Foxing Reprints #13: Mineshaft #30

For those not in the know, Mineshaft is one of the last great comics and culture zines. It's one of the last bastions for the underground cartoonists of the 60s and 70s , as well as the next generation of the 80s and several young cartoonists in that style as well. Thanks to the friendship between editor/publisher Everett Rand and Robert Crumb, the latter contributes drawings, entries from his dream journals and other ephemera in every issue. This, the 15th anniversary issue, is especially Crumb-heavy. He contributes sketchbook material for both the front and back covers as well as some especially weird (astral projection, flying saucers) dreams from his journal, complete with illustrations. Brilliant young cartoonist Christoph Mueller did an autobio strip about Crumb, his inspiration and mentor. The young crosshatch king's strip is hilarious,  as a letter that Crumb wrote him praising him to the heavens naturally has the effect of paralyzing him at the drawing board. Mueller also selected a number of drawings and strips from Crumb's sketchbook to close ou the issue, and it features Crumb's neuroses at their most focused. Needless to say, Mineshaft is a must for fans of Crumb.

The beauty of Mineshaft, however, is that there are always other surprises. For example, I was stunned to see five pages of new autobio comics from the legendary Justin Green. Green is better than ever, combining his restless intellectual curiosity regarding small details with fighting off his well-documented anxiety and OCD. Following the work of that veteran is a harrowing excerpt from "Dark Ground", a story by younger cartoonist Elizabeth Koenig. Koenig works in Green's tradition (indeed, her figurework and line is similar to Green's, if considerably less polished) and the story of a young runaway thinking back to emotional and physical abuse as a new world beckons to her is compelling. 

Other interesting work includes Mary Fleener's political cartoons for her local newspaper, an amazing Jay Lynch drawing that includes a who's-who of underground characters, and several autobiographical strips from Zippy by Bill Griffith. On the slightly odder front is an illustrated essay by another master craftsman, William Crook, Jr. It's pen and ink drawings of various old sights from Route 66 in Illinois, including a restaurant that had a huge windmill blades and beautiful signs in front of other destinations. His two page drawing of Chicago is a marvel to behold. While some issues of Mineshaft veer harder into alternative cultures of the past and present, this one will be of special interest to comics fans. It acts as a place for cartoonists who don't have an active publishing outlet or who only tend to publish longer works to disseminate their comics for an appreciative audience, one that is eager to see new work rather than simply wax nostalgic about their older comics. 

Another Vein Extracted: Mineshaft #29

Mineshaft continues to roll on with another issue filled with unexpected treasures. This issue is comics and photography-heavy, with no poetry or short stories in the mix. I imagine editors Everett Rand and Gioia Palmieiri take what they can get as far as that goes, but it's interesting to see how they build those contributions into a coherent whole. As I noted in my presentation about Mineshaft at DICE in November, Rand and Palmieri really are in a position where they are bringing up esoteric, buried and hidden treasures into sharper view. That's especially true of artists who want an outlet for short stories or pieces that don't necessarily fit into the rest of what they do. For other artists, they contribute to support Mineshaft's mission and keep their own visibility intact.

For example, the issue starts with a typically amiable and sharp strip by David Collier about the end of the use of film in movie theaters. It's a warm and witty take that's very much a personal one, and he even skewers himself and his obsession with film in the final panel. That's followed by six single-panel political cartoons from Mary Fleener, who's been reprinting her work off and on in Mineshaft for quite some time. She included some of her best cartoons here, some of which have nothing to directly do with politics at all. The relative sobriety of those features is broken up by one of Aaron Lange's hilarious, profane and slickly-drawn comics that incorporates the same kind of flat, advertising art/romance comic art-related imagery that influenced folks like Dan Clowes.

