Comix Book No. 4 (2nd pr.)

COMIX BOOK No. 4 (1976). Second printing.

This was an odd beast, Comix Book. Smilin' Stan Lee persuaded a starving Denis Kitchen to work for Marvel Comics in 1974. Lee wanted to capitalize on the "energy" and cutting-edge style of the underground cartoonists. Equally eager to broaden underground comix exposure via newsstands ---and to earn a decent wage--- Kitchen conditionally agreed to create and edit a "hybrid" magazine. Kitchen wrested unprecedented concessions from Marvel: they agreed to return all artwork, to run no advertising in the mag, to throw out the "Comics Code Authority" restrictions, and to eventually allow artists to keep their copyrights ---all policies unheard of from mainstream comics publishers at that time. The result was a short-lived experimental comic magazine that failed to find its audience, was mishandled by baffled newsstand distributors and/or opened a Pandora's box at Marvel. Lee quickly canceled the series as the third issue hit newsstands. But Kitchen had editorially assembled five issues. After a year back and forth, he persuaded Marvel to let his own Kitchen Sink Press publish the final two issues. (For a more detailed history of this see Kitchen's interview in Comic Book Artist No. 9, August 2000, TwoMorrows Publishing).

#4 boasted a pretty hefty line-up: Cover by Leslie Cabarga, in the Fleischer Brothers animation style he cultivated. Stories by John Pound ("Flip the Bird"); Skip Williamson ("Ragtime Billy"); Trina Robbins ("Panthea"); Joel Beck; Ted Richards & Willy Murphy ("Two Fools"); Cabarga "Buddy Baker, Crooner for Hire"); Sharon Rudahl ("How I Got Purged From My Women's Group"); "Butzford" centerfold by Peter Loft; Kim Deitch ("Born Again"); Gary Hallgren; Lee Marrs; Robert Armstrong ("Famous Street Fights"); J. Rumph; Howard Cruse ("Barefootz"); Steve Stiles (classic "Mr. Smile" gag in color) and part 4 of Justin Green's epic "We Fellow Traveleers." Additional short strips by Basil Wolverton, Tim Boxell and others. Also featured: an Interview with Skip Williamson, an editorial by Kitchen and letters from people like Harvey Kurtzman and Grim Natwick (creator of Betty Boop). 64-page magazine. Kitchen Sink Press. NM/Mint condition.