Comic writer and artist Bernie Mireault died this month. He was 63. I was not familiar with him or his work, but my friend and collaborator Nat Gertler, wearing his About Comics publisher’s hat, worked with Mr. Mireault to get his much-lauded comic, The Jam, back into print.
In the remembrances that followed Mireault’s passing, his work was praised and cited as being too little known for how well-regarded it is. He was described as a cartoonist’s cartoonist. About Comics made their reprint available at cost for about a week, so I grabbed a copy to see for myself what everyone was talking about.
The story opens with our would-be hero, a mere mortal, getting the upper hand in a mugging about to go very wrong. That’s something I really loved here — The Jam is about a superhero who is not superhuman. He’s a guy who wants to see some good in the world and has realized he can be part of that good. But, darker forces are gathering. Disillusioned young men are being drawn to a leader with a plan, and soon enough, the Jam has pissed off the Devil himself. So, if you read The Tick and thought, I wish this had a dash of Sandman, well, you’re in the right longbox.
Mireault’s The Jam is great! The writing and art are a lot of fun, and very well done. It’s a grownup comic, but not quite what modern marketing people would call “gritty.” There was also something really charming about the art that reminded me of, well, The Tick or old concert posters of the era. That late-1980s indie comic feel, from the black-and-white explosion. But story also felt rooted in a very real vision of a real city. There’s also a ton of technical know-how and thought going into each panel, each word balloon. I realized I was analyzing the lettering at various points, and thinking about how crazy it is, but still really well done, really fun. Reading The Jam made me think, “Yeah, comics are good.”
But, I should note that comics are rarely kind, or just. If you are having thoughts of suicide, you can reach out for support by texting or calling 988. The helpline is available 24/7 across the US and all of its territories.
Action Comics #1 (DC, 1938) sold recently for $6M, breaking all previous records for a comic book sold at auction.
Action Comics Number 1, sold for $6 million, image courtesy Heritage Auctions
$6M for one comic book? That’s *a lot* of money for a comic book. It is nearly double the previous record set only a few years ago in 2021, which I think has since been regarded as funded through someone moving crypto around.
Granted, this most recent purchase is perhaps *the* comic book. If there is one comic book to own, one of these copies would be it. I’m not begrudging the auction result. $6M is a small number in the world of fine art auctions. Even for rare books, $6M wouldn’t crack the top 10 of record auction results. But for comics, it’s enormous.
But, for $6M, you could buy something absolutely unique—not just one of a handful. Totally. Unique. And if you want to stay with comics, you can buy *a lot* of original comic art for $6M. Not just a piece or two, but an incredible collection. Original comic art is still among the best art bargains in the world, and perhaps if we play a game, I can show what I mean.
Let’s say we’ve hit some kind of Brewster’s Millionsscenario1 where we must spend $6M, and must be spent on original comic art. And not $1M in comic art and $5M on a really nice house and estate for it all. All $6M of it on comic art. I will buy stuff I like, not things as “an investment,” and talk about my selections. Art I want to hang on my walls and live with and enjoy. After spending $6M on original art, conservation funding, gallery space, and state-of-the-art storage will be added as a reward, so I don’t have to worry about it as I’m splashing out for big-ticket items and don’t let my museum curator brain get too distracted about planning and worrying about caring for it all longterm. I’ve worked in museums for over twenty years now, so I can’t help but think about these things.
Some parameters: The budget must be respected — I will only spend $6M and get as close as possible to spending all $6M.
In the interest of transparency, I will only shop publicly. Gotta show those receipts. No bidding up the next cool thing to $6M and be done. No deals with a wink and a nod to pay $6M for something not worth anywhere near that and split the difference on the back end. Let’s keep this as above board as high-end art buying can be. [cough]
And let’s make the prices recent. No buying Jack Kirby art from a fanzine auction in 1972 and owning every piece by Jack Kirby to cross into private hands. So, let’s say anything purchased must be from any 2020 or more recent public sale. Also, no buying a whole comic shop for $6M.
