‘Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes, and Mysteries’ (review)

Written by Bob Levin
Published by Fantagraphics Books

Back in 1984, I was enjoying the eighties indie boom in comics.

I had a good-paying job and at 25 I was still living at home so I could afford to buy pretty much whatever looked cool to me on my weekly visit to my local comic shop. I made those visits on the way to work each week and took my stack of new comics in with me to look at on breaks.

It was on one such break when I was flipping through an issue of Neil the Horse by Arn Saba that a co-worker became intrigued.

I let her read it on her break and she asked me to buy a copy for her. In fact, going forward, she had me buy every issue of Neil the Horse for her.

For those unfamiliar with it, Neil the Horse is like no comic book before or since. Neil is a talking—and dancing—horse drawn in the style of Disney artist Floyd Gottfredson. His companions include a cigar-smoking feline and a life-sized, living French female puppet. Each issue contained light-hearted adventures, philosophical discussions….and music.

Canadian Arn Saba, Neil’s creator, had originally been part of Cerebus creator Dave Sim and Deni Loubert’s Aardvark-Vanaheim but went with Deni’s Renegade Press when the Sims divorced. After a while, Neil disappeared, and so did Arn Saba. Every once in a while, I’d find myself wondering whatever happened to him. Then, a few years ago, I read where “he” had long since transitioned into Katherine Collins. I still didn’t know anything else about her…nor about why Neil never again turned up.

The new book, Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes, and Mysteries (I have to say, an abominable title!) by Bob Levin has changed all that. Subtitled “True Tales of Comics, Conflict and Creativity” the nearly 400-page book offers detailed profiles and/or interviews with a number of comics creators, some of whom give new meaning to the term “outsider artists.”

Along with the tale of Katherine Collins/Arn Saba (which has a totally unexpected twist ending!), we learn more than I’ve ever read about the brilliant underground and sci-fi artist Vaughn Bode, and more than I ever wanted to read about the truly disgusting art of the wrongfully convicted Mike Diana.

There’s the whole insane story of Michel Choquette’s The Someday Funnies, with some of the last published work by scores and scores of comics legends. By all rights, The Someday Funnies should have been a bestseller in the ‘70s only to come out as an impressive looking but quickly forgotten afterthought in 2011. Now I know why.

Lowly underground artists who rose to much bigger heights are covered as well—Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, S. Clay Wilson, Jack Jackson, Guy Colwell, and, of course, Robert Crumb.

Leaning into the mainstream, Levin introduces the reader to Mad founder Harvey Kurtzman and his fellow EC Comics artists “Ghastly” Graham Ingels and Johnny Craig. Frank Frazetta, who started out in comic books but ended up the world’s premier fantasy painter gets his due, as does legendarily cantankerous comics genius Alex Toth and macabre illustrator Edward Gorey.

All of the above chapters are excellent and informative, with most told in a decidedly non-mainstream fashion, offering personal insights as well as deeply researched insights.

Still, one of my favorite chapters was the one on former SNL and National Lampoon crazy man Michael O’Donoghue. I had almost forgotten that Donoghue had written the erotically surreal Phoebe Zeitgeist for Evergreen magazine. Phoebe’s collected adventures, as drawn by Frank Springer, became one of the first American comics collections to be published in the form we now consider to be a graphic novel. I first got hold of a copy of The Adventures of Phoebe Zeitgeist when I was about 13. I wasn’t even yet familiar with the term “zeitgeist.” Nudity aside, it was the most adult comic I had yet read, filled with satirical takes on just about everything.

Finally, my favorite chapter is probably Levin’s look at Dave Sim’s The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, a wonderfully meta and philosophical true-life graphic novel that I reviewed here myself back when it came out a few years ago.

Levin has done several similar books in the past. He knows his subjects, he’s an excellent writer, and I particularly like the eclectic chapter choices involved in this volume. I learned a lot about subjects I already knew a lot about. I just wish the book had a better title than Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes, and Mysteries, as well as a better cover.

Booksteve recommends.