Different styles of short comics keep coming at the reader, including an interesting digression from Aleksandar Zograf (on Eastern Europe's upcoming role in bridging the gap between Europe and Asia), Christoph Mueller (in an astounding strip that's sort of a cross between Chris Ware and Robert Crumb) and a sketchbook from the late Spain Rodriguez, which he sent to Mineshaft shortly before he died. This was extensively cleaned up by Pat Moriarty, and there are some truly remarkable drawings here, especially the crowd scenes which seemed partly sketched from life and partly as a satirical pastiche.  The rest of the issue is filled up with more of Crumb's dream diaries, which are both amusing and vaguely disturbing, as one would expect, as well as a photo essay on blues artists from the 1960s. These were taken during the folk explosion that dug up countless bluesmen, many of whom had had to take other jobs in the intervening years. The photos of legends like Son House are especially powerful, capturing, his elegance and wry sense of humor. That said, the spread is considerably less esoteric than the average Mineshaft photo feature, even if the photos themselves are artfully composed. The issue concludes, in a more typical Mineshaft fashion, with a Charles Bukowski poem illustrated by Moriarty and inked by Collier. That kind of collaboration and the platform that Mineshaft provides for it sums up the zine's mission and is also the reason why it receives so much support from the alt and underground comics communities.

On Exhibit: Mineshaft #28

Reading the average issue of Mineshaft is like going on a particularly well-curated art walk in a culturally refined small city. Going from one page to the next, one never knows if they're going to be encountering an interesting poem, some startling illustration work, some thought-provoking photography, an interesting comic or something else altogether. Editors Everett Rand and Gioia Palmieri continue to unearth local and forgotten culture from every end of the earth, sprinkling in the works of underground and alternative cartoonists with a variety of other material. For example, the issue leads off with photographs of both the works and the installation sites for the guerrilla photography project CorpusTrip. The reader is immediately confronted with the image of a naked, weatherbeaten woman with a cigarette defiantly dangling from her lips. It's an astounding image, one of many from this project that put atypical models in decrepit spaces, and then put the final product in even more unlikely spaces, like on the back of a a garbage truck.

Everything feels especially sharp in this issue. The poems from Adelle Stripe, J.R. Helton and Andrei Codrescu are all vividly detailed and even visceral. The charcoal drawings by Billy Childish are amazing, as their wavy lines evoke powerful feelings, especially the one depicting the death of a man in the snow. The Brad Barrett photo essay of late 60s San Diego is fascinating in the way it juxtaposes sleazy strip clubs and small shops with the elderly citizenry sitting at nearby bus stops. In terms of comics content, there are a few pages from Aleksandar Zograf and Pat Moriarty that are amusing anecdotes/rants but not what I would call major work. On the other hand, the Christoph Mueller strip "The Mighty Millborough" is a triumph of design, humor and sheer drawing ability. His work is a sort of synthesis of Chris Ware and Robert Crumb, delving deeply into the id in a crisp, orderly and clean fashion. And of course, the Robert & Aline Crumb jam at the end of the issue, which turns out to be a deleted section of the R.Crumb Handbook, is a typically funny account of the way these two talk to each other, this time in the context of Aline giving a suggested workout routine for cartoonists. Finally, David Collier advertises his folksy, meticulously-drawn stories about life in Canada with a folksy, entertaining comic. Mineshaft continues to be one of the last great bastions for sharing both high and low culture in zine form, focusing on what is local across the world. Mineshaft seeks a true cross-pollination of cultural ideas rather than a media-backed form of cultural imperialism that strangles local culture. I admire its editors for continuing to publish in the face of limited resources.

Sequart Reprints: Mineshaft 19

The best publications about comics are those that reflect the idiosyncratic interests and viewpoints of its creators. Mineshaft's Everett Rand and Gioia Palmieri are interested in comics of the underground era, dating up to the early alternative years. What's remarkable about this unassuming little zine is the stunning array of art and talent they're able to assemble in each issue. Issue #19, for instance, sports a front cover by Peter Bagge, a back cover by Robert Crumb, and inside illustrations by Carol Tyler and Mary Fleener. The 52-page zine is packed with rare art and strips from a list of artists that reads like a who's-who of underground stars.

