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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Books The Complete Work of Fletcher Hanks, Finally Completed

Posted by Paul Constant on Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 1:28 PM

I have no idea what this means.

Fantagraphics Books Blog directs us to this blog, which has discovered two lost Fletcher Hanks comic strips, about a boxer named Moe M. Down: King of the Canvas-Kissers.

If you haven't read I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! and its sister volume You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!, you're in for a treat. Fletcher Hanks was a bad cartoonist at a time when comics publishers were starving for content. They would literally publish anybody as long as they could fill a deadline. Hanks stepped in with an array of characters (Stardust, the Space Wizard and Big Red McLane, a hunky lumberjack, among others) who have short adventures that make little to no sense. His omnipotent, all-powerful characters are right simply because the narrator says they are, even though they often sadistically torture their prey.

Hanks has often been called the Ed Wood of comics, but it's more than that. He's Ed Wood crossed with Henry Darger and Robert Crumb. You get the sense that in another time, maybe in an alternative comics framework, he'd be a genius, but his lack of enthusiasm for and interest in the dull morality of comics really shines through in his work. You should go enjoy these strips.

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"Pipe That Beef Trust, Slick!"

Translation:

"Take a look at that extremely large and muscular gentleman, my good friend!"

Posted by COMTE

on December 29, 2009 at 1:46 PM

I love these. Great find. I've been on a Fletcher Hanks kick lately thanks to a friend of mine. Hanks was an asshole IRL, too. He abandoned his family before his brief flourish of productivity in the pre-war period.

Posted by laterite on December 29, 2009 at 1:47 PM

Wonderful stuff. Now, if only Fantagraphics would issue a series of the complete "Apartment 3-G"....

Posted by Fnarf

on December 29, 2009 at 1:53 PM

people used to "pipe that beef trust" at the Eagle, but the cops came down on them for it and they removed the pool table and sling and now no one pipes any beef at the Eagle...

Posted by michael strangeways

on December 29, 2009 at 2:01 PM

Man, I love me some Fletcher Hanks. Paul Karasik's story of trying to track down Hanks and finding out what he was like as a person is an amazing afterword to "I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets!"

Posted by Peter F on December 29, 2009 at 2:08 PM

The past gets its revenge .. you should feel a little cheered to remember that nobody in the 40s would be able to understand a headline that says "Google Buys Twitter".

Posted by --MC on December 29, 2009 at 3:57 PM

Thanks for the kind words about my compilations of Fletcher Hanks, the man whom R. Crumb called, "A twisted dude".

There is a full-length Hanks story over at my website (along with some swell Fantomah t-shirts for sale):

www.fletcherhanks.com

Posted by Paul Karasik on December 30, 2009 at 4:52 AM

I find his work has a mesmerizing lunacy similar to that of the silent era Wizard of Oz films.

Posted by Davo on February 21, 2012 at 9:43 PM