Underground/Newave Comix: Post Your Obscure, Undocumented or Rarely Discussed 7 7

[CDNComix]

Journal of Pure Art #1-5

Published by: Jumping Duck; Contributors: John A. Adams; Date: 1980 (#1 and #2); 1982 (3-5); Price: no cover price; Page Count: #1 (14 pages); #2 (12 pages); #3 (8 pages); #4 (16 pages); #5 (12 pages);

Size: digest (5.5 x 8.5); Kennedy #: 1079-1082; #5 is uncited; Print information: one printing; 100 numbered and/or signed copies;

A dadaesque mix of art, strips, photo images and text from fine artist John Adams. Most collectors are unaware of the uncited issue #5.

Edited September 11, 2019 by CDNComix

[CDNComix]

Jacques

Published by: self-published; Contributors: Jacques Boivin; Date: 1979; Price: one dollar; Page Count: 20 pages;

Size: magazine (8.25 x 11.0); Kennedy #: 1055; Print information: one printing;  2 colour variants; 1000 copies total;

Sort of odd that Kennedy did not expand upon the "Jacques" credited on the inner front cover of this beautiful Canadian underground magazine to the full identity of Jacques Boivin.. Kennedy only could have known that a 1,000 copies were printed by talking directly to Boivin.

Edited September 13, 2019 by CDNComix

[porcupine48]

23 minutes ago, CDNComix said:

Jacques

Published by: self-published; Contributors: Jacques Boivin; Date: 1979; Price: one dollar; Page Count: 20 pages;

Size: magazine (8.25 x 11.0); Kennedy #: 1055; Print information: one printing;  2 colour variants; 1000 copies total;

Sort of odd that Kennedy did not expand upon the "Jacques" credited on the inner front cover of this beautiful Canadian underground magazine to the full identity of Jacques Boivin.. Kennedy only could have known that a 1,000 copies were printed by talking directly to Boivin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 1000 copies I'm likely out of luck,but I'm going to throw out some feelers on this one,as I'm delighted to notice it's from my town!I knew about Aircel comics being produced here(well,Nepean,but amalgamation has brought the satellite towns together) but hadn't heard of this.Ottawa used to be a big comic spot it seems,what happened?!?

Edit-you may have read this,but I was snooping about and stumbled across it

https://www.comicbookdaily.com/columns/forgotten-silver/the-early-works-of-jacques-boivin/

Edited September 13, 2019 by porcupine48

[Get Marwood & I]

On 9/6/2019 at 4:26 PM, CDNComix said:

That's an interesting one!

Great thread 

[comicwiz]

Great thread, appreciate the time and effort you have put into compiling all this information and sharing it here. For some reason or another, this thread was brought to my attention earlier today and I've just now finished going through everything.

There were a number of cover tells I discovered going back over 20 years ago, there is one for Snatch #1. It is an exceedingly rare comic, and I was fortunate to acquire mine about 20 years ago. It didn't come easy or cheap. I remember Howard (EggsAckley) coming up to visit me just to see this copy, one of the earliest instances where I got to meet another dedicated collector of UG's, before I began visiting cons and making friendships with others later on.

I thought I might find an instance of me describing the tell through numerous shares in the early 2000's, but I guess the internet has a way of purging old data. I wrote a lengthy article which was an interview with Don that broke out the reasons they had to change the S. Clay drawing. That was on the old CPG forums. I checked out the comixjoint site and noticed they haven't referenced it. The tell has probably since been appropriated by some of the new breed of UG collectors (if not openly, I'm sure they're using it to seek them out), but just in case it isn't as well known. And on the off-chance @the blob has an old photo or scan of the one he listed.

There is a printing error/artifact on the front cover, below the "m" and just above the girl's head - this white "blip" on the otherwise continuous white line that travels horizontally across the front cover was corrected for all later printings:

Edited September 15, 2019 by comicwiz

[the blob]

Sorry, those scans are long gone. I sold a third print recently, but those are not HTF

[comicwiz]

23 minutes ago, the blob said:

Sorry, those scans are long gone. I sold a third print recently, but those are not HTF

I picked up my third-print off Abeboobks some 15 years back. There was no photo, and it described it as very good condition. I took a gamble and paid $100 for it unseen. When it arrived, I couldn't believe how amazing the condition of it was - had hoped VG or even FN, but for it to grade what it did was unbelievable, so I can see why the one you had listed (even if it wasn't a first print) went fast at $25. This is an old scan, but finding these in nice shape is tough. And I can guarantee none of these were pressed.