The first ten pages are dedicated to some of Crumb's sketchbook drawings. These include drawings from life, hilarious strips, funny-animal bits, autobiographical confessions, etc.--all from the past ten years or so. Jay Lynch and Ed Piskor teamed up for a tale from Lynch's underground days. Mary Fleener contributed some of her excellent Mary-Land strips printed in a local California publication. There are illustrations by Simon Deitch (including one of the Bill Everett character Venus!), a strip by Penny Van Horn, a chapter from a delightfully lurid serial by Frank Stack and a crazy robot illustration by Robert Armstrong. Each page holds new and unexpected delights.

What takes Mineshaft above the status of simply being an interesting depository for underground comics art are the essays, poems and other bits of writing ephemera. Palmieri's account of meeting Peter Bagge at Heroes Con was fascinating because it came from someone who does not have the perspective of being a comics insider. Bruce Simon's illustrated essay on cartoons about television was brief but both amusing and incisive. The letters page is another little treasure trove of interesting material, including a long letter from Crumb. Mineshaft has a fairly narrow focus in the comics it chooses to run and examine, but any fan of the artists from the underground/early alternative era will find it to be essential reading. About the only thing I would have like to have seen more of in this issue are reviews, especially by artists about other artists.
Mineshaft has a lack of pretension and mercifully lacks the name-dropping tendencies of similar magazines devoted to collecting comics art from one's collection. The publishers love comics, love certain artists in particular and publish a humble magazine dedicated to seeing that love through in print. It'll be interesting to see if they ever choose to focus beyond the 1960-1990 roster of talent and devote an issue to more contemporary work.

Sweeping The Underground: Mineshaft #24

Rob reviews issue #24 of the underground grab-bag, MINESHAFT.

It never fails to amaze me just how much editors Everett Rand and Gioia Palmieri are able to pack into every issue of MINESHAFT. The covers alone are often worth the price, and this issue's delightfully bizarre Mary Fleener cover is no exception. She's seen all too infrequently in comics these days, but MINESHAFT has been one of her more regular outlets as of late. Of course, MINESHAFT is about all of the odd and overlooked corners of our culture, from the poems of the Brutalists to photographs from the "Cabinet of Curiosities" (lots and lots of conjoined twin remains) to a bracing feature on the death of newspapers framed by the mastheads of dozens of dead and dying papers. The Brutalist poems fit right into the underground aesthetic of the zine, detailing the day-to-day life of the working class in an unflinching manner. Adelle Stripe's stream-of-consciousness memories about her awakening sexuality were particularly memorable.

The big draws in this issue were assorted odds and ends from legends R.Crumb and Skip Williamson. Williamson contributed some pages from his sketchbook, including a stunning likeness of Harvey Kurtzman. Williamson is clearly an artist that's had a big impact on today's cartoonists, yet he's not as widely discussed as his contemporaries. Crumb contributed the back cover, a five-page letter to Rand that's endlessly fascinating (noting that he voted for Barack Obama--and that this was the first time he had ever voted for president), and several pages from his dream diary. It's clear that Crumb and Rand have a close relationship, and that shows in the intimacy of Crumb's correspondence and the sheer volume of material he's contributed over the years. Rand's tastes and passion for underground comics and culture has acted as a magnet of sorts, as countless veterans of the scene have flocked to contribute.

At the same time, it's not so much about an era as it is about a certain aesthetic for Rand, and so he's given room to younger artists like Ed Piskor (drawing a truly demented story by Sarah Sveda) and Joseph Remnant. Every issue seems to draw in another veteran; this time around, it was David Collier contributing a strip in exchange for a subscription. The ultimate expression of Rand's interests came in the form of a book review about Charles Bukowski, written by Dennis Eichorn and drawn by Pat Moriarity. That's a remarkable convergence, one that resulted in a clever and elegant essay that blended Bukowski's poems, Eichorn's commentary and Moriarity's inventive page design. The Eichorn piece is an example of a tiny story nugget that otherwise would not have had an appropriate home, while the assorted sketches from legendary artists are even rawer examples of this. MINESHAFT isn't truly an anthology, but rather a sampling of undiscovered and unpublished obscurities whose existence is simply a delight for a comics fan.