How I Make Comics: Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*The assembled group at Partners & Son.*

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

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

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

Write Soon

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

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.

How Kim Makes Comics: a Pictorama Perspective

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MoCCA Fest

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still Young

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rainbow Moon; Wishing Seat

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: There’s a first time for everything and today I claim a Pictorama first. Our featured photo is one of my husband Kim and his brother Simon. Family photos make occasional entries here, although usually a few generations back and until now always my family. However, Kim’s currently working on a story that involves his Mom, Marie, and her Mom, Kim’s grandmother which means a number of family photos have wandered out of storage and into the apartment for perusing. (See last week’s post here for a pencil detail of the story which also boasts an elephant bank I recently purchased.)

This photo would be Pictorama perfection even if it wasn’t of a young Kim and Simon, which of course does make it that much more interesting. Moon photos are a bit of a sub-genre of the Pictorama library, although it is a competitive market and so I tend to only buy those when opportunity presents itself. (For a moon photo or two you can look early posts here and here.)

I am crazy about this weird rainbow moon with its big lips, staring eye and bushy eyebrow! Kim looks like he’s having a pretty good time and Simon looks a little less sure. (I can’t blame Simon – it would be fair to be terrified of this as a small child perhaps.) Wishing Seat is painted in wavy letters behind them.

A careful look and we see that the “rocks” are all concrete and in a wavy design like hard clouds. There’s a nice little bench to perch on for your photo however and you can lean back against one of the rocks. There are trees behind them and a nondescript bit of greenery up front. The photo is a bit torn on the lower right corner – it looks like it was in an album and removed.

Kim’s already growing into a lanky build that will define him going forward, his hair already thick but cut short so mastered for the moment. Simon will remain a bit shorter, his hair straighter here at least. Kim thinks this would have been taken in about 1951 making him about seven and Si about four I think. (Sadly, Simon died recently and his passing was noted in a post found here. Youngest brother Seth yet to be born.) They were living in Detroit at the time, but Kim speculates that they could have been there or on vacation elsewhere. Car vacations were far flung affairs according to him, so there’s no real way of knowing. It was unidentified on the back so I put some notes in pencil for future generations.

It goes without saying that the moon is eerily and almost comically Deitchian in its demeanor and one can’t help but wonder if a young Kim’s brain was busy recording it and tucking it away for future artistic anthropomorphic cartoon contemplation.

Remember to Save?

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

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.

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.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30