A pile of Drew Friedman!
As much as I still love Drew Friedman’s artistry today—his painted work is fabulous—I do have a huge fondness for the crazy stippling he did in the earlier part of his career.
In fact, his art has gotten more and more accomplished since he abandoned the obsessive pointillist approach, about 30 years ago, in favour of painted tones—reportedly, Robert Crumb advised him that continuing as he was would eventually ruin his eyesight!
Yet, my affection for the older stuff isn’t necessarily rooted in technical skill… there is just something so utterly freaky and off-kilter about so much of this material. Who else did comic strips about Tor Johnson?! Not just one, but a bunch of them! It’s genuinely crazy stuff, and in spite of the skewering caricatures, Drew’s work has a lot of obvious love for its subjects (mostly old-time comedy & horror stars)—to this day.
So, no, I don’t think the old stuff is better… but I think it has a very unique charm that I like a hell of a lot.
The guy is a genius, whatever the case!
Great interview here:
I always enjoyed the artwork, but wasn’t as interested in the text.
Hi Nigel, and yes Drew drew (!) – and draws – caricatures brilliantly, story comes second. Crumb was right of course, stippling was also Alan Moore’s early drawing technique on his Sounds weekly strips and he used to drive his wife mad with his tap-tap-tapping late at night while she was trying to get to sleep. I was drawn to Friedman’s recent book of portraits with short bios of US underground comix creators, several lesser known ones.
Judging by the 25 minutes I’ve watched so far, that is indeed an excellent interview: two knowledgeable hosts battling interesting questions at a friendly and open guest, and getting highly illuminating answers in response. Like Paul, I really like the look of Drew’s new book, Maverix and Lunatix: Icons of Underground Comix.