Kim Deitch
In the midst of the flurry of late-in-the-year work meetings and final school projects, I managed to see the Kim Deitch: Retrospective show.
Kim is one of the original independent underground comix writers, along with Art Speigleman (Maus) and Spain Rodriguez (Trashman). He used the stock character of the twenties American cartoon business (the androgynous black cat) to create deep and clever stories about the evolution and of cartoons. He denounces the disney-fication of the later films in his stories that include characters with mental illnesses and the drawings of evil cats that haunt their creators. Although his style is bulging and bright, similar to the work of Robert Crumb, Deitch creates stories that are painful to absorb in their crude truth.
The show itself was Deitch’s art and a movie night of rare cartoons of the 20′s and 30′s. Kim’s wife, Pam Butler, brought some of her black cats from her antique cat collection, which were very interesting in their oddity. The room filled up pretty quickly with all kinds of people, and I had a wonderful time.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Good work. It’s really amazing how much influence Robert Crumb has had on his fellow underground artists. Hope that continues for a long time….Crumb’s still as prolific in 2008 as he was back in 69!
November 17th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Awesome!
May 12th, 2009 at 6:49 am
I don?t usually reply to posts but I will in this case. WoW