And lastly, as curator of the Schulz Museum, it’d be a conflict of interest for me to buy any Peanuts art, so there will be no Charles M. Schulz art on this list, though it’d be a dream come true to own anything by him.
Did I forget anything? Write me and let me. Ok, let’s go!
This particular Calvin & Hobbes Sunday has so much going for it. We get the stars of the strip doing the classic “ride downhill in a wagon” theme having a fun conversation.
I grew up in the 1980s and ’90s, so Watterson hooked me early on and was the “cannot miss” comic strip each day. Calvin & Hobbes was the strip we talked about on the playground of Ruth Hill Elementary School in Lincoln, Nebraska. I begged for the reprint paperback book collections when they came out, added them to Christmas wishlists, and celebrated the arrival of each one like a long-lost treasure. I wish I would have clipped them out of our newspaper (the Lincoln Journal-Star)! The strip is still hilarious today, even though my perspective has shifted from that of the adventurous, yearning kid to that of the beleaguered and baffled Dad. My 9-year-old has discovered Calvin & Hobbes, too, and I’ve had to do *a lot* of explaining. But it’s been a lot of fun. Still, repeat after me: Calvin sometimes makes *really* bad decisions.
Bill Watterson’s originals are incredibly rare in private hands. He kept most of his originals and has since donated the collection to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University. So, the above strip is the onlyCalvin & Hobbes original Sunday sold since 2020. After working with Charles Schulz’s original artwork for Peanuts for a few years, I finally got to see some of Watterson’s originals for Calvin & Hobbes, and I was shocked to see they were so small! He packed a lot of fine work into that small space. His art is even more impressive now than when I first saw it growing up, though even then, I knew it was something special.
Yes, I’ll have this one, too. Watterson’s dinosaurs and monsters have always been so much fun, but after I saw somewhere that Schulz admired how Watterson drew furniture, I look at that too, and admire it.
This daily, originally published on 12/30/1987, was sold at Heritage Auctions, and even in the photos they posted, the condition looks a little concerning. It’s heavily toned, and I have seen them sweeten the photos before, so I don’t quite trust it 100%, which gives me pause. However, with the promise of conservation funding at the end, I feel good diving in.
$6M – $852.000 = $5,148,000 remains to spend.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
Trina Robbins speaking at the 2023 WonderCon in Anaheim, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia
I did not know Trina Robbins very well, but she has impacted my thinking and my work. She was the kind of person that, after hearing her stories and reading her work, I have a deep appreciation for what she accomplished, and I wish I could have gotten to know her more and talked with her about something we share — a passion for the work of comics history.
I had the pleasure of meeting her a couple of times in the past few years. The first time I met Trina was when I joined her on a panel at FanExpo in San Francisco in November 2022. I remember it as the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and our panel topic was the centennial of the birth of Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. Cartoonist and maze master Joe Wos, who organized the panel, invited Lex Fajardo, the editorial director for Schulz Creative Associates, and me (as curator of the Schulz Museum) to join him and Trina in a wide-ranging discussion of Schulz and his impact on cartooning. Trina was the only one of us to have really known Charles Schulz, bringing not only her stories of meeting Sparky (as he was known to those who knew him) but also her perspective as a Bay Area cartoonist and younger contemporary to him. It was fascinating and, of course, a lot of fun. Few people can tell the story about getting Charles Schulz to contribute a piece to a collection of cartoonists’ nude portraits.
Trina was in high demand that weekend, rushing from panel to table, signings, and other events that day. She joined us a few minutes late and had to leave the panel early for her next commitment, so I didn’t really get a chance to visit with her in that first meeting, though I got to basically sit next to her and hear her tell stories for an hour or so.
I’m so glad I remembered to bring my tape recorder with me, so I at least got audio of the panel—most of it, at least. The brand-new batteries I installed died, and I had to switch to my phone, but something went wrong—don’t try to talk on a panel and record yourself simultaneously if you can help it. At least I got a good chunk of our talk, which is now in the Schulz Museum’s archives.
