An Awesome Moment of Comics

Check out Hans Rickheit on YouTube with his new characters Prong and Preen. 

A Bonus Moment of Comics

I just got my copy of Cochlea & Eustachia Volume 2 from Hans Rickheit. You can oder your own copy here, and I highly recommend that you do.

 

 

Happy Birthday, Hans Rickheit

I'll be getting Volume 2 of Cochlea & Eustachia today.

A Moment of Comics Journalism

 

 

With my Hans Rickheit interview finally up, I wanted to thank Robert Young for sending me scans of my prior writing on Hans' work in The Comics Interpreter so many years ago. My essay "Mental Debris: The Comics of Hans Rickheit" was mostly written during August 2000 while I was staying with my family post-surgery. It was published the following summer in The Comics Interpreter #5. Rich Kreiner reviewed the issue in an issue The Comics Journal and called my piece "astute." That kept me going as a writer for years.

Hail Hans!

Here's my latest Chad Wants to know interview as I catch up with cartoonist Hans Rickheit. Read it now on Medium.

Happy Birthday Hans Rickheit

Keep watching his website for updates on his new ongoing series.

I Had Issues! My Review of Folly: The Consequences of Indiscretion by Hans Rickheit

Hans Rickheit is someone I've written about and supported for years. Sadly ost of my published work appeared in zines from the early 2000's, which I may reproduce someday. Until then, this is the only online review I've done in the last ten years. Will I write about him more in the future? We'll see. Originally published October 5, 2012. Edited for clarity.

Happy Birthday Hans Rickheit

Happy Birtthday, Hans Rickheit

 

For Hans Rickheit

Own Automaton
For Hans


Dead squirrel joints,
iambic electrodes
teach them rhythm.

Method tapping
divides yourself
from science.

DIY bionics,
invasive prodding
on own terms.

Cats smug,
secure in their
eventual predator.

Loyal dogs
stand by side till
wary in age.

Every animal
is killed, converted
to some sound.

Graft your own
tune until town
rushes stage.

You keep your
suicide pill tucked
well under brain.

Of course art
can kill you.
Something has to.

Thoughts on The Squirrel Machine

Don't call it a review. My experience with Hans the person and his work goes back a ways. I don't trust myself as a critic, but there have been thoughts I have always wanted to share. If you don't know Hans or his book, find out more here.

It's been a year since Han's first full length work published by another company was released. I am still pondering the lessons it never promises but seems to teach anyway. It was almost a natural procession to have read this after I digested a biograpy of Andy Kauffman (Lost In the Funhouse) where I found out about the commedian's beat poet days and his dramatic reading of his novel God with one chapter having the word "Shit" said hundreds of times. I read that as a way to understand the fringe elements that come to my Stone Soup venue often enough that an attempt to understand is a neccessity.

Hans was a volunteer/resident at Cambridge's late and lamented Zeitgeist Gallery when Stone Soup was reading there in what I believe was the late nineties. This was before I took the venue over, so of course when I saw him in April 2009, I aksed him for stories. Except for one story involving one of our more eccentric performers and an alleged cup of urine, they were what I expected. The fringe being fringe for no other benefit but their own, often to their own detriment as well.

I bring up my local scene too much, perhaps, but I feel that it has fed Hans' work before and certainly The Squirrel Machine now. The proud/oblivious outcasts have always encompassed all aspect of the arts. What separates the fame/notoriety achievers like Kauffman to the proudly obscure like Stone Soup's Lee Litif? How paper thin is the difference? Is there any difference at all aside from luck and the fickleness of public perception? Do they all have the same type of creative drive? Are the more outcast and outsider artists a more pure breed? Do they serve a higher purpose? Or is the purpose tainted due to lack of understanding?

Can being immersed in such pursuits? Can it even create a separate language for you to follow, similar to the language adopted by The Pig Lady and later by the brothers? I believe it. I've seen poets so enconched in their work, to write a simple biographic sentence about themselves outside the realm of stanzas is equivalent to torture. In one poetry workshop I take almost weekly, I have adopted a writing style of the workshop's de facto head (a retired teacher in his 70's who has had decades of comfortable retirement to hone his craft). It has gotten to the point that when I try to go back to "my" voice, it is a strain after working with understanding his work and drawing from his own language to feed my own poems. Hans knows what he is talking about when he devises this language (and assures me he knows what the words mean).

In following main characters Edmund and William Torpor and the brothers' creative pursuits, it seems they as little idea to their purpose as the readers do. What do they serve? What is the end goal? The Squirrel Machine seems as good a name for it as any. In Chloe, Hans' first book , it was The Underbrain (which has some mention here, at least in the introduction). I am simplifying everything, but the point is in achieving a creative nadir, it is not to the Torpor brothers' benefit or to anyone else's.

