FULL RUN Bogeyman #1 2 3 San Francisco Comic Book Co. 1968 Underground Comix 👀 for Sale

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FULL RUN Bogeyman #1 2 3 San Francisco Comic Book Co. 1968 Underground Comix 👀 For Sale

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FULL RUN Bogeyman #1 2 3 San Francisco Comic Book Co. 1968 Underground Comix 👀:
$180.00

FULL SET - ALL 3 ISSUES!

Bogeyman #1, 2 & 3

1968 San Francisco Comic Book Company

Rory Hayes

Gary Arlington

Jay Lynch

Jim Osborne

Rick Griffin

Robert Crumb

Kim Deitch

Simon Clay Wilson

Geoffrey Hayes

Jack “Jaxon” Jackson

Greg Irons

Spain Rodriguez

Underground Comix

RARE! Only Printing!

Nice Shape! Some Wear. See pics!

Securely Boxed & Shipped with USPS Media Mail.

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Info from comixjoint—>

Bogeyman

1968-1970 / San Francisco Comic Book / Company & Sons

Bogeyman is an early underground series spawned from the unique mind of Rory Hayes, enabled by the founder of San Francisco Comic Book Company (and passionate fan of EC Comics), Gary Arlington. On the surface, the series is as Jay Kennedy described, "Horror comix in an EC Comics tradition." But as any issue of Bogeyman will attest, Rory's illustrations are quite crude compared to the EC masters, and most of his stories are juvenile nightmares that barely frighten. The first issue is all Hayes, while the next two issues brought in several guest artists who added extra spook to the series, but Bogeyman always remained Rory Hayes' title (he even edited the second issue).

Hayes has a fascinating history dating from his childhood, which is chronicled by his older brother Geoffrey in the 2008 book compilation of Rory's best work, Where Demented Wented (also summarized in Geoffrey's magazine article about Rory). Bogeyman #1 was Rory Hayes first professional comic book, which he produced at the age of 18 after befriending Gary Arlington while hanging around Arlington's shop in San Francisco. After Bogeyman launched, Hayes became a frequent presence in the underground scene, contributing to Bijou Funnies, Fits, Radical America Komiks, San Francisco Comic Book, Insect Fear and Slow Death.

Hayes most notorious comic work was his one-man smut manifesto, Cunt Comics. But Hayes violent porn comics were produced more as a favor to other people than as an area of obsession for Hayes, at least at the beginning. After he contributed some smut comics to Snatch Comics #2 in late 1968, Hayes did go through a phase where he drew nothing but naked bodies, exploding blood and other spurting body fluids. But this phase may also have been influenced by the acid and speed Hayes was getting into (and would never get out of), which steered his artwork into darker and more bizarre themes. As Geoffrey put it, "Drugs seemed to liberate Rory, to let him unleash his demons full force."

But the first issue of Bogeyman came before the drugs and before Hayes began working on Cunt Comics. Bogeyman #1 demonstrates that if Hayes had an area of obsession in the field of comics, it was horror comics, a theme that dominated his early professional work. Geoffrey states that "Bogeyman #1 was a continuation of what Rory had been doing as a teenager, albeit rather more gruesome. It was less an underground comic than a retro take on old horror comics, but it got him noticed.... Only with Bogeyman did Rory even start thinking of himself as an artist, of drawing as more than just a hobby."

As the three issues of Bogeyman amply illustrate, Hayes may not have been a representational draftsman, but his expertise with page and panel composition is well developed (bear in mind that his brother Geoffrey produced at least one and possibly more unattributed stories that were published in the second and third issues). Rory Hayes also has no compunction for happy endings or surviving protagonists, as his teddy bear character often meets a fatal destiny. At times, the teddy bear appears to embody Hayes as a child who has recurring nightmares, which always end just as he is about to die.

I'm betting that Geoffrey Hayes would agree that underground comics changed Rory more than Rory changed underground comics. He was a unique artist and few, if any, attempted to imitate his style back in the early '70s. As Geoffrey put it, "Rory's work is and always will be his own. Bypassing his conscious mind, it arrives directly from some deep place onto the page, unvarnished and unapologetic." Due in part to that inimitable quality and straightforward storytelling, Hayes' influence on comic art would grow over the years and many alternative-comic creators (including Edwin "Savage Pencil" Pouncey, Gary Panter and Mark Beyer) drew inspiration from him.

Readers may or may not embrace Rory Hayes and Bogeyman, but that is part of the joy of being one of his fans. Not everyone gets it. And we kind of like it that way.

Bogeyman Comics #1

Only Printing / Fall, 1968 / 32 Pages / S.F. Comic Book Co.

Bogeyman #1 is probably one of the first dozen or so undergrounds that followed in the wake of Zap Comix #1 in 1968. It was written and illustrated by Rory Hayes and edited and published by Gary Arlington after they became friends through Arlington's comic book shop in the Mission District of San Francisco.

The first issue of Bogeyman is quite different from any other underground (even subsequent issues of Bogeyman). On the surface, it is as Jay Kennedy described, "Horror comix in an EC Comics tradition." But Rory's illustrations are comically crude compared to the EC masters, and his stories are juvenile nightmares that barely frighten. However, as reported by many underground collectors, there is a certain charm to Rory's work, and to this comic in particular. I think the stories, and even the primitive yet elaborate artwork, resonate with many readers who shared the type of inner demons during childhood that Rory likely suffered.

A comic for the ages for some, amateurish swill for others. Count me in with the former.

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:

San Francisco Comic Book Company printed approximately 5,000 copies of this comic book. It has not been reprinted.

COMIC CREATORS:

Gary Arlington - (editor) 27-30 (text)

Rory Hayes - 1-26, 32

Bogeyman #2

Only Printing / 1969 / 32 Pages / San Francisco Comic Book Co.