The next time I saw her was at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2023, when we both had books nominated for an Eisner Award in the same category: Best Comics-Related Book. Attending the Eisner Awards is another story, but there’s a little time as people arrive and get settled in to say a few hellos. I saw her and said hello, and wished her good luck. I’m not confident she remembered me or even knew I was one of the other authors in her category, but she was very gracious. I was so overwhelmed just being in the room, so I don’t remember any other details, especially after Nat Gertler and I were announced as winning the category.
Though she was not awarded an Eisner that night (I thought she would win), her book about Gladys Parker is fabulous. Just as all of her historical work is not only well done but groundbreaking and essential reading. Comics is a rich field for study and enjoyment, enriching our lives as readers, thinkers, artists, and whole people. Trina brought that home, especially preserving, sharing, valuing, promoting, and shouting about women in comics from the rooftops.
After meeting Trina, hearing about her work, and finding her books, I looked at my own writing, my own thinking, and my own historical work and asked myself, “Where are the women?” In one project in particular that I’ve been slowly working on for a couple of years, a collection of short historical essays about the working methods of cartoonists, there were very few women initially. Now, it’s better, but there’s always room to improve. Thank you, Trina, for your work, for being wholly you.
The book I wrote with Peanuts fan extraordinaire Nat Gertler has been nominated for a Will Eisner Award by the people who bring you Comic-Con International in San Diego each year! Voting has closed for the comics publishing industry award, but it’s been a thrill just to be nominated. I’ve never won an award and tended to roll my eyes at the idea of being grateful for a nomination, but I get it now. This is a recognition of the hard work of *so many* people. I’m so proud and grateful to my team at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, our publishers Weldon-Owen, and all the fans of Charles M. Schulz, who have supported the museum and all do a part in preserving and sharing the legacy of Charles Schulz and Peanuts.
Of course, the book is still available everywhere that good books are sold, and proceeds support the Schulz Museum. You can also buy the book directly from the Schulz Museum, which is a way to support the museum doubly. You can even leave a note when you purchase to request that I sign it, and I’m happy to do that.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
If you’re a fan of newspaper comics and letterpress printing and live in the North Bay Area, you won’t want to miss a special event hosted by the North Bay Letterpress Arts organization on Saturday, April 22nd. The “Sunday Funnies” event will feature a conversation with Benjamin L. Clark (me), Maia Kobabe, and Andrew Mecum, the Executive Director of NBLA, about the relationship between printing, comics, and beyond.
Maia Kobabe, who was once a member of NBLA, is an accomplished author and artist who has created beautiful books. Eir graphic novel, Gender Queer, has been widely banned (boo!), bringing em major media attention, interviews, (and a new book deal).
In addition to the conversation, there will be a short movie about the subject, live printing demonstrations, and fundraising party tricks. All guests will be treated to coffee from Retrograde, tea, donuts, and other fun snacks throughout the event.
This year, the month of May is also a memorial tribute to Dennis Renault, a political cartoonist and letterpress printer who sold Eric Johnson his iron hand press. Unfortunately, Renault passed away last fall. Examples of his work will be on display at the event, showcasing his life and legacy that perfectly embodies the spirit and wit of the “Sunday Funnies” event.
The event will take place at the North Bay Letterpress Arts studio, located at 925-D Gravenstein Hwy S, in Sebastopol, California. Doors will open at 4:00 PM, with the event ending at 6:30 PM. Sliding scale donations will be accepted in person at the event, or you can donate ahead of time online. Be sure to leave a note that it’s for the event or email the organizers.
All proceeds from the event will support the mission of NBLA, which is to democratize letterpress, lower the barrier of entry, and create more access for a wider audience, especially youth in the community. This year, NBLA is generously supported by a grant from the California Arts Council, along with support from local sponsors such as Sonoma County Libraries, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center, the Cartoon Art Museum, Blackwing pencils, and Retrograde Coffee.
Join us for an afternoon of fascinating insights into the world of newspaper comics and letterpress printing while supporting a great cause. We hope to see you there!
NB: This post was partially written with ChatGPT tools.
