ZINES! Lost comics! Upcoming SHOWS!
RARE Dan Clowes' art and How to Make Comics the Jim Rugg Way
COMIC BOOK SHOWS
I will be at the following comic book shows with comics, zines, art, books, posters:
February 23 - Akron, OH: Summit County Comic Con
March 15 - New Haven, CT: Indie Comics Creator Con
March 30 - Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh Indie Expo
NEW ZINES for SALE at jimrugg.com
RETAILERS: If you’d like to carry my comics and zines, email jimruggart@gmail.com for details, price list, and availability.
John JACOBS / Ken LANDGRAF Lost Tales
Three never-before-published tales by John JACOBS (Dr. Peculiar) and Ken LANDGRAF (New York City Outlaws)!
Ken Landgraf notified Chris Pitzer and me about an auction of his art work. We joined forces and won the auction. When we opened the artwork, we discovered unpublished stories by this legendary 80s indie comics dream team! We talked to Ken Landgraf about publishing an edition of this find so that his fans could share in the discovery.
We also discovered a rare, unpublished piece by Dan CLOWES and Rick ALTERGOTT in the lot. Our speculation is that this artwork came from John Jacobs’ estate. The Clowes/Altergott piece appears to be an unpublished ad strip for John Jacobs’ Madison Comics. NOTE the distinct Clowes’ lettering:
We’re thrilled to publish for the 1st time:
Beaver Girl Gives a Dam!
Cactus Man
“Captives of the Rat-Faced Spider People!”
There are also several pages and art from other stories scattered throughout the zine.
BUY John JACOBS/ Ken LANDGRAF Lost Tales HERE jimrugg.com
Who are John JACOBS and Ken LANDGRAF?
My introduction to John Jacobs and Ken Landgraf was an issue of Comics Art magazine. A feature of each issue was “In the Studio”. In this feature, a comic book artist would show off work from their collection and talk about why it was significant to them. Dan Clowes was featured in one issue and he showed off some of Jacobs’ and Landgraf’s Dr. Peculiar comics. Their art was very exciting — it resembled the style of superhero comics but strange. Like a cross between Christianity and Charlton comics. The Christianity was apparently from Jacobs.
Ken Landgraf began self-publishing comics when he was 14 years old. He had a Spirit duplicator machine and he sold his comics through Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector. He corresponded with Steve Ditko, with an eye towards developing his own cartooning skills. After Vietnam, he went to SVA where he took classes taught by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner. He assisted Gil Kane. Eventually, he drew some comics for Marvel and DC. Despite his skillset, he did not do a lot of work for those companies — maybe he learned a little business from his time around these legendary comic book artists and decided that working for Marvel and DC was not how he wanted to spend his life. I really don’t know. He did commercial art and illustrated a bunch of independent, black-and-white comics, like the David Lynch biography:
He did a lot of work for Revolutionary Comics, mainly in their Rock and Roll Comics.
During the 1980s, he created the New York City Outlaws. His style of heavy inking and screen tone fit the black-and-white explosion era perfectly! New York City Outlaws is a street gang superhero comic set around 42nd street in the early 80s. It’s an exploitation movie on newsprint. Floating World and Power Comics published a great collection of NYCO last year (disclaimer, I wrote the forward):
One of Landgraf’s longest collaborations was with John Jacobs. Jacobs was a writer, publisher, and artist. His art was naive and he often hired artists to do the finished art for his stories. His publishing line was Madison Comics. Titles included Dr. Peculiar, Far Frontier, Black Atlas. He and Landgraf made comics music together at Madison Comics.
Sadly, Jacobs passed away in 2012.
Ken Landgraf remains active and drawing!
Landgraf posts artwork on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/landgrafken/
Landgraf also sells commissioned artwork, drawings, and comics on ebay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=304369488286&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l161211&_ssn=landgraphics
PROCESS zine: The Street Angel Gang
The STREET ANGEL Gang PROCESS zine is a set of 3 books that pull back the curtain of my creative process!
1. There is a reproduction of the SCRIPT that I used. I printed the script and stapled it together so I could carry it around with me and work on it at coffee shops or wherever. I drew page thumbnails on the actual script. This zine reproduces my working script, full of my notes, and drawings. Here is an example:
2. PENCILS is a comic book sized version of my pencils/page layouts. It is printed on off-white paper:
3. Oversized HARDCOVER of the STREET ANGEL GANG. This is the final, published (Image Comics) version of the story.
For anyone interested in making comics or how I make comics, this PROCESS zine shows exactly how Brian Maruca and I made the Street Angel Gang. This is a 3 book set for $20.
BUY The PROCESS zine HERE jimrugg.com
HEAVY METAL and UFOs
Reminder — My next comic book story, KECKSBURG UFO will be in the new Heavy Metal 1. Preorder your copy NOW if you want to make sure that your comic book shop saves you a copy!
That’s all for now.
Thank you for reading.
Have a great week!
Jim Rugg
Cheers Jim, I will check out Heavy Metal 1.
Hey Jim. Love the new Street Angel Scetchbook. I already have a copy of Street Angel Gang. Would you be opposed to me donating a copy to the Cville Carnegie Library?