O R I G I N A L C O M I C A R T F R O M T H E G L E N N B R A Y C O L L E C T I O N

11

ABOVE: San Fernando, California (January 1964). Glenn Bray in his room (before owning any original artwork!). Photo by Dorothea Bray.

13

Strangely enough, I first heard about Glenn Bray from hardcore participants in the Art World — particularly Jim Shaw and Cameron Jamie, who urged me to visit his

San Fernando Valley home and view his unique collection. I was familiar with the futurist sculpture and outsider anthropology of Stanislav Szukalski, and had almost ordered the Bray-published Basil Wolverton GJDRKZLXCBWQ Comics as a teenager, but when I finally made the trek, I was unprepared for the idiosyncratic sweep of Bray’s interests and activities. Not only had Bray played a pivotal role in cementing the reputations of Wolverton, Harvey Kurtzman, and Carl Barks, he was also largely responsible for the peculiar revival of interest in the anti-Santa Krampus, and the unleashing of wrestling novelty records on an unsuspecting world: this in addition to owning a world-class collection of original comic art, Art Art, all manner of printed ephemera, weird-ass knick-knacks, and sundry unclassifiables.

I sat down with him over a couple of sessions to try and sort out how the son of a hardware-store owner came to be one of the most individualistic and exemplary collectors I’ve met in my 25 years in the Art World.

—Doug Harvey

!"#

W I T H D O U G H A R V E Y

$%&''()*+,(-'!&*.-&/

Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based artist and critic Doug Harvey received his M.F.A. in painting from UCLA in 1994 and continues to exhibit his work, often collaborating with other multimedia artists. Best known as an art critic for LA Weekly and Art Issues magazine, he has contributed to a host of other publications. He has written museum-catalog essays about creators as diverse as Big Daddy Roth, Margaret Keane, and Thomas Kinkade.

14

1

15

| T H E MAD R E A D E R

GLENN: I grew up in the San Fernando Valley. I was born in 1948. Culturally, my parents had no interest in art so I had no idea what art was, but I started watching cartoons and looking at comic books. I have an older sister, five years older than me. We had a communal drawer of comic books. Before I could even read, I would go to these comics. My parents actually encouraged me to read comics, because I could learn how to read from them. And when it was raining, they’d say, “Just don’t sit around the TV, read something! Read a comic book, read anything!”

So I’d go to this comic book drawer, something like a hundred comics all torn up, some coverless: whatever my sister had bought from years past. God knows what they were. It was a total mix. There were romance, horror, crime, funny animals, Classics Illustrated. There was Carl Barks and Little Lulu. We actually got a subscription to Donald Duck and Little Lulu because my dad even liked Uncle Scrooge; he thought they were funny. So we had those coming into the house back in ’56, ’57. I was reading those every month, but also looking at old comic books, not even knowing that some were already 10 years old. Things like Lucky Duck or just offbeat comics.1 There was superhero stuff, but I never really cared too much about that. I did read a lot of it, but I just didn’t care too much about it. So I fixated on Barks, because of his art and stories, and John Stanley because of the clean storyline.2

One day, I remember some neighbor kid and I were talking about comics, and he said his brother had these comics called Mad.

I said, “What’s Mad?” He said, “Well, let me get these for ya!” And he brought over two three-ring binders of Mad comics — all covers torn off,

and all three-hole punched into these binders — and it just blew my mind. I’d never seen anything like it. I think I eventually traded him some comics for those. This was 1957 when I got a hold of that, so I was well aware of all these artists and Kurtzman’s Hey Look!.

What really set me back was seeing The Mad Reader story by Basil Wolverton, because I’d never seen anything that outrageous before.3 It wasn’t only outrageously

3

2

16

drawn, but it was the fact that it was: here’s a picture of YOU, the Mad reader. They’re just making fun of you, and that was just so weird at the time. I think that was my turning point in thinking that comics could be art, when I saw that.

DOUG: So how old were you when you saw the Wolverton in Mad?I’m pretty certain it was 1957, so I was 9 years old. So before 9, I had a whole visual library of comic books. I grew up on comic books. And I think they were my biggest influence more than anything, because you could have them in your hand, you could look at them. You could either read them fast, or read them slow. You could look at a panel and really enjoy it as long as you wanted, where a movie you’re watching in real time, or their edited time. And you couldn’t really, at that time, stop a frame and really look at it. But this — you could look at a cover as long as you wanted; you could put it up on the shelf as art, whatever.

| I N F L U E N C E S

What are your influences here?I still have a lot of these things, or was able to go back and find some of them. This book is a big influence: Dear Dead Days by Charles Addams.4 I bought that off the shelf, in 1959. So I was 11 years old. I don’t know if you‘re familiar with that Addams book, but at that time I was buying his older books in used bookstores for like a dollar. But then this book came out, and it had his drawing on the cover, but very few of his cartoons inside. It’s all pictures of freaks and torture devices and dead people. This is not my original copy. I think I went through two copies — and later found a near-mint copy.

