Pastime As Prologue or "Get Out Of My House!"

Following up on yesterday's tale, Maxor Of Cirod, from John Adkins Richardson, let's take a look at a few more of his works. I was sorely tempted to rerun his terrific Doctor Strange painting here, but instead i'll just note that it's worth looking back to that post if you've not seen it.

To wrap up this set, here's a self portrait of the artist - 

I've spoken a bit about him in the past, but just who is this JARichardson guy? That's the sort of question that pops up frequently when we look back at artists from the fan scene of decades ago. Fortunately for us, in this case there are interviews from back when. Today we'll look at one that ran in Golden Age #7 back in 1971 -

   John Adkins Richardson keeps martinis in an old peanut butter jar in his refrigerator. He is also a full Professor of Art at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, an elected member of the Faculty Senate, a writer of heavy books and of articles for learned journals, a nostalgia buff, a pipe-smoker, and a painter. I confronted on of his paintings in a gallery some years ago. it was a five foot square self-portrait composed of several dozen painted images mused together, montage-style, into an entity that reveals the man. His own face peers out suspiciously. His blond wife. The two sons. Captain America, bashing the bejazus out of some evil-doer with his mighty shield. Joe Louis. A few bushy nudes. A Bisley Colt. Captain Marvel. A Gee-Bee racing plane! (I thought I was the only man alive who remembered the Gee-Bee.) Hawkman. An elongated Stuka.

   I advanced on the painting and, after half an hour, decided that I knew the man who painted it better than I should know a man that I didn't know. So I hunted him up. He cheered my taste and culture; we got into the martinis. "You are a goodlooking S.O.B. and you know comics," said he. "hmmmm." "If you really like the painting, I'll do one of you." "Gawd." "Have another booze."

   My painting, a three-ply gasser, now hangs in my living room, but the conversations go on. "What was the Lone Ranger's last name?" "Anybody knows that it was Reid." "Damn! All right, who was Tank Tinker?" "Get out of my house!"

  Richardson knows things that an art professor has no real business knowing about. Early radio programs: "You mean that your wife can actually play 'Priscilla' on that piano?" "Of course, can't yours?" "Hmmmm..." But that's nothing. He knows about things like the history of modern mathematics. In fact, the University of Illinois Press is publishing a book of his on the history of modern art and scientific thought. He reads James Joyce. Gets around in the Paris subways. Knows about guitar construction, obscure jazz compositions, handguns, Capt. Midnight, home design. And, of course, the comics.

   "I just got a grant to go to the Library of Congress to study old comics books!" "I thought that was your major at Columbia University." "You mere Assistant Professors are a jealous lot." "But if my tax dollars pay you to -- !" "Get out of my house!"

Here's the actual interview. I'm too lazy to transcribe the entire thing -

For an extra bonus - here's RJ Shay's portrait of Richardson from when Gary Groth interviewed him in Fantastic Fanzine -

Yeah, we might get to that interview at some point. But wouldn't you rather check out that Elric tale he illustrated...?

I suspect we'll wind up there first, y'know?

art by John Adkins Richardson from Golden Age #7, Fantastic Fanzine #13, and Rocket's Blast Comic Collector #s 73, 77, 88, 111, 120, 138, & 149, and RJ Shay from Fantastic Fanzine Special #2 (1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975)

Over Chronicles Of Wasted Time ... New Shadows Hurtle

The first person we looked at from the Rocket's Blast Comic Collector was John Adkins Richardson. At that time, i rather thought we'd be getting to his Maxor Of Cirod comic - "a combination of science fiction, the macabre, and satire" - in the days following. 

Sixteen months later my peripatetic mind finally wanders back around. Let's jump straight into the story before it wanders off again...

by John Adkins Richardson from RBCC #s 122-126 (1975, 1976)

Who Says They Can't?

A bit of common 'wisdom' in our society is "Those who can - Do; Those who can't - Teach."

This notion is born out of our society's one true religion - Wealth*. Obviously, they'd be somewhere making more money than the ridiculously small amount the caretakers of the next generation are paid. Nobody in their right mind would be wasting their life making less money than was possible for them, right?

I mean, it's not like the education and future of our children is something that we consider any sort of priority. In fact, in today's world those both are considered resources to be mined and exploited for immediate wealth at the expense of future generations.

So, of course, those who Teach can't Do.

Allow me to offer a counter argument -

This lovely painting of Doctor Strange comes from the cover of Rocket Blast Comicollector, a fanzine from the 60s & 70s that featured a great pool of talent and the print equivalent of the dealer's room from conventions of later eras. I've been digging through old issues hunting for some of Grass Green's work from the time, but so far it's mostly been his contemporaries like Ronn Foss and Biljo White that have turned up.

Along the way, i stumbled across this painted cover to RBCC #80 and was reminded of the artist - John Adkins Richardson. Odds are, you're not familiar with him, eh?

Here's some of his comic work from the same year, coming to us from Wally Wood's magazine, Witzend #8. Because this story has nudity, only sample pages are presented here. The full version of the story is included in the mirror of this post in our adult content 'back room' at The Other Voice Of ODD!

From the following year (1972) in Fever Dreams #1, here's the first three pages of The Unicorn Quest. (Complete story in the The Other version of this post in the back room)

As we see above, the man can Do, but the reason you likely haven't heard of him is because he chose to teach. Last i knew, he was the Professor Emeritus of Art and Design at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He's got a few books out on the subject, too, including Modern Art And Scientific Thought (published the same year as the story above), The Complete Book Of Cartooning, and Art: The Way It Is.

We really need to drop a lot of silly, counterproductive notions like this from our collective thought.
And, y'know, invest in our children's future like any rational society would do.

art by John Adkins Richardson from RBCC #80, Witzend #8, and Fever Dreams #1 (1971, 1972)

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*(People may talk religion and teach children morality but, on the societal level, all that goes out the window and into the trash as soon as "real world" decisions need making. The one thing we truely worship is Money and, despite the frequent misquotes, it's Love Of Money that is the root of all evil. (Though that's not quite true - a great deal of evil is born of mere indifference and casual disregard, too))