HYSTERIA IN REMISSION: THE COMIX & DRAWINGS OF ROBERT WILLIAMS

By: Mike Whybark
Review Date: Sunday, November 03, 2002

In November, Fantagraphics releases HYSTERIA IN REMISSION: THE COMIX & DRAWINGS OF ROBERT WILLIAMS, an overdue compendium of the celebrated painter's graphic work. Since the mid-'90s, Williams has been justly celebrated for his remarkable accomplishments as a fine artist and champion of outsider art. His large-scale gallery paintings, depicting with surreal clarity such things as hot-rod wrecks, mystical visions, and gang fights, have been correctly identified as expressions of the poetry and strangeness of the culture of Southern California, and are much sought after by wealthy Angelino art collectors. He also publishes a magazine, JUXTAPOZ, devoted to outsider art, such as custom cars and folk art. All of this has meant a crucial element of William's long career has gone largely undocumented.

Robert Williams began his career designing advertisements for Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's crazy tee shirts in the pages of HOT ROD magazine, and went on, shortly thereafter, to become one of the godfathers of underground comix, his work first appearing in ZAP #4. From the beginning, Williams' tremendous gifts as a draftsman and psychedelic visualizer mark his work. Reading his stories requires more time than reading those of his contemporaries, simply because he packs so much visual information into each panel. In addition, his mastery of analytic anatomy leads in surprising directions, from the erotic power of the female forms he incorporates and distorts to the deconstruction and re-assembly of invented creatures such as his Coochy Cooty.


Despite the fantastic, hallucinatory power of his drawings, it must be admitted that plot and story take a back seat to the visual pyrotechnics. Additionally, and of a piece with other artists of his cohort, the desire to explore and explode taboos in the art leads to some frighteningly ugly scenes of misogyny. The presence of these scenes is by no means a reason to ignore or condemn the book; but they should be noted. The book is marked by Fantagraphics as "not for sale to minors", and with good reason.

On the whole, however, if you've ever been tantalized or hypnotized in coming across one of William's mind-boggling drawings, and wanted to learn more about the artist, or if you've ever wished you could study a broad selection of his legendary ads for Roth, this is the place.

The book might have been improved by a slightly more scholarly approach; both Gilbert 'FREAK BROTHERS' Shelton's foreword and Williams' own introductions are fairly breezy, informal affairs. Williams' iconoclasm has long extended to his prose, which is surely his prerogative. I'm not sure what exactly I wish had been included, but perhaps a summary overview of Williams' setting and focus introducing each section of the book would have improved it.

As it stands, the three main sections (very early pre-Roth work, Roth Studios advertising, and comix up through the late eighties and nineties, more or less) begin with some abruptness. Captions on each piece identify it and occasionally offer a line of commentary, but by and large the reader is left to Williams' devices - undoubtedly as the artist desired.

Williams' drawings always pack a punch, and Fantagraphics has done the comics world a service by bringing together so much of his visceral, wildly skillful drawings.