COMIX: THE SOMEDAY FUNNIES

 

 This unusual xtra-large format comic compilation is legendary in the comic book world as it took some 40 years before it was finally published in 2011 by Abrams ComicArts. It's creator Michel Choquette was originally commissioned in the early 1970s by Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone, to produce a comic supplement for the magazine on the 1960s. When the project expanded it was going to be a book published by Wenner's Straight Arrow Press. Then the whole deal fell through. The full saga of what happened next is fully documented in the links below.

What makes it so special is the line-up of writer's and artists who produced work for the project - 169 in total from 15 countries including Tom Wolfe, Frederico Fellini, William Burroughs, Jack Kirby, Tuli Kulferberg of The Fugs, Frank Zappa, Art Spiegelman, Ralph Steadman, Pete Townshend, Goscinny and Urderzo of Asterix fame and Will Eisner.

Pleased to see work in there by several comrades from the British underground press including Mick Farren and Edward Barker, Malcolm Livingstone, Richard Adams and Roger Hutchinson. 

Now available at a reasonable price from your usual internet outlets, its a valuable international showcase of a wide variety of comic and graphic talents from the 70s, each bringing their own style to the book's grand theme.  

Frame from Harry Buckinx's 'Titul and the Burning '60s'.

'Michel Choquette's Astounding, Iconic 1960s Time Capsule' by Tim J. Luddy (Mother Jones). Contains audio interview.

Review by Dan Nadel in The Comics Journal