An October Fun Pak

Something arrived in the mail today that I was expecting, a fun pak from my friend Dave. This one was heavy on gallery postcards, and included one print related item- a brochure from a travelling Smithsonian exhibition, The Art of Hatch Show Print, the legendary Nashville letterpress shop that has been producing boldly graphic posters for any and all occasions since 1879. The highlight of the mailing was Dave's brand new poetry collection, The Catalog of Exceptionally Rare Comic Books. Dave has written poems in the past on related topics, such as superheroes, newspaper strips, and cartooning. This collection features poems that could be items in such a catalog, some based on actual very rare comics, and some that exist only in his imagination. Thanks to these poems, they now exist in my imagination, too.

It takes me back about 25 years, to a time when comic books were very much on my mind, and sometimes at night my dreams included imaginary comic titles (typically took the form of late 60's Marvel anthology books with appropriate vintage graphics) and characters (such as my previously blogged about pig). I gave up my comic book dreams both literally and figuratively about the time that I started to really get into woodcut prints. No regrets there- seeing what I accomplished in each medium, woodcut is what I'm meant to do.