 

[the blob]

The 3rd print I sold was a cgc9.8 and I think I got less than $250. Anyway, I don't know what print I sold years ago for $25. I think there was less on the internet to educate me and I stupidly put it up with a $25 Bin figuring I had paid 50 cents or whatever. It went so quickly I figure someone knew exactly which one it was.

Edited September 15, 2019 by the blob

[comicwiz]

15 hours ago, the blob said:

The 3rd print I sold was a cgc9.8 and I think I got less than $250. Anyway, I don't know what print I sold years ago for $25. I think there was less on the internet to educate me and I stupidly put it up with a $25 Bin figuring I had paid 50 cents or whatever. It went so quickly I figure someone knew exactly which one it was.

Curious, since you said you paid 50¢, do you remember if yours had a 50¢ price sticker on it that looked like this?

Edited September 16, 2019 by comicwiz

[the blob]

38 minutes ago, comicwiz said:

Curious, since you said you paid 50¢, do you remember if yours had a 50¢ price sticker on it that looked like this?

No, it was in my shop's cheap box. Unless it was a mainstream book he didn't know what to do with it a and used to chuck a lot of interesting stuff in there before he started doing more internet research.

[comicwiz]

As was previously mentioned in this thread (at least I seem to recollect it was), Don Donahue had told me in a memorable telephone conversation that a large chunk of the first print run was scooped up by Moe Moskowitz, which he restickered immediately with a 50¢ price sticker to sell in his bookstore Moe's Books. I have seen two different versions of the price sticker (the other was round), and while both covered the original cover price, you can still see it's a first print from the cover tell I mentioned previously. Both unfortunately received qualified grades if I remember correctly. Even more unfortunate is that we don't know if many of the surviving copies have had the sticker removed in order to avoid receiving a green label designation. Which if so, would be a shame, since I've always regarded the examples sold in Moe's Books to be an important part of the history. Further compounding the issues of lining up the S Clay drawing that forced it to be a very short run, the remaining fragment of still unsold stock was involved in the Mowry Opera fire, and I remember Don telling me how he saw a few firefighters stuffing their pockets with a few of the mini-sized comics.

I have seen another version with a what looks like a half peeled-away square price sticker with 50¢ written in pen. I do believe the square one is correct to the period when Moe acquired them, although I have received input from people who were buying comics in the 60's who saw this practice (of using 50¢ and 75¢) stickers on books being resold in shops. I  mention this because it's possible these were purchased by other dealers, and to avoid seeming as though they were simply reselling Moe's comics in their shops, they removed Moe's and used their own price stickers. The 60's was still very early times of stores specializing in retailing comics, with Bob Sidebottom running one of the early ones in California (at least two years before Don printed Snatch 1). Rather interestingly Don later assumed a large inventory of UG's from Bob Sidebottom, which caused me and a few other issues, but that's a story for another time (I was thinking of linking a part of this story for anyone interested in reading more, but I noticed my past thread posted on these forums is gone).

Edited September 16, 2019 by comicwiz

[CDNComix]

On 9/14/2019 at 7:17 PM, comicwiz said:

Great thread, appreciate the time and effort you have put into compiling all this information and sharing it here. For some reason or another, this thread was brought to my attention earlier today and I've just now finished going through everything.

Everything? That's great news and thanks for sharing the great cover tell for a Snatch #1 first printing and its history through the hands of the "great resellers". Some rarer stuff in my collection came to me via a collector who bought directly off of Donahue twenty plus years ago. He was told by Donahue that a good chuck of that was from Sidebottom. Funny how these things never travel that far and together as a group. Yes, please share about how Sidebottom's stuff caused you some issues. I am interested.

