From: [popa 0200] at [PO-Box.McGill.CA]
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 16:22:00 -0400
Subject: Comics Bios

Luke:
>Speaking of comics biographies, did you ever notice how there _are_ none?  
>(I mean full-scale stuff, as opposed to magazine articles).  That will change
>eventually, I suppose.  Does anybody know of exceptions to this rule?

Sure, lots of exceptions. There's actually quite a bit out there, tons
depending on how many languages you can read. Let's see...

Bob Kane's _Batman and Me_ is a fabulous piece of self-promotion. Many
people consider this book utterly untrustworthy but it's much fun.

Harvey Kurtzman's autobio _My Life as a Cartoonist_ isn't nearly as
good, alas.

_Joe Kubert: The War Years_, by Al Dellinges, is pretty scatter shot but
makes good reading (as does the recent CJ interview by Groth)

_The MAD world of Bill Gaines_ by Frank Jacobs has lots of good stuff in
it.

There's Joe and Jim Simon's _The Comic Book Makers_ which is good for
the early history of the US medium

Fantagraphics published some bio stuff in the mid80s. I just read the
Jack Cole book by Ron Goulart.

There was the Bharucha book on Corben (Flights into Fantasy?) which came out
in the late 70s which had, I think, some biographical stuff in it
(mostly it's got examples of his work)

The Frank Hampson (creator of Dan Dare) bio is fascinating, especially
from an industry perspective. That was by Crompton and Vince and is
called _The Man Who Drew Tomorrow_

There's a book called _The Studio_ which is about Jones, Kaluta, Wrightson
and Windsor-Smith, and also a book about Wrightson specifically. I
haven't read either of these, if anyone knows where I can get a copy of
_The Studio_ (maybe I'll try the MSU library) I'd love to learn

There's a Sendak bio by Selma Lane called _The Art of Maurice Sendak_
which is really good if you consider Sendak a cartoonist (which I do)

Also there are the encyclopedias which are generally pretty brief bios:
Horn's book, the Encyclopedia of American Comics, and the more recent
Encyclopedia of bd, only in French but the best of the bunch.

There are also a ton of books on European creators which haven't been
translated.

I'm aware of at least seven Herge biographies, plus Nina Sadoul's
book length interview _Entretiens Herge_. I think only three of these
books have been translated: Peeters' _Tintin and the World of Herge_
which dropped a lot of stuff from the french version, _Tintin and 
Herge Reporters_ (or vice versa). Both of these are tremendously
illustrated, but not very insightful. Harry Thompson't _Herge and
his creation_ is a bio which traces Herge's life book by book, though
I have way too many problems with this book to really recommend it,
it's also not illustrated because it's not approved by the Herge 
Foundation, a group which makes Marvel and DC look generous with the
way they hand out the rights to reproduce their stuff (this, of course,
is a major concern for comics academics: Routledge's _Many Lives of the 
Batman_ couldn't print any images because DC disapproved of the book, 
the bastards)

There's a series of little tiny bios published by someone in France
about many of their leading talents: Mattotti, Tardi, Bilal, etc
They're 5x5ish hardcovers, very cute.

There's a buch of stuff in Italian that I'm aware of but haven't
read, and also a bunch of stuff in Spanish, particularly on Mexican
and South American creators, that I plan on reading this summer
just to see if I'm still fluent in Spanish (I doubt it :) )

Anyways, I'm sure there's lots more that I'm forgetting, so, as you
can see Luke, it's not as bad as you might fear. In comparison to the
other arts it's lousy, yes, but that's something of a start.

To address the origin of the thread though, I would really appreciate
a good and comprehensive Kirby bio to replace the biographical notes
that you find in the books which reproduce his art. The current project
which is bringing together lots of talent from the current field to
draw Kirby's characters doesn't interest me much (hell, if Rude doesn't
get the cover I probably won't even buy it :) ), I'd much rather see
a bio in it's stead, although it's obvious why this project is in the
works in it's stead. Ah well, I guess we just have to take what's
offered to us and be grateful, eh? 

Or write the damned things ourselves.

bart