Pulp Novel Cover Party

Cathy Camper, who buys zines and small press comics for the Multnomah County Library, hosts a drawing potluck once a year where we create original pulp novel covers.  She and her partner Matty come up with insane titles and list them for the artists to choose from.  She started inviting Dylan and me about four years ago, and this is the only cover that I've confirmed yet is Dylan's drawing.  As I'm sure you're all aware, Dylan was a huge fan of pulp and dime novel writing and artwork.  

You can see some examples of other peoples' covers here - the artists are anonymous.

 

Murder Can Be Fun (Revised)

This is the original art, and the published version of the 5-page comic Dylan made for the Murder Can Be Fun comic book, published by Slave Labor in February 1996. It was based on a true story of The Great Train Wreck of 1918, the deadliest train accident in U.S. history.

He used an experimental approach on this one with loose (for him) inking, sgraffito (such as where he scratched out the words "Oh Jesus H. Christ," and using a thick application of pro-white to paint over certain areas. The areas of black and white were inverted before it was printed. I thought he was nuts when he was drawing this, and I still think it is not entirely successful. For example, we disagreed about his use of vernacular language for his characters here. But my opinion on it has changed through the years, and I have grown to really like this comic. The art is so expressive and beautifully loose. Sadly, though I have stored these pages well, the lettering has begun to fade and migrate through to the back of the bristol paper. Download a pdf of both the original and the published artwork here.