RebelVisions

I visited Donahue at his Berkeley warehouse in September 1998 with S. Clay Wilson and my wife Ginny. Sidebottom's boxes were piled high everywhere. The stock was alphabetically sorted. We spent the afternoon there and Don sold Wilson a bunch of Barbarian Women at cover price for old time's sake. Here's some of what Don had to say about his mail order biz.

As I recall Dave Moriarty blamed the black lines on a wrinkle in the felt blanket that covers the offset press roller.

Yeah it is confusing. I prefer my books in hardcover but I don't always have a choice. Fantagraphics Underground, or the FU Imprint publishes books with limited appeal in small print runs of 500 or less. Generally they are only sold on the company website or at convention tables. The George Metzger reprint of Beyond Time and Again was one of those. The new Crumb Compendium by Carl Richter is another. Black Prince of the Underground too. They say the FU imprint allows them to take a chance on books that might cost too much to produce and distribute the old way. Wilson got hardcovers and Spain got softcovers. No disrespect to Spain, but they could knock five bucks off the retail price of each book that way. They thought they would sell more copies. Sheridan is another story. The editor Mark Burstein wanted the book to look big and beautiful so he not only waived royalties but also added some of his own money toward production costs. Now that's commitment, huh? These economic considerations become more critical as old underground fans ride off into the sunset and the youngsters no longer care for the rampant obscenity and impunity that make the undergrounds so damn funny. They're not laughing in this political climate. I wrote an article for this year's Comicon souvenir book about the 50th anniversary of Zap and I didn't hear even one comment from anyone about it. In fifty years the pendulum will swing back to the left and my grandchildren will benefit from the reprinting of my books to art schools and English departments.

Hi everyone. I haven't seen this forum for a while. I didn't know it still existed but a friend sent me a note saying Black Prince of the Underground was brought up, and here I am. Feels like deja vu. We had a release party yesterday at the Hollywood theater in Portland, my home town. I presented a 45 minute slide show on Osborne. It was a good turnout too, for such an obscure cartoonist. The book is available from Fantagraphics, and reprints 99% of Osborne's published work. There was a Tiny Tim poster from the 1980s that I couldn't track down, and I think he had an illustration in Dude magazine (Home of the D-Cup) but I'm not sure. I've been a busy boy and I have two other books coming out this fall. PR