Edited September 16, 2019 by CDNComix

[CDNComix]

Kookie Comics #4

Published by: self-published; Contributors: Thomas Anderson; Robert Anderson; Zac Trenholm; Tony Klemen; Date: 1976; Price: 10 cents; Page Count: 20 pages;

Size: digest (5.25 x 8.0); Kennedy #: not cited; Print information: unknown;

At first glance, Kookie Comics looks like an underground and because of its rarity an amazing find. But in truth, its just a kookie comic produced by 2 brothers from their Californian print shop. I would not be surprised me if the Comics Code Authority label on the front cover was legitimate and not a spoof. I also would not be surprised if the Anderson brothers declared any profits from Kookie Comics #4 when they filed their 1976 tax return.

Edited September 16, 2019 by CDNComix

[comicwiz]

2 hours ago, CDNComix said:

Everything? That's great news and thanks for sharing the great cover tell for a Snatch #1 first printing and its history through the hands of the "great resellers". Some rarer stuff in my collection came to me via a collector who bought directly off of Donahue twenty plus years ago. He was told by Donahue that a good chuck of that was from Sidebottom. Funny how these things never travel that far and together as a group. Yes, please share about how Sidebottom's stuff caused you some issues. I am interested.

Going back some 25 years ago, I had begun buying more seriously from several well-known, and some not so well-known, inventories. One of the people I was buying from was Don. Don was a great guy and always gracious with his time. I realized very quickly though, that while he may have not seemed so to everyone, that from my experiences and learning about some of his practices, he must have aspired to be a great business person also. I had been in contact with him for years asking for specific items, and would later discover that he had these items, but was selling them to people who I was in frequent contact with for one reason or another.

So the situation would be like this, have a conversation with Don, ask him to let me know whenever he had X or Y, and he would oblige to do so. A year or two later, person A or B, who I would talk with frequently (not about items I wanted either) would tell me, hey I just picked up item X or Y from Don. Perhaps they were more astute than either I or Don realized, because I would eventually be buying from them at 2 to 3 times what it might have cost me if Don had sold them to me first. As much as this left a bad taste in my mouth, Don was an easy person to deal with otherwise, and I would frequently buy from him. Somewhere I have a small pile of the mail order pamphlets he would send me with each order. Around mid 2000's, I bought some really nice high grade UG's. One of them was a Funny Aminals #nn, first appearance of Maus in comics. I sent it off to CGC. I already had a CGC 9.4 copy, but really felt this had a shot at grading a 9.6. I didn't mind upgrading my collection, nor do I mind hoarding certain covers - that cover always appealed to me for some reason.

Anyhow, the book comes back an apparent/restored grade of 9.4. I looked the book over in light and noticed a tiny little bit of what appeared to be watercolour or some similar type of media on the spine. Frankly, I would have never imagined to need to check anything coming from Don's backstock, because it just wasn't a prevalent practice within the ranks and small community of UG collectors.

This also wasn't your typical amateur sharpie job. So I contact Don, and ask him if this was something he was familiar with or knew more about. To be honest, this was so out of the blue that I half hoped this might have been a production correction while these were being printed, and someone on the line figured he'd try to mask the damage on the spine for being too stoned or dozing off and not tending to the run as attentively. But it seemed counter-intuitive as it was a barely noticeable defect, and again, a practice so far removed from what underground collectors might do even if he did assume these from a collector. I was a bit ticked at the time if I have to be honest, and urged him to explain if this was a one-of, or if there might be others I needed to be concerned about. It was the only time I had ever sent a restored comic to CGC, and the cost to ship from Canada was not only expensive, but a big headache with customs (and I'm not only referring to duties, but what might have been viewed as "offensive" nature of the content). I remember there being a story of a Canadian collector who had a large collection siezed at customs around the time, and that always made me vet my submissions a little more carefully in terms of what was on the front and back cover. Even after pressing him, Don hadn't yet figured out what was happening, and I didn't feel like being that guy to put the screws to him that day.

