Funny Business as MOWA Celebrates Wisconsin’s Comics History

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Denis Kitchen is used to being in the thick of things, but the former Milwaukee comic book mogul wasn’t prepared for Hurricane Isaias. The storm struck his rural Massachusetts property on August 5, knocking out power and toppling trees. One of those trees decapitated Big Boy, the seven-foot fiberglass mascot of the hamburger restaurant chain once popular in Milwaukee that stood in Kitchen’s yard.

“I was a big fan of Marc’s Big Boy, but I bought this one from a Bob’s Big Boy in California,” Kitchen says. “Now I have to see how well Bondo and fiberglass work together.”

Unfortunately, Big Boy’s emergency surgery will have to wait. Kitchen has co-curated a major Museum of Wisconsin Art exhibit on the influence Wisconsin artists have had on the comic book industry. “Wisconsin Funnies: 50 Years of Comics” opened August 8 at both the West Bend museum and its satellite gallery at Saint Kate—The Arts Hotel in Downtown Milwaukee. The exhibit celebrates the grand reopening of the museum, which closed earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Wisconsin Funnies” features 270 individual pieces of original and published art from 31 artists with Badger State ties, including Kitchen. The split location was originally designed to provide access to the collection’s political humor to attendees at the Democratic National Convention, which has now all but evaporated. Despite that, the exhibit will run in both locations through September 27.

Master Artists, Public Commentary

“These are the works of master technicians with individual voices who put a premium on public commentary while reflecting their own individual influences,” says Tyler Friedman, MOWA’s associate curator of contemporary art who developed the exhibit with Kitchen and James Dankey, faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “Comics weren’t burdened by the self-consciousness of the fine arts and actually served as a clearer meter of society.”

This was especially true of the underground comics—or “comix” in industry vernacular—that emerged during the late 1960s and early ‘70s and sparked the idea for the exhibit, Friedman explains. “Underground comics were self-consciously irreverent, subversive and with an interest in crossing borders and flirting with taboos, including frank approaches to sex and politics,” he adds.

Central to that movement was Kitchen Sink Press, a major publisher of underground comics that Denis Kitchen established in 1970 on Milwaukee’s East Side. In addition to publishing his own work, Kitchen began to publish the works of other artists, making Milwaukee one of two hotbeds of underground comics activity along with San Francisco. But the Racine native’s interest in comics goes all the way back to grade school.

An Early Passion

“Comic books were an early passion,” says Kitchen, who turns 74 on August 27. “Comics were 10 cents and I got 50 cents a week allowance, which meant I could buy five comic books.” Like most kids, Kitchen liked to draw and would write and illustrate little stories that he shared with classmates. They usually laughed at Kitchen’s work, encouraging the young artist. “I was about 10 or 12 a when I thought, ’Maybe this is something I could do,’” he says.

He created and edited Klepto, an unofficial student newspaper while at Racine Horlick High School. The skill carried over to his days at UW-Milwaukee, where he co-founded the humor magazine Snide. Inspired by Chicago’s Bijou Funnies and Zap Comix, a San Francisco publication that showcased the work of legendary artist Robert Crumb, Kitchen created Mom’s Homemade Comics, which he personally peddled to various Milwaukee head shops. It was an immediate hit. “I published 4,000 copies because that was all I could afford at the time,” Kitchen says. “I sold 3,000 copies on the East Side alone. We also shipped 500 copies to San Francisco and 500 to Woodstock.”

After being ripped off by a West Coast publisher, Kitchen began to self-publish. He created parent company Krupp Comic Works, which began to publish other artists’comics, including Bijou Funnies. The business expanded and soon he was also publishing mainstream comic artists like Al Capp (creator of “Li’l Abner”) and Ernie Bushmiller (who wrote “Nancy”), as well as Gay Comix, the first comic devoted to gay and lesbian issues.

Kitchen also co-founded and illustrated The Bugle American, another of Milwaukee’s alternative publications. He published books, curated events, appeared at comic conventions  and even created The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund after one of his distributors was charged with the sale of obscene material. A 1993 merger with Tundra Publishing relocated Kitchen’s operations to Northhampton, Massachusetts.

From Ballpoint to Brushes

Kitchen cites multiple artists and publications as influences, but is especially indebted to Harvey Kurtzman, who created Playboy’s “Little Annie Fanny” and Will Esiner, responsible for bringing “The Spirit” to life. Both artists have had their work published by Kitchen Sink Press. Kitchen also credits longtime Milwaukee Journal editorial cartoonist Bill Sanders as a mentor. Sanders’ work also is featured as part of the exhibit.

“Bill helped me move from ballpoint pen to brushes by giving me two expensive sable brushes,” Kitchen notes. “He said, ‘The Journal is not going to miss these.’”

These days, the plethora of media, both in terms of options and content, makes underground comics a quaint relic of a bygone era, Kitchen says. But there is still need for unfettered social commentary designed to deflate society’s stuffed shirts, and humor is still one of the best ways to present such commentary, he adds. “Humor is hard to dissect and what makes one person guffaw may make another one’s eyes to glaze over,” Kitchen says. “Part of it is the shock that comes from a joke that promotes a laugh and a fresh way of thinking. Good cartoonists, like good comedians, can make that happen.

“Times are tough and we all need a good laugh,” Kitchen adds. “Cartoonists can do that, while making people think often at the same time. In that regard, there is nothing that a cartoonist can’t do.”

Dennis is participating in a virtual artists talk on MOWA’s facebook Live page on Thursday, Aug. 13 from 7 - 8:30 pm. The talk will be moderated by MOWA associate curator Tyler Friedman.

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