Spontaneous Combustion is Skip Williamson's memoir about Art and Life. About his motivations and the voices in his head that command him do what he does.
His is a childhood so consumed by the specter of comic books that he's driven to pre-pubescent larceny and discovers the awesome power of comic art. And later into the roil of the turbulent late 60s Chicago where he, Robe
Spontaneous Combustion is Skip Williamson's memoir about Art and Life. About his motivations and the voices in his head that command him do what he does.
His is a childhood so consumed by the specter of comic books that he's driven to pre-pubescent larceny and discovers the awesome power of comic art. And later into the roil of the turbulent late 60s Chicago where he, Robert Crumb and Jay Lynch helped jump start the underground comix movement with Bijou Funnies, a comic that featured dancing chickens, stories of shocking sexual angst, psychotropic other-dimensional travel, satanic cartoon ravings, and introduced the world to the seminal cartoon characters Snappy Sammy Smoot, Nard and Pat and Mr. Natural. And into the mean streets of the Windy City where he witnesses the police riots in '68, becomes friends with Abbie Hoffman and illustrates "Steal This Book". He gives witness to the Chicago 7 trial, the implosion of the radical left and, as he trips the psychedelic outback by consuming LSD and enjoys undulating carnality fueled by "Free Love" and psychoactive substance.
Stumbling along the craggy road to blivion Skip enjoys drug- fueled adventures with his friend Bob Rudnick, the Righteous One, and eventually Rudnick's death. And his friendship and an art/musical partnership with John Prine. He tells the story of a messy suicide during the lunch hour while working at Playboy magazine, and his move to Atlanta -- an artistic sinkhole -- where he receives a death threat during an art lecture, and where his art is painted out on a gallery facade because of distasteful content. And as eight of his paintings are taken off the wall at an exhibition and destroyed because an art patron saw them as anti-Semitic and satanic.
This is a self-published Kindle book, and it could have used a good copy-editor. But between the whiff of vanity publication and the amateurish editing, it's actually great! Skip Williamson is a funny writer--he writes as if he's telling you a longish shaggy-dog story in a bar, and his use of language (as anyone who has read his comics knows) is interestingly florid. I wish it had been organized a little better, and hadn't been so episodic--there are spaces between the anecdotes he shares that I
This is a self-published Kindle book, and it could have used a good copy-editor. But between the whiff of vanity publication and the amateurish editing, it's actually great! Skip Williamson is a funny writer--he writes as if he's telling you a longish shaggy-dog story in a bar, and his use of language (as anyone who has read his comics knows) is interestingly florid. I wish it had been organized a little better, and hadn't been so episodic--there are spaces between the anecdotes he shares that I would like to have heard more about. At the very least, I'd like to see the trajectories of his career at Playboy, his various relations, his life in Chicago (and why he moved to Atlanta), etc. As it is, we get glimpses of these things. Spontaneous Combustion comes off, then, as a bit of a "greatest hits" collection. And the hits are indeed great reading! But short of a more detailed autobiography, this is an entirely enjoyable read.
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