Jim Osborne was born in Monroe, Louisiana, in 1943 and grew up in Texas. After a stint in the U.S. Army from 1963 – 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1968, where he embraced the counterculture and began to submit comics to the local underground newspapers. He soon became a well-known figure in the city’s burgeoning comix scene.
‘Jim Osborne: The Black Prince of the Underground’ compiles all of Osborne’s comix and graphic art (these all were done in black-and-white). It also includes a biographical sketch of Osborne, with anecdotes and reminiscences from family and friends and other comix artists. And it’s physically smaller than the usual dimensions of the comics-related books published by Fantagraphics (such as multi-volume set of books dealing with 'Spain' Rodriguez), but it had the same high production values one would expect from Fantagraphics.
It should be emphasized that Osborne was second to none – including S. Clay Wilson – when it came to using comix as a vehicle to depict all manner of explicit, disturbing horrors and depravities, so I’m not sure who, exactly, will be interested in picking up the book. I had to search very carefully for excerpts from the book that I could scan to use in this review.
Perverts, murderers, demons, and drug addicts all populate the comix and art of Jim Osborne, where their iniquities often are accompanied by notes of black humor.
Aside from the dwindling cohort of people that remember Osborne’s comics from the 60s and 70s, I’m guessing that the Gorehounds who devour modern-day, full- color comics from Avatar like Crossed and Uber, likely will find delight in Osborne’s gruesome portrayals of libertines, cannibals, serial killers, demons, and other degenerates.
One thing that really comes across well in the pages of ‘Jim Osborne’ is the intricate nature of his artwork, which originally was printed on newsprint-grade paper by obsolete presses manned by comix publishers in condemned warehouses in San Francisco.
The catalog from Bud Plant arrived recently, and I thought I am overdue to promote it here at the PorPor Books Blog.
Bud Plant began his career in 1968 when he partnered with five friends to establish a San Jose, California comic book store called 'Seven Sons Comic Shop'. In the 1980s Plant became the major distributor of comics along the west coast, and began selling comics and books and related materials through his own mail-order company.
In the days before the internet, if you were a fan of comics and associated media, Bud Plant was one of the few places where you could find such stuff, and receiving the Bud Plant's Incredible Catalog always was cause for due consideration. I began patronizing the Incredible Catalog back in the late 1980s / early 1990s, and I've stayed with it since.
