\
 

Artist Bio - KIM DEITCH


Kim Deitch universe

Kim Deitch photoKIM DEITCH (born May 21, 1944 in Los Angeles, California) is the son of illustrator and animator Gene Deitch, and has sometimes worked with his brothers Simon and Seth Deitch. As sixties comics were popular and under-exploited from an artistic point of view, they were the perfect medium for Kim. In 1972 he published his first underground comic book, "Corn Fed Comics". Soon after, he began contributing to various magazines ("East Village Other", "Bijou Funnies") and put out more comic books. Much of Kim Deitch's work deals with the animation industry and characters from the world of cartoons.His best-known character is a mysterious cat named Waldo, who appears variously as a famous cartoon character of the 1930's, as an actual character in the reality of the strips, as the hallucination of a hopeless alcoholic surnamed Mishkin, as the demonic reincarnation of Judas Iscariot; and who, occasionally is claimed to have overcome Deitch and written the comics himself. Waldo's appearance is reminiscent of such black cat characters as Felix the Cat and Krazy Kat. 

Kim Deitch - Fantagraphics link

Kim and Waldo

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

  • 2019 Reincarnation Stories (Fantagraphics, 260 pg) Hardback
  • 2013 The Amazing, Enlightening and Absolutely True Adventures of Katherine Whaley! (Fantagraphics, 176 pg) Hardback
  • 2010 The Search for Smilin' Ed (Fantagraphics, 162 pg) — serialized in Zero Zero beginning in 1999
  • 2007 Deitch's Pictorama (Fantagraphics, 184 pg) — co-authored with Simon Deitch and Seth Kallen Deitch; includes 78-pg "Sunshine Girl"
  • 2006 Shadowland (Fantagraphics, 182 pg) — 10 stories (OOP)
  • 2002 The Stuff of Dreams (Fantagraphics, 136 pg) — original OOP; re-released by Pantheon as a hardback in 2007 as Alias the Cat!
  • 1993 The Mishkin File! (Fantagraphics, 32 pg) original OOP; reprinted in The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Pantheon 2002)
  • 1992 All Waldo Comics (Fantagraphics, 60 pg) — 5 Waldo stories published from 1969-1988 (OOP)
  • 1991 The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (original published in Raw [OOP]; re-released by Pantheon as a hardback in 2002, 160 pg) — with Simon Deitch
  • 1990 A Shroud for Waldo (Fantagraphics, 158 pg)
  • 1989 Beyond the Pale (Fantagraphics, 136 pg) — 22 stories produced from 1969-1984 (OOP)
  • 1988 Hollywoodland (Fantagraphics, 76 pg) — 1984 story (OOP)
  • 1988 No Business Like Show Business (3-D Zone)
  • 1972–1973 Corn Fed Comics (Honeywell & Todd and Cartoonists Co-Op Press, 2 issues)

    Reincarnation Stories


    ComicsBeat.com review of Reincarnation Stories



    COMICS PUBLICATIONS
    :


  • Apex Treasury of Underground Comics, Links Books/Quick Fox, 1974
  • Arcade
  • Bijou Funnies — issues #2, 3, and 8
  • Corporate Crime Comics
  • East Village Other
  • Gothic Blimp Works
  • Heavy Metal
  • High Times
  • Laugh in the Dark
  • LA Weekly
  • Lean Years
  • Mineshaft Magazine
  • Pictopia
  • Prime Cuts
  • Raw
  • Swift Comics (Bantam Books, April 1971) — with Art Spiegelman, Allan Shenker and Trina Robbins
  • Southern Fried Fugitives
  • Tales of Sex and Death
  • Get Stupid
  • Webcomic Hurricane Relief Telethon
  • Weirdo
  • Young Lust
  • Zero Zero

 


Back to Gallery 1






"The Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" published by Pantheon,
"conjures up a haunting and haunted American past."
- Art Spiegelman


Lean Years


Shadowland

Pictorama

"Kim Deitch is generally held to be one of the greatest influences in American underground comix. I remember discovering him when I first started buying underground comix at the Free Press Bookstore at Colorado & Fair Oaks in Pasadena in 1970. His stories always were, and still are, comfortable and inviting, despite the specters of gunplay, heroin use and other unsavory conduct by fat deviants and cute cartoon characters.

I finally met Deitch at a book signing and found him to be as charming and interesting as his massive catalog. He does appear as he draws himself with beard, balding pate and ponytail, but you can tell he'd fit right into a $1200 suit. I wish we'd had more time to reminisce."
- Gary Cifra, Lines On Paper Founder