[Servalan]

Glenn Head: Chicago. A Comix Memoir (Fantagraphics 2015)

Eigentlich wollte Glenn Head nur einen 3-Seiten-Comic über Mühammad Ali machen, ein Jahrzehnt später ist daraus ein Buch entstanden, in dem sich 90-95 % Autobiographie mit Fiktion vermischen. Duch das Büro des Playboy-Magazins lernt Head Robert Crumb kennen und lebt sich allmählich in die Comicszene der späten 1970er Jahre ein.

Glenn Head is as close to underground comics royalty as can exist in a scene that openly scorns hierarchies. He learned from Art Spiegelman at the School for Visual Arts, and has been published in R. Crumb’s Weirdo and Fantagraphics’ Zero Zero before being nominated for Harvey and Eisner awards for his own anthologies, Snake Eyes and Hotwire. Last week, his long-awaited, semi-autobiographical comic, Chicago, was released after almost a decade of work and anticipation. It’s the story of “Glen,” who bounces from art school in Cleveland to find his glory in Chicago with no real plan or understanding of the trouble he was about to get into. (...)
There’s also something else here, which is that I used certain cartoonists as characters in my story, most notably R. Crumb. He is, at this point as much of an important cultural icon as anyone I can think of. And the R. Crumb character has kind of…solidified, if that’s the right word. He’s known to all. Maybe at an earlier point if I’d used him as a character it might seem, I don’t know…fannish. At this point, though, R. Crumb is really just a part of the American cultural landscape. I mean, as well as being one of the best cartoonists ever, let’s not forget.

Die Kritik überschüttet das Werk mit Lob. Bei der nächsten Runde der Eisners und Harveys dürfte er zumindest nominiert werden.