Reflections of Spain

Manuel "Spain" Rodriguez (1940 - 2012)

“But he was alive just yesterday,” protested the youth.

  That Spain’s passing was felt in a visceral way by so many is
testimony to the greatness of his heart and spirit. I won’t add “soul”
because that might touch off an argument with him. Like others who
knew him well, we’ll be hearing his voice for the rest of our days and
even as I tap out these words I can feel him peering over my shoulder.
What a wonderfully explosive laugh he had!

  On the evening of his death day, the full moon loomed low over the
horizon in downtown Cincinnati. I was driving through the old city and
the crumbling facades were evoking Spain’s architectural studies of
Buffalo--those stark buildings which provided such compelling
backdrops for the ink-noir Road Vultures scenarios. It is the rarest
of artists who can enter our eyeballs, so that we apprehend visual
reality through their aesthetic sensibilities. Now those sensational
saucy sagas are finite in number. Had he lived until 2040, there would
be countless more because his youth was a constant fount of
inspiration. He had a phenomenal memory, going back to infancy.
Now that body of work can be parsed and footnoted, as it well
deserves to be.

  Who was the character that realized he had strong feelings for the
dame who had been the plaything of the entire Road Vultures motorcycle
gang? At a weekly meeting he testified of his devotional love to all
fellow members, threatening that he would no longer tolerate
disrespectful remarks directed at her. Does he show up in other
episodes?  Or what about those pizza proprietors in the African
American neighborhood who wore holstered pistols while they served
their dripping pies? You can’t make this kind of stuff up. Spain may
have majored in art and minored in writing, but I believe the
authentic social commentary and character development so pervasive in
his work qualify it as true literature. More Beat than Hippie, he
often coined phrases as he spoke with a casual vernacular
delivery that was uniquely his own (for example, Stalin “marshaled his
ass-kicking forces.”)

  Incredible as it might now seem, until the ‘80s you couldn’t write
for publication without a typographer getting in your business; nor
could you render oversize artwork for print unless it got processed by
a photostat worker. In ‘75 Spain and I were the stragglers for a
non-negotiable Arcade deadline. We had to bring our finished pages to
a South-of-Market photostat shop and then hand deliver them to the
printer. He arrived at my Noe Valley digs at dawn in his ‘53 black
Buick. Though exhausted from the all-nighter, I was honored to ride
shotgun in a mentor’s classy car that was vintage even then. He
suggested that we take a detour through the financial district. As we
wheeled slowly through the priciest real estate in town he spoke like
a jaded tour guide, “This is the best time of day to check out chicks.
They are totally buffed out in their finest clothes, fresh out of the
shower. You can almost smell the shampoo.” I surveyed the local fauna
with newly appreciative, yet bloodshot, eyes.  Then, onward to the
photostat place.

  While we were waiting to have our work reduced to print size, I
heard one of the clerks critique my “Gates Of Purgatory” panorama:
“This guy is a faker.” I would normally have let the remark go and
brooded about it for ten days, but in the presence of the great Spain,
I was emboldened to defend my work like I was a Road Vulture, too.
“Oh yeah?” I heard myself bellowing, “I’m a faker, huh? That’s
why I’m out here and you’re in there!”

  When I had to turn to sign painting for the survival of my new
family Spain never abandoned me as a peer. In fact, he appreciated the
art form. After the divorce, at the nadir of my life, he took me in as
his roomie. I was lucky enough to have had a Japanese girlfriend for a
couple seasons. We had major language difficulties, but she was
capable of zingers. My favorite was “Room mate is happy man.”
That was absolutely spot on.

  Fully engaged in his work, his community of friends and fellow
travelers, he was the polar opposite of me, a tormented religious nut
with OCD and major relationship problems. Our dynamic was replicated
in our drawing styles. He would be ensconsed in an easy chair in front
of a day/night TV, dashing off authoritative and bold ink lines from
minimum penciling. If I wasn’t painting a sign, I’d be hunched over a
standard drawing table. My preliminary pencil drawings would be the
pretext for halting tentative ink lines that would require additional
cross-hatching and a fair amount of white-out. In the years of working
near him, I made a quantum leap in skill because I gained some of his
pen command through osmosis. He was a cartoon Zen master. You’d have
to have some skin in the game to understand the courage it takes to
slash bare white space with a bold inking technique. And it also takes
a lot of guts to draw the title/splash panel first, then come up with
the story later, but once in awhile, he did just that.

  Back then, the only mouse in our house was a real one. Everything
was hand-made, even Lost Dog notices. We didn’t think of ourselves as
“content providers,” though in the new computer age we would all
gather under that umbrella. It still surprises me that he was one of
few original Underground artists able to transition to the computer,
while still maintaining the integrity of his traditional craftsmanship.
But long before he became a master of Photoshop we had parted ways.

  I never knew him as a family man, either. By the time I moved, his
roving eye became locked on a certain beautiful and talented woman who
would later bear his child. I started a new family, too. Large chunks
of time passed between our visits or calls. But when we connected, it
was effortless. His lively intelligence and political awareness revealed
that his zest for life had only increased. His output continued to be prodigious.
His taking on the Che project when well into his ‘60s is the crowning
achievement of a career that never faltered. Spain was productive to the
very harsh end of his life. More importantly, he remained kind and conscious,
forever to be beloved by friends and family.

Peace,
Justin Green

Hobo Hieroglyphics

This is "Sign Game" strip that appeared in Signs of the Times, Sept., 2003.