[Reading from text.] “Several varieties of plankton found in juice expressed from the lungs in cases of drowning.”

You couldn’t see this stuff anywhere — I mean in historical books or anywhere — back then. This is just macabre imagery. And it’s not really explained. He just throws that down and you don’t know if it’s a painting or a photo or what.

It’s probably the stuff he had up on his wall.Probably. Look, Struwwelpeter. Forgot he even had that in there. When I saw this I just went, “wow!”: realizing this is stuff that he liked. Car wrecks, old photos, antique

4

17

I just found this. I must have been 8 or 9 years old.5

Did you ever try your own art?I was drawing as a kid, but I never got any encouragement, and I never saw any future in it. Drawing was a lot of work. By the time I was getting better at drawing, I found film. I was gifted a movie camera, and started making movies. That appealed to me more than sitting down and drawing out ideas. I could do things easier, faster … amass more ideas in a little 8mm film then I could by drawing. All the artists I know, they’d keep drawing … They’d never put the pen down. They were meant to draw. I just didn’t have that drive. I enjoyed drawing when I

did; it must have been up to about 8 or 9 years old. And then I just burned out on it.

So do you still shoot film or video? I did a short video of Weird Wanda in the 1980s.6 I did early 8mm films as a teenager, like one titled Puke, the Saliva Demon, which later got reviewed in a Don Dohler film magazine.7

Dohler was an early fanboy. He wrote for many early EC and comic book-based fan-zines when Jay Lynch and Robert Crumb were con-tributing. Dohler created the Projunior character that Crumb later riffed on. But I just lost interest in making home movies.

/ M o v i e s /

7

6

5

18

I later shot a video in Flintstone Park with Lena [Zwalve, Dutch comix editor and Bray’s wife] that made the rounds of friends.

LENA: It’s really nothing. We went to the Grand Canyon one time, and when you’re in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, you’re driving and all of a sudden there’s a sign for the Flintstone Park.8 This was in 1985. So we decided to go into the park and it was absolutely horrible. It was run down and had all the Flintstone char-acters and the houses and everything.

[Laughter.] That sounds awesome.LENA: We sent copies to Dan Clowes and several friends. Recently Dan wanted a new copy because he said he wore out his old VHS tape.

Have you digitized it?GLENN: I’m sure I did. It’s so —

LENA: Bleak!9

GLENN: The bleakness is what makes it.

And I swear the people running this place looked like Manson followers. They just all looked like drug-addled, crazed hippies out of the Spahn Ranch.

LENA: But we didn’t film them, unfortunately.

GLENN: We didn’t film them be-cause they looked like they were meth addicts. They just let the place go. There was no water-ing. There was just dirt. They probably bought the place when it had a lawn and most of the gadgets were working, but when we got there half the stuff wasn’t running, you know?

LENA: I remember a lot of tumbleweeds.

GLENN: It was windy. [Imitates the sound of wind.] With some of the figures, you could step on a plate and a tape recording would go off behind the concrete statue. It would go, “Hi! I’m Barney Rubble,” and he didn’t move. It was just a concrete statue with voices that didn’t match the cartoon characters. Totally didn’t match. [Laughter.]

/ M o v i e s /

8

Valle, Arizona (1985). Lena Zwalve at Flintstone’s Bedrock City. Photo by Glenn Bray.

9

O R I G I N A L C O M I C A R T F R O M T H E G L E N N B R A Y C O L L E C T I O N

55

CHARLES ADDAMS (1912–1988)

“All I Can Get Is ‘Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble’” (1942) 10 !” X 13 !”

56

3

1

2

RICK ALTERGOTT (b. 1961)

1 Specialty Doofus and Henry Hotchkiss drawing (1996) 11” X 11”

BOB ARMSTRONG (b. 1950)

2 Mickey Rat (c. 1974) 6 !” X 6”

3 39 Cents postcard (1988) 5 !” X 3 !”

57

1

32

BOB ARMSTRONG (b. 1950)

1 Late Night in A Flat painting (1987) 14” X 18”

2 San Fernando Valley, California (1995). Armstrong holding a swap meet treasure found earlier that day.

BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF (1899–1965)

3 Art deco angel (c. 1920s) 9” X 6 !”

58

CARL BARKS (1901–2000)

1 Goleta, California (1971). Barks is in his backyard, displaying the first Donald Duck oil painting that I commissioned from him.

2 A Tall Ship and a Star to Steer Her By (1971) Oil on canvas, 18” X 14”

3 Nude (1939) Drawn while at Disney Studio’s life art class. 10 !” X 9”

4 Earthquake letter (February 1971) 9” X 12”

5 Congratulations letter (1978) For Glenn and Lena’s wedding 8 "” X 11”

6 Barks self-portrait (1949) 8” X 9 "”

7 Hemet Chamber of Commerce logo (1949) 6” X 9 "”

21

59

3

6 7

4

5

60

CARL BARKS

1 Bombie the Zombie painting (1972) 20” X 16”

2 Donald Duck half page from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #52 (January 1945) 12” X 16” This is the earliest original Barks’ Donald Duck artwork known to exist.

