was a kindly biker who got behind the wheel and got us out.
Frankly they were all giving Kim a sort of sideways look and I was trying to do the helpless girl thing. (Kim was wearing an old shirt that belonged to a long deceased relative which had drawings of dogs on it and just when I thought we were cooked one of the bikers exclaimed that he LOVED THAT SHIRT and that he had greyhound rescues of his own.)
Butte, Montana motorcycle gathering.
To cut to the chase – almost no one showed up at the concert/rally and they lost their shirts as predicted. Kim could see the story slipping away and by the time we were back he was ready to pitch a story with a lot of heart that addressed Butte’s history and remaining spirit and unique qualities. Details (sporting a new editor, soon to be replaced by yet another), wanted more of an ironic hatchet job and when Kim demurred the story was killed. The notes assembled and found their way, along with the photos and roughs, to a folder in our basement where they were now wet, but luckily we had gotten there in time and by placing them all around our apartment (along with the surviving damp but not entirely wet clothing from numerous bins where I store the off-season clothing). The notes, roughs and photos dried out fairly quickly. Further into the locker excavation we found the much more finished roughs I am sharing here – luckily those had been tucked onto a shelf at the top.
What else came out of the locker? More to come on that in my final installment, with more Deitchian discoveries and other artifacts next week.
Pam’s Pictoram Post: Today is something Pictorama readers really have not seen before – a true collaborative moment in Kim’s work between the two of us! While it is true that our holiday card is an annual collaborative effort (this year’s card is sitting half finished on the couch in pencil as I write, for those comics interested readers who are new to Pictorama, last year’s card reveal can be found here). Additionally, one or two of my bits of writing have been illustrated by Kim (see the appendix of Reincarnation Stories, and my own reincarnation tale – or catch it up here), this marks the first time a whole idea of mine has shown up.
The 2019 Holiday card, a collaborative Deitch Studio/Pictorama production.
Taken from Kim’s next book, How I Make Comics, these pages are an actual story of mine, told in my words, but embedded as part of a longer book length story. More or less just how it unfolds in the book, we were together one night at the Q train stop on 57th Street waiting. I was watching the rats frolic on the tracks and pointed them out to Kim. I have a mixed relationship with rats – mostly fear, but also respect for how smart they are and how adaptable.
Fair to say I take the, I’ll stay in my lane and you stay in yours, Mr. Rat, approach to our ongoing, symbiotic life in a big city relationship. Of course, having grown up on the water and beach, water rats were a part of my childhood and I was cautioned about them in a way that added to whatever fear of them I might have developed on my own. Water rats are significantly larger than their city counterparts (at first I thought city rats were large mice when I got here and saw them frolicking among the garbage pails on an alley), and our story is not about them today – although I may also have a water rat story lurking in me somewhere too.
Anyway, the real life story, which is largely accurately reflected in the book (although it takes you down the usual Deitch rabbit hole shortly after), is that I went to work the next morning, got off as usual at 57th Street and found myself reflecting on the subway rats again as I walked to my office. This story evolved quickly in my mind on that short walk and I shared it with Kim the next morning. (My early morning routine of coffee, paper reading, Kim working and our talking as well as my commute – back in the before world when I had one – has been expounded upon here. In addition, for comics fans, Kim’s process was thoroughly examined by me after the release of his most recent book, Reincarnation Stories, and that post can be found here. That post is a real companion piece to this one and if you haven’t read it and find this of interest, now would be a splendid time.)
As it would happen, it is a story of rat reincarnation. I will confide that Kim has frequented told tales of his friend since childhood, Tony Eastman, who kept rats as pets at one time and what excellent pets they made – smart and likable. (A special memorial nod to Tony who to our great sadness died very recently.) The downside of this ratty relationship is that rodents cycle through their lives at a very fast pace. Now, on one hand, if they didn’t the human race would rapidly be overtaken by them with their prodigious reproduction and cunning survival instincts. On the other hand, as Kim points out, it makes it a bit sad to become attached to them as pets. Just as you get attached, they die. I was thinking of that when this story came to mind.
Preview of How I Make Comics, by Kim Deitch. Copyright, Kim Deitch.
As a student of reincarnation, I got to thinking – you have the sort of classic prisoner in a cell with only a rat who he befriends. Sadly, the rat dies – as rats and I guess we all do – and he is bereft, hesitant to invest his affections in the next one that comes along, yet finally he does. Ultimately that one, and the next one, die as well, but slowly his affection and time invested in teaching the rats is rewarded by increasingly smart generations of rats because in fact it is the same rat, reincarnated. They are gaming the evolutionary and karmic wheel by cycling through rat lives with dispatch. Eventually, the rats surpass him on the wheel of reincarnation and when he ultimately dies, he becomes an elevated rat, now under their tutelage.
Preview of How I Make Comics, by Kim Deitch. Copyright, Kim Deitch.
It struck me as a particularly Deitchenian story so I shared it with Kim the next day. Although intrigued, at first he was reluctant to do another reincarnation story, but then it took root in his imagination and to my surprise he decided not only to use it, but to use it as I wrote it out – and here are two pages from it, for your preview pleasure!
There we have it – a rare view into the inner workings of Deitch Studio. As Kim just reminded me, I have to some degree, in his words, been back-fielding on his work for years – I had forgotten that the title of Reincarnation Stories was my idea. I have always approached this thoughtfully though. After all, as Kim Deitch’s biggest fan, I had no desire to change anything – to damage it unintentionally with my influence. However, years spent together, living a largely Deitchian world existence in this one-room apartment, was bound to have an influence. And today, for the space of a post, we pull back the creative curtain for the speculation and erudition of Pictorama readers.
Pam's Pictorama 