By the time the second issue was published, just a few months after the first, Bogeyman had attracted many more contributors than just Rory Hayes. Jay Lynch, Jim Osborne, Rick Griffin (in a delightful jam with Rory), Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch and S. Clay Wilson all join in the fun. Rory also became the editor of the comic, so he controlled every aspect of the book. The result is in some ways a superior comic book compared to the first issue, as Jay Lynch and Jim Osborne provide two fine tales that truly recall the traditions of the old EC horror comics.

One of Hayes stories, "October Eve," has a nice build up but doesn't pay off at the end, which hurts the overall review score. But another one, "Evolve," features some of Hayes' finest early illustration. It's rather striking how much care and effort he took to stipple and hatch the line work in this story compared to his other two stories in the book. It's fair to say that "Evolve" does not suffer greatly when compared to the artwork that Lynch and Osborne contributed to this issue, which is high praise indeed.

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:

It is currently unknown how many copies of this comic book were printed. It has not been reprinted. It is possible that Geoffrey Hayes has a story in this book that was attributed to Rory.

COMIC CREATORS:

Rory Hayes - (editor) 9-13, 17 (collaboration), 19-27, 31 (ad)

Jay Lynch - 1, 14-16

Jim Osborne - 2-8

Rick Griffin - 17 (collaboration)

Robert Crumb - 18, 31 (ad)

Kim Deitch - 28

"Goursau" - 29

S. Clay Wilson - 30

Geoffrey Hayes - 32

Bogeyman #3

Only Printing / version 3 / 1970 / 28 Pages / Company and Sons

Jay Lynch and Jim Osborne pitch in again to help Rory Hayes with Bogeyman #3. Lynch's contribution is "Phone Call!", which was pretty funny then and would still be amusing today if it were updated to one of today's obsessions, like, well, an iPhone! Hayes seems to indicate that he has already experimented with speed with his two-pager "Last Hit," which features a woman who dies and releases her demons after taking one more injection of speed. Hayes and Rick Griffin collaborate on a three-pager that is mostly decorative, but it's still a pleasure to study.

Rory's brother Geoffrey Hayes contributes an 11-page story called "The Rag" that features, believe it or not, a monstrous dish rag who eats grandmothers and scientists. It's actually quite amusing. The story has always been attributed to Rory, but Geoffrey states in a magazine article that he was the one who actually produced "The Rag" (though he mistakenly believes it was published in the second issue), and I'm not doubting him. If you compare the artwork carefully to Rory's artwork in this book and from this era, you can spot unique details (certain hatchings and decorative elements) and even characters (a toy-like elephant) that Rory never employed before. The fact that "The Rag" was produced by Geoffrey makes me wonder if two other stories in the second issue might've also been done by him, as they seem more similar stylisically to "The Rag" than Rory's other work.

The Bogeyman series was supposed to have a fourth issue, but for some reason the comic book that was intended for that was published as Laugh in the Dark by Last Gasp.

Bogeyman #3 was unusual in its day because it was reportedly printed with six different-colored versions of the same cover art. After raising this topic among the cognoscenti, I believe there are actually four common versions (that even have variations within themselves) and perhaps dozens of more-obscure versions (see Historical Footnotes below).

HISTORICAL FOOTNOTES:

It is currently unknown how many copies of this comic book were printed. It has not been reprinted. Kennedy's Price Guide states that there are six different-colored versions of the same cover art. I will repeat Kennedy's descriptions of the versions verbatim below and number them in the same order they appear in the Guide:

Version #1: The Bogeyman title and cover price printed in gray, with the Co. & Sons logo printed in yellow.

Version #2: The Bogeyman title and cover price printed in gray, with the Co. & Sons logo printed in red.

Version #3: The Bogeyman title and cover price printed in yellow, with the Co. & Sons logo printed in orange.

Version #4: The Bogeyman title and cover price printed in yellow, with the Co. & Sons logo printed in purple and orange.

Version #5: The Bogeyman title and cover price printed in yellow, with the Co. & Sons logo printed in red.

Version #6: The Bogeyman title and cover price printed in yellow, with the Co. & Sons logos printed in yellow.

As mentioned in my review, I started a topic on the marvelous CPG message board with underground collectors about the doubts I had that there are six versions of Bogeyman #3, as I had never seen the first two versions that Kennedy describes. The results of that discussion indicate that the first two versions may or may not exist (none of the scans I viewed on the link above match the exact description of Kennedy's version 1 or version 2), but there are certainly several more variations of the cover printing that Kennedy did not describe at all.

I now believe that the four versions I currently have are the primary versions (they are more widely available than the other variations, with the orange and yellow versions perhaps being the most common) and beyond that there are multiple variations that occured during the single print run at Company & Sons. It's hard to put an exact number on how many variations there are, because it appears that the print operators may have been changing ink colors on the fly during printing, resulting in all manner of blended ink colors. Which might explain why the orange version goes from a yellow-orange to a red-orange; it was on its way to becoming the red version.

Here is a page that shows eight copies of Bogeyman 3 that have distinct variations, including six that I own, with indications of which Kennedy version each one is, as applicable. It includes two orange versions of mine that are quite distinct from one another and two other versions that I borrowed from the CPG message board (linked above). One of the latter is the first copy I have seen with a gray title and cover price, though it appears to me to have a dark orange logo and background, not red as described by Kennedy for version 2.

COMIC CREATORS:

Jack Jackson - 1

Rory Hayes - 2, 8-10, 13-15 (collaboration)

Jay Lynch - 3-5

Simon Deitch - 6, 11

Spain Rodgriguez - 7

Rick Griffin - 13-15 (collaboration)

Geoffrey Hayes - 16-26

Greg Irons - 27- 28