Pop Culture Gadabout
Sunday, September 07, 2008
      ( 9/07/2008 12:16:00 PM ) Bill S.  


A CONFEDERACY OF RAT FINKS: Even if you aren't familiar with the artist, one glace at the cover of "The Workshop of Filthy Creation: The Art of Johnny Ace and Kali Verra (Dark Horse Books) would tell you this is no collection of highbrow art. Featuring a large leering cartoon rodent bidding us to enter his lair, a barely seen hot rod in the background. It's a familiar image for those of us who ever once frittered our boyhood coins on hot rod comics and sicko plastic monster models. He's Rat Fink, creation and icon of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth.

Initially bursting into "Kustom Kulture" prominence in the early sixties (when this writer, for instance, used to obsessively copy Rat Fink images onto his middle school notebooks), the Roth Studio specialized in over-the-top renderings of bug-eyed, slavering monsters and hot rods. The So Cal-based studio was an early training ground for underground and poster artists of the late sixties: an anti-Disney for disaffected 'tweens and older big kids who'd all outgrown the cuddlier Mickey.

Part of the later generation of Roth artists - he first joined the studio in the 1980s - Johnny Ace clearly keyed into his mentor's style. Workshop is crammed with images of Rat Fink and his brother Surfink along with an Ace-created family member named "Kuk." Fink-ish posters, tee shirts, album covers, poly-clay and resin sculptures - they're all collected here alongside ghoul gal wife Kali's lettering and custom pinstriping. It's a veritable lowbrow feast, even if the Fink work grows a mite repetitious. There are only so many ways you can pose motorvating monsters, after all.

To my eyes, the most enjoyable fare in this hardbound beer bong table book is Ace's concert posters and album covers. Taking the name "Johnny Childish" and rendering his faux signature emulating EC comics great Johnny Craig, these images aren't as beholden to Fink figures and instead show the influences of Basil Wolverton, fifties horror comics as well as psychedelic pen and airbrush men like Rick Griffith and Robert Williams. As a horror cartoonist, Ace admits to being as beholden to EC's disreputable copycats (reprinted in the early seventies in a series of black-and-white comic mags) as he is the Crypt of Terror crowd. You can see this in the shapely vamps who populate his rock art, in particular. All the great psychotronic noisemakers (Cramps, Reverend Horton Heat, Butthole Surfers) and surf gods (Dick Dale, Ventures) are repped on the posters, though one suspects it's the first musical influences that primarily form the soundtrack for our kreative kouple's works.

Cheerfully disreputable, energetically grotesque, the Kustom Kulture art of Ace and Verra carries on in the tradition of all the hopped-up misfits who preceded them. And though the duo's punk rock energy comes across too strongly in this book to make it pastiche or a flat nostalgic exercise, I've still gotta confess: just paging through this beautifully garish volume brought up the olfactory memory of the scent of Testor's PLA.
# |



Pop cultural criticism - plus the occasional egocentric socio/political commentary by Bill Sherman (popculturegadabout AT yahoo.com).



On Sale Now!
Measure by Measure:



A Romantic Romp with the Fat and Fabulous
By Rebecca Fox & William Sherman

(Available through Amazon)

Measure by Measure Web Page







Ask for These Fine Cultural Blogs & Journals by Name!

aaronneathery.com News
Aaron Neathery

American Sideshow Blow-Off
Marc Hartzman

Arf Lovers
Craig Yoe

Attentiondeficitdisorderly
Sean T. Collins

Barbers Blog
Wilson Barbers

The Bastard Machine
Tim Goodman

The Beat
Heidi MacDonald

BeaucoupKevin
Kevin Church

Big Fat Blog
Paul McAleer

Big Mouth Types Again
Evan Dorkin

Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog
Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag

Blog This, Pal!
Gordon Dymowski

Bookgasm
Rod Lott

Cartoon Brew
Amid Amidi & Jerry Beck

Cartoon Web Log!
Daryl Cagle

Clea's Cave
Juana Moore-Overmyer

Collected Editions

The Comics Curmudgeon
Josh Fruhlinger

The Comics Reporter
Tom Spurgeon

Comics.212
Christopher Butcher

Comics Waiting Room
Marc Mason

Comics Worth Reading
Johanna Draper Carlson

a dragon dancing with the Buddha
Ben Varkentine

Egon

Electromatic Radio
Matt Appleyard Aaron Neathery

Estoreal
RAB

Eye of the Goof
Mr. Bali Hai

Fred Sez
Fred Hembeck

Greenbriar Picture Shows
John McElwee

The Groovy Age of Horror
Curt Purcell

The Hooded Utilitarian
Noah Berlatsky

Hooray for Captain Spaulding
Daniel Frank

The Horn Section
Hal

The House Next Door
Matt Zoller Seitz

Howling Curmudgeons
Greg Morrow & Friends

The Hurting
Tim O'Neil

I Am A Child of Television
Brent McKee

I Am NOT the Beastmaster
Marc Singer

In Sequence
Teresa Ortega

Innocent Bystander
Gary Sassaman

Irresponsible Pictures
Pata

Jog - The Blog
Joe McCulloch

The Johnny Bacardi Show
David Allen Jones

Journalista
Dirk Deppey

King's Chronicles
Paul Dini

Let's You And Him Fight
One of the Jones Boys

Mah Two Cents
Tony Collett

Metrokitty
Kitty

Michael's Movie Palace
Michael

Nat's TV
Nat Gertler

Ned Sonntag

Neilalien

News from ME
Mark Evanier

No Rock&Roll Fun
Simon B

Omega Channel
Matt Bradshaw

Pen-Elayne on the Web
Elayne Riggs

PeterDavid.net
Peter David

(postmodernbarney.com)
Dorian White

Progressive Ruin
Mike Sterling

Punk Rock Graffiti
Cindy Johnson & Autumn Meredith

Revoltin' Developments
Ken Cuperus

Rhinoplastique
Marc Bernardin

Scrubbles
Matt Hinrichs

Self-Styled Siren
Campaspe

Spatula Forum
Nik Dirga

Tales from the Longbox
Chris Mosby

TangognaT

The Third Banana
Aaron Neathery & Friends

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.

Toner Mishap
B2 et al

Trusty Plinko Stick
Bill Doughty

TV Barn
Aaron Barnhart et al

Unqualified Offerings
Jim Henley

Various And Sundry
Augie De Blieck

Video WatchBlog
Tim Lucas

When Fangirls Attack
Kalinara & Ragnell

X-Ray Spex
Will Pfeifer

Yet Another Comics Blog
Dave Carter



A Brief Political Disclaimer:

If this blog does not discuss a specific political issue or event, it is not because this writer finds said event politically inconvenient to acknowledge - it's simply because he's scatterbrained and irresponsible.




My Token List of Poli-Blogs:

Alicublog
Roy Edroso

Eschaton
Atrios

Firedoglake
Jane Hamsher

James Wolcott

Lance Mannion

The Moderate Voice
Joe Gandelman

Modulator
Steve

Pandagon
Amanda Marcotte & Friends

The Sideshow
Avedon Carol

Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy

Talking Points Memo
Joshua Micah Marshall

This Modern World
Tom Tomorrow

Welcome to Shakesville
Melissa McEwan & Friends



Blogcritics: news and reviews
Site Feed



Powered by Blogger



Twittering:
    follow me on Twitter