The Dying Penman Introduction

  To those following this blog, it may seem odd that posts sometimes appear from a work-in-progress, a technical manual (to be published by the See Sharp Press) on using the dip pen, titled "The Dying Penman." The entries appear out of context, so it should be no surprise that the opening page suddenly appears. The work is slowly unfolding from many sketchbooks, notebooks and files.
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 The great French artist Theodore Gericault said that one should be able to draw a body hurtling from a burning building before it hits the ground. I agree, if the word “doodle” can be substituted for drawing. Even within the field of pen and ink, there are so many types of drawing that the term is almost meaningless. When reading this book, please note the context of the advice that I offer. What may be true for one kind of imagery or style is not necessarily true for another. There are always exceptions to every rule, and no relative truth about art is universal.

  What is a virtue in a successful work may also be perceived as a limitation. An artist who excels at bold studies of athletes in motion may lack the light hand so necessary for drawing children. And speaking of sports—please disregard the idea that art is a competitive enterprise that should or will be acknowledged with trophies and public merit. Regardless of the auction value of any artist’s work, living or dead, there is no ultimate winner or “best artist.” People who keep the records, historians and critics, bring cultural and personal bias to bear. Forget consensus opinion, too. Art is not a democratic enterprise. It is my intention to set forth clearly dynamics of pen handling that will be helpful to both beginners and artists at every level.

  With due respect to my publisher, this book would never see the light of day if I thought it could be a cash cow. We bring this work to print at a critical time in history for the conscious penman (and even for the print medium). I am seeing what I regarded as a slowly-evolving craft suddenly become eclipsed, corrupted and finally, subsumed by the new computer technology. This revolution has occurred in a mere generation, revolutionizing every purview of hand craftsmanship, from medical illustration to architectural rendering.  I've already lived through this debacle in another field—as a traditional sign painter. It took less than five years for the field to implode after the new computer-generated vinyl letters were introduced in the mid-‘80s! I stubbornly clung to the traditional craft, chasing jobs that involved pictorials and complicated logos; yet even this niche suddenly became dominated by the new dot matrix printers in the early ‘90s. I returned by necessity to pen and ink for a livelihood, never dreaming that its existence would be seriously threatened so soon afterwards. Basic and refined principles of pen drawing are being relegated to historical footnotes. I feel an overwhelming need to describe the dynamic nature of the pen drawing that I have pursued all my life, in the hope that those who are opting for seductive shortcuts will realize what they’re overlooking.

   I know by heart the many pitfalls and misconceptions that a beginner might encounter along the way. Before I had any professional training, I entered the field by stealth as an auto-didactic. This is a gift being sent back to myself half a century ago. To my peers, I offer these insights as reference material for the preservation of our craft.

Entry Level Cartooning

Excerpt from "The Dying Penman," a work in progress.

  As print vehicles become increasingly harder to find, it’s a great paradox that the boom in wi-fi tablets has created the optimum showcase for cartoonists: a brilliantly backlit field that enhances the look of rich black-line drawings. And the colors of the so-called Golden Age of comics are washed-out pastels in comparison to the brilliant hues that the new technology offers.

  Yet the tactile quality of a printed page, the sheer look and feel of ink on newsprint, will never be completely subsumed or forgotten. In a crowded field where there are virtually no jobs advertised, one entry-level position remains. Every town and village has at least one sad little tabloid funded by its local merchants. Every city has dozens of these neighborhood rags that barely deserve to be called newspapers. I’m not talking about “Alternate Weekly” papers—even there the cartoon venues are already taken. The odds of a newcomer getting a gig with an A.W. are almost as formidable as getting into an actual newspaper. Yet if you break in with a humble Neighborhood paper, you’ll have a much better shot at seeing your work in an Alternate Weekly, your next stepping stone.

  The challenge will be to come up with cartoon ideas that have a broad popular appeal. But humor is never truly centrist, so you’ll be forced to learn how to become as edgy as possible without being offensive. That will help you improve your game, as restraint is every bit as vital a tool as unbridled self-expression in this hybrid word/image medium. It will be gratifying and sometimes humbling to get “real time” feedback from people who see your comics in print. Learn from everybody. It’s also a good discipline to learn how to respect a deadline. No matter what’s going on in your life, you’ll have to produce your strip. Give it your best shot! Pretend like you’re working for the New Yorker.

  If you’re lucky, you might be granted a little ad for all your troubles. Most likely some of the merchants will want you to do spot drawings for their ads, too. Though you might have to fend off criticisms from friends and family (“WHAT? You’re doing it for FREE?”), rest secure in the knowledge that you’re building a tangible portfolio, not a merely virtual one, that will surely lead to better things. It may also be just the ticket to convince you that you don’t really want to be cartoonist. If that’s the case, the sooner you know it, the better.

Be A Cartoon "History Detective"

U-Haul trucks without flashy digital graphics and use of old-fashioned telephones aren’t the only things that date this strip from ‘93. These days Summer job opportunities for teens are almost non-existent. Everything else is plausible. In fact, the beef stroganoff punch-line is literally true and I can underwrite that in a court of law!
 

 

Eagle Day Approaches

As the big annual spectacle looms, it seems ironic that a certain proud and loyal 
constituency among us shows the same righteous fervor as our avowed enemies... 

No Time Like Zen Time

  Here's one from '75. Kind of brash, but punchy. Perhaps the chicken should be a carrot.