L’Observateur : Fat Freddy’s Cat Edition

One day I was riding my bike down J.P. Timbaud, and saw Fat Freddy’s Cat painted on the outside of a storefront. Turns out, Gilbert Shelton’s publisher has a comix store and tea house just around the corner from where we live, and he’s got a box of vintage Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers T-shirts that Shelton gave him to sell. The one I want is 40 euros and probably way too small, but I’m going to go on a protracted diet and then haggle him.

A few weeks ago, some bands played an event where Shelton and Pic were signing comix, and we popped in and drank some wine and chatted with them for about an hour. After awhile, a six-year-old French boy walked up and asked Shelton to draw something in his sketch book, and it was (for me) a thrill to sit next to Shelton and watch him draw the Freak Brothers and Fat Freddy’s Cat. I wonder what the kid was thinking.

Shelton told me a story about eating in a Parisian cafe with my friend Ed Alexander from Real de Catorce and the waitress thinking they were brothers, which I can totally see.

Later, I joked to Pic that he should sign my chest. You know, like rock stars sign breasty chests. After which, he would not let go of the idea. It wasn’t until after he was finished that I realized what he’d drawn.

L’Observateur : Comix Edition

Thanks to divine intervention, I’m now living two blocks from the studio of comix legend Gilbert Shelton – which is a minor miracle in labyrinthine Paris. Last weekend, he held a book signing for the French edition release of Frank Stack’s “The New Adventures of Jesus: The Second Coming,” to which Gilbert and R. Crumb wrote the forward. Stack is an affable gent, extremely knowledgeable on a wide variety of art-related topics, and a verified legend. It was a treat to meet him.

Frank Huntington Stack (aka Foolbert Sturgeon, b. 1937) is an American underground cartoonist working under the name Foolbert Sturgeon. To avoid persecution for his work while living in the bible belt, Stack published what is considered by many to be the first underground comic book, The Adventures of Jesus, in 1962.

As an aside, Gilbert told us that the original photocopy of The Adventures of Jesus (made at the University of Texas law school), was recently auctioned for $10,900. Then he showed us his incomplete version of the photocopy and postulated that it probably wasn’t worth as much. See also: Rip-off Press.

Gilbert shares his studio with French comix artist Denis “Pic” Lelièvre, who showed us some magic tricks and gave us a copy of his book 45 Tours de Magie. Conversely, he saw a less impressive magic trick that appeared on “Plus Tard,” to which he replied:

Gee, I saw the same guy! Was sitting at the same level, he was with a friend. He did also let this green football roll on his thumb, like the good old Harlem Globetrotters (remember?) I smiled and blink an eye to him and couldn’t prevent from admiring him all my way long, with my Greil Markus “Bob Dylan” in my hands...

I would say “Wow, What Are the Chances,?!” but lately I’m seeing more and more familiar faces in the streets of Paris. I saw Karen at the Leche Vin, I saw Michael outside Au Bougnat, and I saw the thrift store guy from Belleville in an entirely different thrift store between République and Gare de L’Est. And then yesterday, I saw the Gregory Hines guy again. Someone told me he was a window washer. Nevertheless, I still don’t like him.