Description:
Underground comix are an obscure branch of art, and even if you've heard of them, you might assume they died along with the rest of the '60s counterculture. But comix are still with us at the dawn of the new millennium--though not the same comix, and certainly not in the profusion of the hippie daze. The best underground magazine of the early to mid-1980s was the anthology series Weirdo, edited initially by R. Crumb. Weirdo #2 contained the debut of one of underground comix's greatest talents, arguably the greatest after Crumb: Dori Seda. Dori Stories collects Dori Seda's complete works: not only her comix (one previously unpublished) but also her foto funnies (one written by R. Crumb), sketches, posters, and impressive, full-color shots of paintings and ceramics. In addition, it includes several photographs of Seda; a bibliography; a spare, sharp introduction by Neil Gaiman; the moving tributes of friends and lovers (including comix by the cartoonists Krystine Kryttre and Leslie Sternbergh); and the award-winning story "Dori Bangs," an alternate history by Bruce Sterling in which Dori Seda meets the rock critic Lester Bangs--and they both live a lot longer than they did in real life. (Lester Bangs died in 1982; Dori Seda died in 1988, in her 30s, apparently of a combination of untreated car-crash injuries, alcohol abuse, flu, and emphysema.) Seda's debut, "Bloods in Space" (a blaxploitation-style story about space men, written by K. Lambert), is pretty weak, but by the next year her artistic and narrative talents had blossomed. Her more or less autobiographical comix were the perfect vehicle. Confessional stories are hard to make interesting, but Seda's stories are terrific: well drawn, incisive, disturbing, and funny. Having read these confessionals, her fans were deeply saddened but not really surprised by her early death. "The Life Cycle of an Artist" shows an artist's evolution from creative isolation to hearty partying to, well, a reminder of why she hadn't been going out much in the first place. In "The Love Life of an Artist," a 30-year-old Seda, engaged to an extremely inappropriate man, ends up instead with a purple-haired teenage punk--a doomed relationship, but not for the reasons you'd expect. "The Artist Meets a Swinger, Or... Crabs Eating Raoul" portrays the sexual misadventures and conflicts that result when Seda's new man insists they both swing. If you're easily shocked, avoid Dori Stories at all costs. --Cynthia Ward
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