After bouncing around at a few local colleges in upstate New York, Randy Gentile made the decision to move to New York City where he attended Pratt Institute. He landed an internship in the famous Marvel Bullpen and was able to turn that into a full-time gig in the now defunct Marvel in-house lettering department. He later transitioned to Chris Eliopoulos’ Virtual Calligraphy lettering studio.
With VC he lettered damn near every Marvel book at one time or another including Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Uncanny X-Men, Punisher, and Marville… wait, Marville?
Anyway, after 7 years of lettering Randy decided to make a go of it on his own without the aid of Chris “Obi-Wan” Eliopoulos. Since then he’s begun lettering for DC Comics where his work can be seen in funny books like Batman, Detective Comics, Gotham Underground, Teen Titans and Booster Gold.
Outside of his lettering work he self-publishes an autobiographical comic called NYComix and an uber-fast paced superhero strip called Randall. Both comics have been featured on Comic Geek Speak and Fanboy Radio.
When he’s not wallowing in lettering self-pity he spends his time in Brooklyn along with his lovely wife, Ereisa and their three cats Finnian, Don Fanucci and Olive.
Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff
Harvey Pekar's work hit me like a bolt of lightening and I've never looked at comics the same way since. How did a file clerk from Cleveland change the landscape of the comics medium?
When you think of comic giants, names like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, and Frank Miller come to mind... if you're thinking about underground comix you're talking R. Crumb, the Hernandez Brothers maybe Dave Sim... but Pekar is on a level all his own.
Growing up in a small town doesn't really expose you to a wide variety of comics. My LCS was a Shop Rite that had a spinner rack full of the usual Marvel and DC suspects. The notion that there were these black and white underground comix was completely foreign to me.
It wasn't until I moved to New York and checked out all the amazing shops here like Jim Hanley's Universe, Midtown Comics and Forbidden Planet that I became exposed to the underground comix scene. The big turning point for me was Volume 12 of The Complete Crumb Comics, which focused on Crumb and Pekar's legendary American Splendor team-ups.
Pekar's work was and still is so unlike anything being done today that it opened me up not only as a reader but as a creator as well.
"Comix are words and pictures... you can do anything with words and pictures..."
--Harvey Pekar
And that's exactly what Pekar has done with his work. From peeling and eating an orange at work to the personal triumph of successfully unclogging his toilet, a Pekar story makes the mundane engaging.
Autobiographical comics are a very difficult genre to work in. In my experience, the more honest the work is, the more successful it will be. How much do you hold back? How much do you put "out there"? Will putting this down on paper for the world to see harm you or, even worse, a loved one? Looking at the unbridled honesty that he's put into his work for almost 40 years makes you wonder what, if anything, he has held back.
Pekar has also chosen some of the most diverse and talented artists to draw his comics that you'll find anywhere. From the obvious guys like Crumb and Dean Haspiel to Joe Sacco and Frank Stack. Haspiel recently illustrated Pekar's first Graphic Novel: The Quitter, a story of his youth that adds a whole new layer to the Pekar Mystique. American Splendor has also hit the big time last year after it was published by DC's Vertigo Comics. Headlined by Haspiel along with other indy stalwarts like Richard Corben and Gilbert Hernandez
I can't recommend these books strongly enough as well as the myriad of American Splendor collections that should be on the shelves of any good comic shops.
The American Splendor movie (2003) starring the amazing Paul Giamatti is also a nice way to dip your toes into the life of Cleveland's resident hero. The film, directed by
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini took first prize at the Sundance Film Festival and it was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2003 Oscars. The film mixes traditional film, animation and documentary seamlessly and really captures the feel of the comics. It's certainly worth a rental and I'm willing to bet it'll make you check out a few American Splendor comix.
Font The News!
Another fairly quiet week for news. The convention season is underway with Megacon kicking off the festivities. I guess there were announcements made but, honestly, I'm not a big fan of convention panels. They're generally pretty boring in person so they're doubly boring to read about. Quesada defending that Spider-Man mess and pimping Bendis' latest "event": Secret Invasion. My LCS was handing out free Sacred Invasion comics giving you all you needed to know to get you ready for the upcoming Skrully event.
I shouldn't complain about free stuff but this is a Marvel comic we're talking about here so my standards are high for a reason, but the lettering in it was just awful. Huge type inflating the already overwritten and misshapen balloons with like 3 point strokes... there wasn't a listing for the letterer or even the writer that I noticed so I'm assuming it was an in-house thing. God forbid they pay an experienced letterer to make their promotional booklet look professional. Better to save a couple hundred bucks being that you're a multimillion-dollar corporation.
Anyway, I couldn't read the thing because I'm a lettering snob and I honestly have zero interest in this Skrull thing.
I did pick up a few good books recently, though.
Ed Brubaker's Criminal #1... I guess its Volume 2 issue 1. I found this renumbering rather confusing, being a new reader but nevertheless it was a good read with some really nice art by Sean Phillips. The issue had some cool extras in the back that I really enjoyed as well. However, Brubaker doesn't include this stuff in the trade paperbacks because he wants to reward people for buying the single issues. This makes no sense to me and really makes me not want to buy the trades. Why should I? I'm not getting the entire book. He's marketing Criminal as a "crime magazine" but if I want to catch up with what went down already I'm only getting part of the book. I don't know if he thinks this bumps sales on the singles but whatever the reason is, the one thing it does hurt is people who are getting on board with the book later on in the game. Sorry I didn't buy the book from day one. My bad. I would've bought the trades but I'm being "punished".
Logan #1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Eduardo Risso was a really great read. I absolutely loved the book and I can't wait for more. Nobody in the biz writes better cliffhangers than BKV.
Alright, that's enough... thanks for reading and I'll see ya'll next week.
Oh, and The Goon #22 is on sale this week... check it out.
Font You!
--Randy
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