I started reading King-Cat Comix when I was fourteen years old. I had read a glowing review of King-Cat # 45 in
Destroy All Comics, a zine put together by Jeff Levine that I had found at a local comic book store. At that age, just coming out of middle school, I had been fascinated by the underground comics made by auteurs like Mike Allred and Dan Clowes that I had discovered in a column in the very normal
Wizard Magazine. Soon after comics like
Grafik Muzik and
Eightball opened the door leading to the possibility of individualized expression in comics for me, my discovery of
King-Cat blew the hinges right off it.
King-Cat # 45 received the most glowing review that 1994 issue of
Destory All Comics had to offer, and, floored by the idea of totally home-made comics as a viable medium and product, I took Levine’s advice and sent John Porcellino a letter requesting a copy of
K-C # 45 along with 2 dollars cash. What I received changed forever how I thought about comics, and about art; and I am confident to go so far as to say that it changed my life. Through my high school years (and into college and law school) I consumed John’s work voraciously, and through his work I discovered, very quickly, an entire world of hidden art and unnoticed culture, through the many comics, zines and records that John directed me to. But the most important thing that I discovered from all of this was the sheer power that can only come from the realization that the ability to create is instantly available to everybody. There is absolutely nothing that can stop any willing person from making something that can invent a culture—that’s what John showed me.
Aside from this general realization, the content of John’s images were powerful to me as well. As a youth I was delighted to receive an example of how to be a real man—a man’s man—at the same time as being ponderous, anxious, self-critical, and scared. This, of course, is the way that every self-reliant man is and we all know it (the reader should think of his own father), but this reality is hardly ever validated and almost never developed in art. I also related to the interest in Buddhism that John cultivated in the mid 1990’s and felt an irresistible kinship with John’s conscious dedication to the tragically ephemeral details in our lives and to the undeniable importance of our experiences, our selves, our tastes, our reactions, and our cherished memories.
King-Cat has always been a good bargain for the consumer; John, I trust, has never really made any money to speak of from what is a very rich and valuable repertoire, and his life’s work. King-Cat is really just a thoughtful gift from John to you and me—just like our own lives are generous gifts to us, and our persons and personalities are rare prizes that we may choose to disclose to other people.
King-Cat Classix is a voluminous compendium of John’s best, most iconic works to be drawn from the first 50 issues of his peerless series
King-Cat. The book’s presentation is at once professional and private, a carefully constructed collection that embodies
King-Cat's position at the nexus of the ephemeral world of zines and the steady sphere of libraries and archives that John’s work will inhabit for the rest of our history. The book costs 30 dollars, it’s hard bound, and you can buy it from Amazon, but this thick collection of black and white pen drawings is nothing less than a true record of John’s 1990’s zine revolution. I give it, as I would give all of John Porcellino’s work, my absolute highest recommendation.
Released May 1, 2007 by Drawn & Quarterly, Montreal.
