Will Eisner's Shop Talk!

Will Eisner interviewed other important figures in comics back when Kitchen Sink had the property. These interviews would run in issues of The Spirit Magazine and the subsequent Will Eisner's Quarterly. The interviews were collected together in the book Shop Talk first published a decade ago. The book is made up transcripts of these interviews decorated with lots of artwork by the talents involved. 

Here at the Internet Archive is an absolute treasure trove of these interviews as they were recorded. I had not heard the voices of most of these fellows and it gives them a bit more presence in my life for sure. To admire Gil Kane's artwork is great, but to actually hear him talk about his process is amazing. Likewise with the others such as Jack Kirby, C.C. Beck, Joe Simon, Harvey Kurtzman, Neal Adams, Joe Kubert and Joe Gill. There are hours and hours of information from the sources themselves, all of them deceased now. 

WILL EISNER'S SHOP TALK - INTERNET ARCHIVE

Here are the individual Kitchen Sink magazine issues in which these interviews first appeared. 

(Gil Kane)

(C.C. Beck)

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The World's Oddest Profession!

I've been wanting to snag this fun looking offering from  Yoe Books for quite some time. The price was a bit prohibitive though and I couldn't justify it. But I managed to wheedle a bit and got it from a dealer for small bucks and brought it home at last. Comics About Cartoonists - The World's Oddest Profession is a collection of stories which point back to their very real world creation by referencing in some way the men (exclusively men in this collection by the way) who actually spilled the ink and fashioned them. The kind of fourth wall breaking stuff is always a hoot and has always been a feature of comics, an artistic form which has a really resilient quality for this kind of thing.

See above for a catalog of the talents contained in the pages within the tome. Besides a horde of public domain comics there are few which might surprise, such as a Will Eisner Spirit tale, a handful of strips from Elzie Segar's Popeye, and some stuff from Al Capp. Throw in great talents like Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Steve Ditko, Wally Wood, Frank Frazetta, Sheldon Mayer and so many more and you have a broad overview of different kinds of comics. There are funny animal tales, science fiction yarns, mystery tales, and simple gag comics. All kinds of weird stuff to tickle the comic book fan's inner self.

Here is a gallery of comic book covers which are featured inside the book, including the Punch Comics cover which serves as the decidedly memorable cover of the entire tome. These will give you a good sense of the wide array of different kinds of comics contained within.  Craig Yoe and his associates have done us all a favor.

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Government Issue!

Government Issue: Comics for the People, 1940's-2000's is an adorable volume from Abrams Comicart which showcases decades of comics used for safety advice, military propaganda, civil defense information, drug abuse dramatizations, and many other uses. Written and compiled by Richard L. Graham and featuring a forward by Sid Jacobson, former Harvey editor and who along with Ernie Colon has produced some of the best nonfiction comics of the last decade, this volume tries to be comprehensive.

The only knock is that I'd have loved to have had more full comics, but space as always with these kinds of collections is a premium. From benign comics like one about fighting fires starring Smokey the Bear to infamous tomes like Milt Caniff's "How to Spot a Jap" to safety tips from the Peanuts gang, this one truly has something for everyone. There's vigorous work by Jack Sparling and some of the earliest comics work ever by Neal Adams. Also on hand are some great King Features characters and even Walt Kelly's Pogo shows up.

For a gander at some of the material contained take a gander at the covers below, some by seasoned and respected professionals in the comic book biz.

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