Friday, July 22 — 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM in Room 24ABC Celebrating 100 Years of Charles Schulz Moderator Damian Holbrook (TV Guide) and panelists Robb Armstrong (JumpStart), Benjamin L. Clark (curator, Charles M. Schulz Museum), Melissa Menta (Peanuts Worldwide), Alexis J. Fajardo (Schulz Creative Associates), and Hailey Cartwright and Promise Robinson (Armstrong Project scholarship recipients) discuss the centennial and legacy of the Peanuts creator; the publication of a new book Charles M. Schulz: The Art and Life of the Peanuts Creator in 100 Objects; and Peanuts’ inspiring Armstrong Project (named for Franklin Armstrong, Peanuts’ first Black character): two $100,000 endowments to Howard and Hampton Universities to support the work of up-and-coming Black animators.
Saturday, July 23 —4:30 PM – 5:30 PM in Room 26AB It’s a Filmstrip, Charlie Brown In the 1980s, kids got career advice from Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and pals (including a new Latina friend) in educational filmstrips produced by the Peanuts animation team. Benjamin L. Clark (curator, Charles M. Schulz Museum) and Nat Gertler (The Aaugh Blog) discuss and present some of these filmstrips, with one live-cast voice performance by cartoonist Gladys Ochoa (Ribbons of Thought), Allison Gertler (Invisible Zeppelin), and more., and more.
Squib — That’s the word I spent a couple of days trying to find. So, what is a newspaper squib?
The word has a few meanings, and according to Webster’s I’m interested in the least meaningful meaning: “a short humorous or satiric writing or speech, a short news item; esp; FILLER.”
This week, while researching something else, I came upon a sort-of cartoon, but didn’t run as a cartoon as such, but was just … filler. What’s wonderful about being able to browse millions of pages of archival newspapers is the access, but there’s a downside — interpretation. I was curious if any scholarship or just collected thought had been put together around these smallest of memes (in the dictionary sense), but wasn’t sure what to call them to find anything. Often unsigned, there were many that seem to have been distributed by syndicates, and no doubt, some newspaper staff were capable of coming up with their own, as well.
A few examples:
MILITANT MARY — Arguably a single-panel comic, and not a squib, but the line of definition between them is hazy at best.
DAILY BIRTHDAY PARTY — “George Horton, the noted American diplomat, who has represented the interests of this country in Greece and Turkey for many years, and who is the author of a great number of very good books …”
“Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote his famous “Rasselas” in the evenings of a single week, to meet the expenses of his mother’s funeral.”
This weekend I read All the Answers by Michael Kupperman. It’s a fascinating graphic novel about Michael grappling with his father’s previous fame and pain. His father, Joel Kupperman, was a child celebrity in the 1940s and ’50s and the fallout thereafter, into Micheal’s life was not only painful but confusing. It’s wonderfully drawn, capturing the feel of the 1940s and the feeling of memory, of reconstructing from scant information. Parts of it look half-remembered, or places where a newspaper clipping stands though there is no personal memory. As a historian reading this, I recognized these sensations in the art.
Micheal Kupperman‘s drawing is excellent (this has really never been a question). His own appearance throughout, of himself, is of a haunted man — at least to me. And that’s what this story is really about. The ghosts we live with, the ghosts that surround us, the ghosts of our own making. Ghosts that become ancient in our lives as generational pain passes on, reconfiguring itself into whatever form it needs to survive into the next generation.
Drawn in stark black-and-white, this story is quite gray. Gradations of memory, impression, and hunch. Kupperman has extracted the history as best he could, given his father’s refusal to talk about his experiences as a child star of the show Quiz Kids. And later, his father’s detachment from his past as he slipped into dementia.
The images Kupperman has drawn representing the promotional photographs of his father as a boy on Quiz Kids stand out in my mind. Laid into the context of his father’s experience and how it affected him and how that experience hurt him, and how his father passed down that pain generationally was fascinating and heartbreaking.
A really great conversation with Michael Kupperman and Noah Van Skiver is here for Kupperman’s reflections and observations by Van Skiver, who is someone in the know to ask good questions. I was cruising through Van Skiver’s channel (also recommended) and stumbled on Kupperman’s and immediately borrowed the book from my library.
