Trade Winds - Fletcher Hanks: I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets / You Call This Art?!!: A Greg Irons Retrospective

Posted by Elgin on September 16, 2007

(Fantagraphics Books)

The comics of today could not exist as they are had they not been preceded by the underground comics of the 1960s that paved the road taken by many of the more influential artists and writers of the past 20 years. For those too young to remember, the schism that divided the culture of this country during that decade did so more profoundly than any other time since the War Between the States and affected every aspect of that culture, including comics.

Artist on the west coast delved into the culture and comics past and present and found them lacking. They wanted to express themselves in a personal manner, utilizing the comic book as medium. They found visual influences from those comics they had read as children but the content came from lives often lived on the fringe of society. Dissatisfied with the options open to them, holding values often radically different from the norm, and anxious to express, even flaunt their beliefs in the face of The Man, They developed stories more violent and sexual than any comic book seen previously, and for the most part seen anywhere today.

One of the obscure visual influences many of these artists used was Fletcher Hanks. Described in a short passage in The Comic Book Reader’s Companion as… a true primitive….drawing like a deranged Grandma Moses…his work has to be seen to be fully appreciated. First printed in comics like Jungle and Fantastic, to the eye of the connoisseur his work seems more advanced today than when first published. However if one is completely honest and not just reactive to passing fads, this is truly primitive art. What is today termed outsider art, art made by the untrained but esthetically pleasing due to the underlying talent and strength of the artist.
In this volume we get 15 complete stories by Hanks and a visual tale of the editor Paul Karasik’s search for details of Hanks life. The results of that search bring to life data that presumably reduces the standing of Hanks in Karasik’s mind. Work both bizarre and childlike with stories truly strange and practically nonsensical are as distinctive as any other comic artist of that era. Why they would be influential can be easily understood.

One of the better artists of the underground comics world was Greg Irons. Distinctive and of clear talent, Irons’ comics were chocked full of extreme graphic violence and sex. The total amount of comic book work Irons did was probably no more than that of Hanks, but was of highly superior quality. Like Hanks, Irons private life would be, to most, distasteful, even abhorrent in some aspects. His early death after being struck by bus in Bankok, Thailand on what was described as a trip in search of prostitutes, especially after having abandoned comics for work as a tattoo artist, deprived the comic world of a talent that might have been as influential and powerful as that of Robert Crumb, his best known contemporary.

In this volume a quite complete biography is accompanied by many, many examples of his work but few complete comic stories. When one has only read the comics and knows few details of the life or the artist, it is possible to take the stories in and reflect upon them from a variety of viewpoints, taking this concept and then that as the meaning to be derived. However when one is faced with eccentricities of the individual responsible for the work, it becomes difficult to separated the artist from the art. Those that have seen the documentary on Robert Crumb’s life can easily understand. In retrospect one cannot but wish Fantagraphics had given us a book with the complete comic art of Irons and none of his life.

Perhaps the best course is to enjoy the work of any artist working in any genre without knowing anything of their private lives. However books of this quality make it difficult to follow this advise.

Fletcher Hanks: I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets
4 out of 5 Vikings

You Call This Art?!!: A Greg Irons Retrospective
4 and a half out of 5 Vikings

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Tags: (auto)Biography

Prankster said,

I see where you’re coming from with the “Outsider Art” comparison, but I’m not sure it really applies–Hanks was a professional comics artist, after all. The fact that he may have been touched in the head just puts him in the same company with Dave Sim and Frank Miller (yeah, I went there).
Paul Karasik said,

As editor of “I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets”, I am afraid that I must agree with Prankster’s comment. Hanks was an insider working on the ground floor of the fledgling comics industry. His storytelling skills are solid and his graphic sense a million time more sophisticated than his peers working in comic books.

Also, while it is true that Hanks, the man, became “reduced” in my mind upon learning of his past, these details actually expanded my appreciation of his work.

For those unfamiliar with Hanks, slide over to the BONUS page of my website for a full-length slideshow of a story that does NOT appear in my book:

http://www.fletcherhanks.com

-Paul Karasik
Elgin said,

Working on an antique computer I tried to reply previously but it seems not to have worked. I will attempt again to explain.

I have no desire to argue or even quibble over artistic classifications. As an explanation I understand the term “Outsider Art” to be a grouping of artists whose work, however inspired, is from an inner vision . It does not depend on whether the artist can make money from his art. It depends more on whether the artist has been formally trained, is the work highly distinctive from his contemporaries, and does he seem driven by an inner vision. It seems the underground cartoonists, individuals that clearly felt themselves to be outsiders from the general society, looked to Hanks (among others) for inspiration. However, who belongs in what genre is often not clear. It is an aesthetic judgement that sometimes moves around over time. It is not meant as a perjorative, but rather as a distinctive place in the heirarchy of artistic styles. If anything, the Outsider artist is generally the more distinctive and interesting. However, as I said. I have no desire to argue over this point and merely meant to give some guidance to the uninitiated as to what to expect visually.
Paul Karasik said,

I don’t mean to quibble, either…but…for your information, Hanks was, indeed, as formally trained as a cartoonist as was possible in 1939 in that he had taken a cartooning correspondence course. His drawings for this course are very well wrought in a Thomas Nast style. This leads one to understand that he deliberately chose to draw his later comic book work in a particular style. It was an artistic decision.

Also, I have not heard of a single underground cartoonist who was aware of Hanks work prior to the reprinted story in RAW #7 (I think that was around 1984, long after the heyday of the Underground). The Underground artists may have looked for inspiration at someone like Basil Wolverton, but certainly not Hanks.
Rack Raids Presents: 2007 In Review (via Top 5 lists) at Rack Raids said,

[...] 5. I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!, reprinted Golden Age comic stories written and drawn by Fletcher Hanks, compiled by Paul Karasik, with an additional story by Karasik. (Fantagraphics) [...]

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Trade Winds - Fletcher Hanks: I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets / You Call This Art?!!: A Greg Irons Retrospective

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