Hysteria In Remission

Hysteria In Remission

.htmlby Robert WilliamsFantagraphics had a huge hit with the 1998 release ofMalicious Resplendence, the ultimate collection of Robert Williams's paintings, which we're following up four years later with this equally overwhelming collection of Williams's comix and drawings. Included in this deluxe collection are all of Williams' contributions to such legendary underground anthologies asZAP,Snatch,Arcade,Cocaine Comix, and more (much of which has been out-of-print for over 25 years). Also, the book will feature scores of never-before-published works, including the never-before-seen, full-color storyboards for a proposed animatedZAP movie, along with numerous cartoons from Williams' early years at L.A. City College. Plus, the seminalCoochy Cooty Men's Comics, dozens of examples of hot rod art done for Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's studio, and the rare, two-color strip "Yama Yama." The book features two introductions, one byFabulous Furry Freak Brothers creator and fellowZAP cohort, Gilbert Shelton, and the other by Williams himself, contextualizing his comix work within his better-known career as a painter.MATURE READERSSC, 8x11, 300pg, PCFrom Publishers WeeklyThis blast from the past still has the power to disturb and impress. Before he became popular as an imagist artist, Williams was one of a seminal crew of cartoonists in the 1960s and '70s who created underground "comix." This new genre was a reaction against mainstream comic books, long neutered of challenging material by the Comics Code Authority, a mid-1950s comics industry oversight body established to prevent Congress from regulating the content of kids' comic books. Besides demonstrating that comics can and should deal with serious subjects like sex and drugs, comix experimented with the design of comic book pages and the limits of linear storytelling. However, their primary emphasis was on grossing out inhibited readers and thus liberating their imaginations. Williams knew he didn't fit in with the abstract expressionists of the "fine art" gallery world. But when he saw a copy of the underground Zap Comix in 1967, he knew he'd found a creative home. This collection begins with samples of Williams's college cartoons and early illustrations for karate and custom car magazines, but most of the art is from the pages of Zap, Snatch, Dr. Wirtham's Comics & Stories and other counterculture publications. Williams is an excellent draftsman with a stunning mastery of technique, though his subject matter can be monotonous as he searches for new outrages to depict. And if these images don't seem relevant today, consider a four-page depiction of outrageously escalating brutality that concludes, "Violence Is Always Right If You're The Winner!"Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.From BooklistA key figure in 1960s underground comics--he was one of the originalZap artists, along with R. Crumb--Williams is now a highly regarded painter. The path to the artist's deliriously detailed and disquieting oil paintings is retraced in the comic strips collected in this lavish volume. Williams got his start working for hot-rod impresario and outlaw cartoonist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and his advertisements for Roth appear here. Here, too, are dozens of long out-of-print stories from underground comics anthologies and never-before-seen rarities, such as storyboards for a never-producedZap animated film. Nearly every story is blatantly sexual, violent, or scatological, sometimes all at once. Taking the freewheeling 1960s underground tradition to its ultimate limit, Williams' stuff makes even Crumb's most controversial work look as tame as Ernie Bushmiller's definitively innocent strip, "Nancy." This is formally playful, wildly imaginative, occasionally outright brilliant stuff but so unabashed in its scabrous subject matter that it defies censorship. Only libraries unafraid of making an artistic freedom statement may be bold enough to ac