Of course, the book was fresh in my mind when I went to see some monster trucks this weekend. Not that I expected them to connect, but a reader’s life is funny that way.
The Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa hosts monster truck events with some regularity. We had not yet been able to attend one, but with a free calendar for the Easter weekend, why not? Instead of the big stadium-style performance, it was a more subdued “drive-thru adventure.” We weren’t sure what that could mean, but the weather was nice and thought it may be a fun enough outing to give it a try. I’m glad we did. Our five-year-old loved it.
We drove through an out-and-back loop at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. Classic rock and revved recordings of monster truck rallies of yore throbbed through huge speakers along the road, drowning out the short audio clips prepared by the organizers to play from their event website through my phone over my car stereo.
We were awed by the monster truck made from an old firetruck, ate churros, and sipped strawberry lemonade with all the windows down and the sunroof open.
Then when we saw these cute, small monster trucks. They had information about each of them printed on banners hung by each truck. It took a moment to realize what I was reading fully. According to the banners, the drivers are children. The idea of child performers came crashing back down on me. I don’t know that these kids who drive monster trucks are child celebrities. Admittedly, I don’t exactly have my finger on the pulse of the subculture of monster trucking. Maybe these kids know they’re super lucky to get to do that work, to have that experience. And maybe it’s niched down enough not to draw the attention that becomes such a burden on young performers. At least, that’s what I’ll assume.
But if there’s a Joel Kupperman of the mini monster trucks, I hope they get some hugs and space to be a kid. More than a kid who gets to destroy stuff with a custom-built monster truck. I wish young Joel could have had a turn in one. Maybe we all should.
Skull Krusher Mini monster truck
Skull Krusher Mini
Monster Buddy Mini monster truck
Monster Buddy Mini
High Risk Mini monster truck
High Risk Mini
Warhead Mini monster truck
Warhead Mini
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
It’s been 20 years since Charles M. “Sparky” Schulz died. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long ago. As tributes and remembrances pour forth today, I can’t help but remember that day too.
Charles M. Schulz at the drawing board, 1956
I remember it pretty well when I read the news, though for me it was otherwise unremarkable. I was a Sophomore at York College in York, Nebraska. As was my routine, when I was “home” on campus for the weekend, I went to the library when it finally opened after lunch to read the Sunday newspapers.
It was cold. In rural Nebraska, the winters are cold and February can be the worst. My friends and I were excitedly planning a trip to the west coast for Spring Break. It would be my first trip there.
Going into the library, the periodical racks weren’t far from the entrance. At that time (perhaps still?) there were a couple of couches and comfortable chairs where one could relax and read. It was one of my favorite places on campus.
The display was such that you could see several front pages at once and more than one newspaper had the news that Charles Schulz had passed away. I probably read the story, but I don’t remember anything about it. Maybe I didn’t read it first. Maybe like millions of other readers, I found the comic section to see the final comic from the man himself. I remember that final strip crystal clear, realizing as I read the message over and over that he announced his retirement, he somehow knew it meant his life was ending. It still brings a tear to my eye all these years later.
Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, 2/13/2000
Peanuts was on the front page of the Sunday comics section, above the fold in our newspaper. It had earned the spot long before I was born as the most popular, most syndicated comic of all time. That day, I remember also wondering what happens to comic strips when the creator passes away, not knowing that the comic section in my hands included several strips by artists who had died long ago.
Of course, back then I had no idea I would one day get to know the life and art of Charles Schulz on a much deeper level than as a more-days-than-not reader of the funnies. Since becoming the curator of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, California two years ago today, I’ve read pretty much all the books about Schulz, I’ve watched all the interviews, I’ve read all his comics. I’ve read his personal correspondence and squinted into his family snapshots. I’ve met his kids and have gotten to know his widow. I can recognize his handwriting. In that time, I’ve gotten to know him about as well as I can not actually knowing the man. Schulz was a lot of things, and to me, I’ve only become a bigger fan.