There's a quote that says if two businessmen are talking together, they are conspiring against the public. I joke sometimes and say (if only to myself) that if two artists talk together, they are conspiring against each other. In an world that oversimplifies, it is common to portray the arts as a noble if not lucrative pursuit and the industrial world as full of corruption. In Hans' world, they are almost one and the same, and as a practioner of the arts, this feels uncomfortably accurate. In fact, anyone who knows the arts knows that there's as much danger as there is in the business world for a young up-and-coming exec. For the Topor brothers, the dangers that consume themselves and everyone around them is as real as it is surreal. It touches on uncomfortable truths as the price of pursuing visions (at least when corrupted by the hostile outside world), but it also gives them a power. The Squirrel Machine should be given to anyone who's interested in pursuing the arts. It's almost a primer proclaiming to be nothing of value but a all-too-personal vision but at the same time conveys certain truths that often go unspoken. Hans is brave to do this and deserves thanks for revealing the hidden power and dangers of the creative world that often go unnoticed in the modern world.

The Squirrel Machine is availble for a much cheaper price than I paid for (no signature though) at Amazon. Get it.

Tomorrow

My "Wednesday Comics" post continues to Thursday with the promised commentary on Hans Rickheit's The Squirrel Machine and more.

Never Seen Hans Rickheit Sketches

It was my second and last time having a table in 2006. There were several reasons for that, but that aside, the best thing about that year was sharing space with fellow outcast Hans Rickheit. It was great interacting with him, given that most of my previous dialogue with him was via email. I tried to help sell his books (better than my own, perhaps) and he in turn drew these sketches for me.

Sketchy and sketchy.

Shades of the Pig Lady?

I hope Falwell saw this entering Heaven.

Thanks, Hans.

Re-Presenting: Hans Rickheit At Home

The little improvized film I made while staying over Hans' place the night before a poetry reading in Philadelphia (before Hans moved back to Massachusetts). This has gotten more play than I ever hoped for. No doubt this is because Hans is still a mysterious figure even after almost two decades of being in the comics and small press world. Enjoy

Congratulations, Hans Rickheit

I have to give congratulations to Hans Rickheit. Ectropiary, his new webcomic, was named best of 2010 by MTV's Splashpage.

To make sure he doesn't celebrate alone, I'll be making my Wednesday Comics posts about him. This will include some never seen drawings from him and commentary on his 2009 graphic novel The Squirrel Machine.

Woah--Just Checked Out My YouTubed Documentary On Hans Rickheit

Over 1,000 views?!? Thanks to everyone who has viewed it and to Fantagraphics Books for making it part of their web page for Hans.

Hans at The Million year Picnic

October 3rd was when Hans Rickheit came to town to promote his new book The Squirrel Machine. I was there just as it was ending.



He reported having caught a cold just as he was crossing into New England.He still kept in good spirits, or at least pretended to while I took pictures.



Though it was the end of the signing, there were still guests galore to come. One of them was Ria Byss, author of the infamous Sigmund Freud comic Hans drew many years ago. Ria spent the time laughing over reviews that said the comic was accurate in depicting Freud's philosophy a la Jack Kirby. Ria laughed, declaring that she never read Freud and finds most psychology to be nonsense.



Wondering what that thing is in front of the impressive array of Hans' books (many of which were sold that day)?

It was a gift from a friend. A piece of machinery.



With the corpse of a squirrel attached to it.



See?

Yes, there was a smell. No, I won't describe it. No, I didn't ask if it "worked" in any way.



Oh, yeah, there's also the petrified frog, but that's small potatoes in comparison.



After the signing, there was, well, more signing outside the store, as there were a few late arrivals, friends and family.



Including a visit from Hans' brother, Erich.




And E. Stephen Frederick, of the Empire S.N.A.F.U. Restoration Project.




After that, a little dawdling about outside, with Ria playing around with the cracked window.





Hmm. Worth a little playing around.





An hour at the Border Cafe, and Hans was on his way to do a signing near his hometown. congrats again, Hans.

Check out how to order Hans' book here. You can also check out my documentary on Hans on the same page (he writes for the hundredth time).

Update, 10/21/09: One more for you, Hans (and for fellow Pixar fans).

Thanks to Fantagraphics

My mini-documentary on Hans Rickheit has gotten nearly 650 hits on YouTube alone. What's surprised me even more is that Fantagraphics, the publisher of Hans' newest book The Squirrel Machine, features the video very prominently on the page where you actually order the book. I am beyond flattered.

Did you miss the video? Click below or visit the Fantagraphics page here. That way, you can watch the video then buy Hans' book.





You can also click here for more information on his already in-progress book tour. My God, they even have one of my quotes on there too! I did get to see him this past weekend in Cambridge and promise to post the photos tomorrow.

I'm Going to The The Hans Rickheit Signing at Milion Year Picnic

And I'm late!

I'm A Link!

Check out Journalista, the official blog of The Comics Journal. The blog's author, Dirk Deppey, linked my YouTube interview of cartoonist Hans Rickheit. You have to scroll down a bit, but it's there, right under a screenshot of Hans.

TCJ is published by Fantagraphics, the publisher that is putting out Hans' new graphic novel, The Squirrel Machine. I just checked tonight, and Fantagraphics has now linked the video on their blog! I was a little nervous about posting this, so it makes me glad that no one seems to think the filmmaking is so bad that it embarrasses either myself or Hans.

This only happened because Dirk found it with the help of cartoonist Mike Lynch, who linked it to his own blog.

I thank thank them both for liking the video enough to share it with a larger audience.