3 Uncle Scrooge one-page gag from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories (June 1965) 24 !” X 16 !”

1

2

# NAME Specs

61

3

62 ART BARTSCH (1904–1971)

1 Mighty Mouse cover for Giant Edition #8 (1949) 16” X 10 !”

H.M. BATEMAN (1887–1970)

2 Stage Exits (1915) 17 "” X 12 !”

3 The Connoisseurs (1919) 13” X 10 "”

1 2

3

64 HANS BELLMER (1902–1975)

1 Untitled: Signed and numbered etching (c. 1960) 24” X 17”

2 Untitled: Signed and numbered etching (c. 1965) 15” X 22 !”

1

2

65MARK BEYER (b. 1950)

1 Punks (1973) 13” X 13”

2 Amy & Jordan strip featuring Ba Tilsdale (1989) 4 !” X 13 "”

3 Amy & Jordan (1991) 5 "” X 12 "”

1

2

3

66

MARK BEYER

Plexiglass painting (c. 1980) 20” X 20”

67JACK BILBO (1907–1967)

1 The Sound-Atom Listener (c. 1940) 15” X 11”

GENE BILBREW (1923–1974)

2 Dominated in Leather from Exotique Magazine #35 (1958) 14” X 9 !”

1 2

68

MAHLON BLAINE (1894–1969)

Color erotic works (c. 1940s) 4” X 6” each

69AL BRYANT (1917–1993)

1 The Barker #2 cover (Winter 1946) 20” X 15”

R.O. BLECHMAN (b. 1930)

2 Humbug cover #9 (May 1958) 9” X 6”

CHARLES BURNS (b. 1955)

3 Thrilling Defective cover (1988) 11” X 8 !”

1

3

2

70

ERNESTO CABRAL (1890–1968)

1 El Medico de las Locas movie poster painting (1954) 40” X 30”

2 Maria Conesa (1955) 10” X 8 !”

3 Maria Felix (1952) 9 "” X 8 "”

4 “My Boyfriend Thinks I Have the Arms of Venus de Milo” (1956) 10” X 8 !”

5 Jueves de Excelsior cover (1942) 13” X 10”

1

71

2

4

5

3

72 ERNESTO CABRAL

1 Josephine Baker cover for Revista de Revistas (c. 1930s) 15” X 11”

2 Dos Charros y una Gitana movie poster painting (1954) 40” X 30”

1

73

2

74 ERNESTO CABRAL

1 Comicos de la Legua movie poster painting (1954) 40” X 30”

E.H. CALDWELL STUDIO

2 Popeye’s Blow Me Down circus sideshow painting (c. 1935–40) 7’10” X 9’6”

AL CAPP (1909–1979)

3 Li’l Abner daily featuring Fearless Fosdick (June 30, 1944) 6 !” X 22 "”

1

# NAME Specs

75

2

3

76

1

77

SERGE CLERC (b. 1957)

1 Journey Into Mystery (fan-art cover) (1999) 14” X 10”

DANIEL CLOWES (b. 1961)

2 Eightball #11 cover (June 1993) 18 !” X 12”

2

78

DANIEL CLOWES

1 Crippled Women artwork (2000) Traded for a copy of Desire For Crippled Women (see Interview section for image) 12” X 9 !”

2 “Needledick” from Eightball #7 (November 1991) 18 "” X 12”

3 Huntington Beach, California (1995). Photo taken at Clowes’ wedding recep-tion. Clowes is doing a “Kilroy” with one of the gifts.

4 “Immortal, Invisible” from Eightball #16 (November 1995) 20” X 12 !”

5 Birthday card (2008) 6 !” X 5”

6 “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron” from Eightball #5 (February 1991) 18 !” X 12”

7 (FOLLOWING) Las Vegas Grind LP cover (1991) 14 !” X 28 #”

2

1

3

79

6

4

5

# NAME Specs

80

7

# NAME Specs

81

82

1

3

2

4

DANIEL CLOWES

1 Jack Bilbo’s The Strange Story of the Suicide Machine from Out of My Mind (1946)

2 Clowes’ interpretation of Jack Bilbo’s The Strange Story of the Suicide Machine (1998) 12” X 9”

3 Clowes’ interpretation of Jack Bilbo’s The Strange Story of the Invisible Torture (2003) 12” X 8 !”

4 Jack Bilbo’s The Strange Story of the Invisible Torture from Out of My Mind (1946)

RON COBB (b. 1937)

5 “Well… So Much for Crime in the Streets…” from Los Angeles Free Press (1968) 11” X 8 !”

# NAME Specs

83

5

84

1