INTERVIEW: Denis Kitchen’s influential career is subject of new documentary
Image courtesy of Oddly Compelling / Provided by Superfan Promotions with permission.
Denis Kitchen has gained a reputation for being a fearless defender of First Amendment rights, and one only has to look at his expansive career in the underground comix scene to see evidence of his lifelong dedication and passion to the cause. Now a new documentary, directed by Soren Christiansen and Ted Intorcio, and appropriately titled Oddly Compelling, is raising funds via Kickstarter to tell Kitchen’s personal and professional story.
For the unbeknownst, Kitchen is the founder of Kitchen Sink Press, a publishing house that dates back to the late-1960s, and for three decades, he gave the comics world various works by the likes of Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Robert Crumb, Charles Burns, Al Capp, Milton Caniff, Howard Cruse, Trina Robbins, Mark Schultz, Art Spiegelman, Scott McCloud and Alan Moore, according to press notes. He was also the publisher of the ground-breaking Gay Comix series.
Throughout its time, Kitchen Sink Press fought back against what it perceived as censorship and unfounded “obscenity” charges, and the company continued to publish works that other outlets refused to consider. To aid the company’s efforts, Kitchen founded the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which provided legal assistance to various clients facing cases involving comic books and the First Amendment.
For Kitchen, a documentary about his life wasn’t always in the cards. He actually had deep reservations at first.
“I thought about it for a while and discussed it with my wife, Stacey,” Kitchen stated in an email interview. “She was emphatic that the focus should be on my professional life. She did not want herself or our family involved. I think she was remembering the Crumb documentary and how weird and creepy Robert’s brothers came off! I thought about other privacy issues and how a documentary could be disruptive, but obviously ultimately I consented.”
Kitchen stated that the documentary is ultimately about his career and some quirky hobbies that he has, including collecting various items over the years. What the ultimate “message” might be will be up to the filmmakers. He hopes that his story can serve as inspiration for collectors, cartoonists and creators.
“It’s a real challenge to make a good living, to get a serious foothold, in the creative world at large,” he stated. “It’s very easy to be discouraged or dissuaded by well-intentioned parents or peers or guidance counselors, but perhaps after viewing the documentary, some aspiring artists — or editors or publishers — will think that if even a weird anti-capitalist, pot-smoking, Asperger hippie like me was able to achieve success, they’ll realize there are many paths through the often dense obstacles.”
The documentary, which will be released this fall, is expected to discuss Kitchen’s influential tenure in underground comix. The publisher said “underground” was a term meant to distinguish he and his contemporaries from the artists working on mainstream comic books.
“I always thought the term underground was a misnomer, in that it implies illegal or prohibited material being sold surreptitiously under the counter,” he wrote. “But our comix were sold quite openly, although in heads shops and other alternative outlets that by and large flew under the radar.”
Here’s how the filmmakers summarize Kitchen’s influence: “Denis Kitchen is an unsung hero of comics and pop culture. He may be the least appreciated of the underground legends, in part because he devoted a disproportionate amount of his career to publishing the work of others,” according to the film’s official Kickstarter page.
The documentary, based on the scenes displayed in the trailer, couples modern-day interviews with archival footage of Kitchen throughout the years. There’s even a sequence of the publisher in his so-called Valley of the Dolls, an outdoor art installation that looks like a perfect set for a horror movie involving a villain with a fixation on, well, old dolls.
Another part of the documentary could feature the legacy and impact of Kitchen Sink Press, which lasted approximately 30 years. The closure of the publishing company was a complicated affair, which Kitchen stated could not be summed up in a short answer. The story involves the company joining with Tundra Publishing in the 1990s, and Kitchen being resistant to hand over control of his publishing duties, but he desired some personal financial security at the time.
“The overall comics industry was experiencing shrinkage as I moved to Massachusetts with some key employees,” Kitchen stated about his time relocating from Wisconsin to where Tundra was located on the East Coast.
There are numerous facets of this time in Kitchen’s life and what happened to Kitchen Sink Press, including the involvement of an investment banking firm from Los Angeles and KSP attempting to go public (known as an initial public offering, or IPO). Some of these details are likely to emerge in the documentary, but from the released trailer, viewers should expect even more emphasis on the glory days of Kitchen Sink Press and the underground comix movement of the 1960s. The hard-earned lessons of that time period and how these comic book artists and publishers protected First Amendment rights are still poignant today.
“It is dismaying, to say the least, seeing so many efforts to remove books and graphic novels from libraries and to stifle free speech in general,” Kitchen stated. “But I’m also encouraged by the pushback across the country.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Click here for more information on Oddly Compelling on Kickstarter.