Knowing a handful of others within the community were now sending off books to be graded that came from Don, I put out a post on these boards with the title "No Wind, No Waves." In it, I explained the situation, and warned people that there might be more comics from Don's inventory that were colour touched. Jim Pitts (former UG consultant to Heritage, and former Hippycomix partner) chimed-in and felt the post was a bit heavy handed, and promised at the very least to get the story from Don (something I wasn't able to get out of him when we had spoken). Jim returned to the thread a day or two later stating that Don had assumed Bob Sidebottom's inventory at some point, and that the "problem" comics were likely from the Sidebottom backstock. He also went on to say that Bob Sidebottom had a son who was an aspiring artist, and Don was led to believe Bob's son had been practising on his dad's comics, and I guess masking defects was seen as an artistic pursuit of some sort.

While I appreciated Jim doing what he did, I wasn't particularly fond of the way the whole situation went down and how it had been handled. And then within a year or two, I began seeing Don selling off a bunch of stuff through Heritage as file copies, and I mean the influx of high grades was astounding for a guy who by appearances didn't seem to care about grades. Worst of which is I was getting PM's from people who didn't want to post publicly,, but that they too learned a costly lesson with books returning with restored labels that they had purchased through Don. It was a conflicted situation for certain. I had a tremendous respect for Don as an instigator to the underground comix movement, but this was something I couldn't look away from, since I felt he should have been vetting his backstock more carefully. It did feel whatever relationship, even if it was strictly seller to customer, had been strained a bit with my raising public awareness around the problem. I knew he was a widow at that point, and was putting a lot of energy into trying to sell off as much of this stuff as he could rather than leaving the problem to surviving family members, and the last thing I wanted to do is get in the way. I know I'm probably leaving out some detail that escapes me now, but that was the issue and how it went down.

Edited September 16, 2019 by comicwiz

[CDNComix]

Star Trek "Spook in Heat"

Published by: self published; Contributor: Randy Crawford; Date: 1977; Price: no cover price; Page Count: 12 pages;

Size: mini (3.0 x 4.25); Kennedy #: 1878; Print information: multiple printings; 1,250 copies according to Kennedy;

One of about ten Tijuana bible style minis that Randy Crawford produced in the 70s. Pretty tough find for a over 1,000 copy book. Crude in every possible aspect: concept, production and artistic merit. God bless you Mr. Crawford.

Edited September 18, 2019 by CDNComix

[CDNComix]

Bozo Soofi Mystical Instruction Comix

Published by: self published; Contributor: Jeff Beddow; Date: 1979; Price: no cover price; Page Count: 20 pages;

Size: A3 (14.0 x 17.0); Kennedy #: 338; Print information: one printing of 1,000 copies; according to Kennedy 500 of which which numbered and signed; according the creator 2,000 copies were produced and the majority of which remained unsold and were damaged while in storage;

Earlier in this this this thread (page 10), I posted about a little known collaboration digest called Caffe Comics published by Jeff Beddow. Bozo Soofi is his ambitious solo work that was inspired by the death of Elvis in 1977. I do not consider it to be an underground or a comic, but a series of art panels. Thankfully Kennedy did cite it in his guide and alerted me to this wonderful publication.

Edited September 25, 2019 by CDNComix

[porcupine48]

That's a biggie,hard to store!

[CDNComix]

On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 3:25 PM, porcupine48 said:

That's a biggie,hard to store!

Yes, it is pretty big. I store it like an underground newspaper: wrapped and flat on its side.

[CDNComix]

Rumbles! #1 and #2

Published by: Final Notice Productions; Contributor: Marian Lydbrooke; Dave Lester; Date: #1 (1980); #2 (1981); Price: #1 (75 cents); #2 (35 cents); Page Count: large sheet folded into four sections; cover and 3 comic pages on one side and a large poster pin-up on the other;

Size: unfolded sheet (17.25 x 22.5); Kennedy #: not cited; Print information: unknown;

Porcupine's comments above "that's a biggie" reminded  me of this activist edu-publication from Vancouver, Canada. Not every collector's cup-of-tea, but definitely appeals to this Canadian. Around the same time, both Lydbrooke and Lester submitted some strips to Jay Kinney that were published in Anarchy #3.

Edited September 23, 2019 by CDNComix

[porcupine48]

That's right up my alley too.Reminds me of something Gerry Hannah(Vancouver Five,Direct Action)may have been involved in or read way back when.

Edited September 23, 2019 by porcupine48