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Pirate Nightmare Vice Explosion
Inherited Remnants of an Amateur Dadaist’s Library
Edited and with introduction by Michael Kupperman.
In the late 1990s, American comic artist Michael Kupperman bought a stack of men’s magazines from the 1950s and 1960s, with titles like Sir!, Real Action and Man’s Thrills. "They all had the owner’s name stamped on them," Kupperman observed, "but the stamp is slightly illegible, so it’s impossible to know if the name is C. Buechtel, C. Brockel, C. Buschol or some other variant. This man--I’m assuming it was a man--spent years acquiring lurid men’s magazines and taking them apart, using the contents to form his own hybrid magazines with the pages from several reassembled inside the cover of one. With a grease pencil he’d cross out the headlines on the covers that didn’t apply anymore, and stamp his name on the results, along with a number. Why was he doing this? It’s not clear. It might have been a need to make the magazines seem like a serious collection, his re-editing emphasizing his sober interest in subjects such as modern fiction and wife-swapping. Maybe this was one way he justified collecting these lurid periodicals, to himself or a spouse. Or maybe it was a version of the impulse that drives many artists (and three-year-olds): a need to remake and impose personal order that comes from some very deep place." Pirate Nightmare Vice Explosion presents highlights from that collection, and takes place in a murky, monochromatic world where mysterious, energetic sin is always happening behind closed doors. Some of it is factual; some of it smells of heady invention.
Michael Kupperman is the author of Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Snake ‘n’ Bacon’s Cartoon Cabaret and Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910–2010 (Fantagraphics). His work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and Saturday Night Live.
Featured image is reproduced from Pirate Nightmare Vice Explosion.
In the late 1990s, comic artist Michael Kupperman bought a stack of vintage men's magazines from an old-timey store near the Port Authority. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that their original owner had modified them to create his own hybrid magazines. Kupperman writes, "I was instantly captivated by this bizarre goldmine and took most of the restructured collection; more than three hundred magazines, filling several boxes. Back at my apartment I took them apart again, putting the most interesting pages and all of the covers in clear plastic-sleeved binders, so I could have them available for study and easy reference. In a way I was continuing the cycle that the original owner had started; but I have got a lot of use out of them. I've mined them for visual reference, imitated the ads, parodied the language, been inspired by the contradictions; they've become part of my vocabulary as an artist. The remaking that the original owner subjected them to gave me license to become more intimate and casual with them than I would've otherwise felt comfortable with. Which, of course, eventually resulted in this book." Pirate Nightmare Vice Explosion launches Thursday, May 1 at Desert Island in Brooklyn. continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 9.5 x 12.5 in. / 148 pgs / 63 color / 80 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $40.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $54 ISBN: 9780956192875 PUBLISHER: Four Corners Books AVAILABLE: 4/30/2014 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ME
Pirate Nightmare Vice Explosion Inherited Remnants of an Amateur Dadaist’s Library
Published by Four Corners Books. Edited and with introduction by Michael Kupperman.
In the late 1990s, American comic artist Michael Kupperman bought a stack of men’s magazines from the 1950s and 1960s, with titles like Sir!, Real Action and Man’s Thrills. "They all had the owner’s name stamped on them," Kupperman observed, "but the stamp is slightly illegible, so it’s impossible to know if the name is C. Buechtel, C. Brockel, C. Buschol or some other variant. This man--I’m assuming it was a man--spent years acquiring lurid men’s magazines and taking them apart, using the contents to form his own hybrid magazines with the pages from several reassembled inside the cover of one. With a grease pencil he’d cross out the headlines on the covers that didn’t apply anymore, and stamp his name on the results, along with a number. Why was he doing this? It’s not clear. It might have been a need to make the magazines seem like a serious collection, his re-editing emphasizing his sober interest in subjects such as modern fiction and wife-swapping. Maybe this was one way he justified collecting these lurid periodicals, to himself or a spouse. Or maybe it was a version of the impulse that drives many artists (and three-year-olds): a need to remake and impose personal order that comes from some very deep place." Pirate Nightmare Vice Explosion presents highlights from that collection, and takes place in a murky, monochromatic world where mysterious, energetic sin is always happening behind closed doors. Some of it is factual; some of it smells of heady invention.
Michael Kupperman is the author of Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Snake ‘n’ Bacon’s Cartoon Cabaret and Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910–2010 (Fantagraphics). His work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and Saturday Night Live.
