Where Demented Wented: The Art and Comics of Rory Hayes

by Rory Hayes, Dan Nadel (Editor), Glenn Bray (Editor)

The controversial cartoonist Rory Hayes was a self-taught dynamo of the San Francisco underground comics revolution. Attracting equal parts derision and praise (the latter from the likes of R. Crumb and Bill Griffith), Hayes emerged as comics' great primitive, drawing horror comics in a genuinely horrifying and halucinatory manner. He has influenced a generation of cartoonists, from RAW to Fort Thunder and back again. This book, the first retrospective of Hayes' career ever published, features the best of his underground comics output alongside paintings, covers, and artifacts rarely seen by human eyes-as well as astounding, previously unprinted comics from his teenage years and movie posters for his numerous homemade films. The Comics and Art of Rory Hayes also serves as a biography and critique with a memoir of growing up with Rory by his brother, the illustrator Geoffrey Hayes, and a career-spanning essay by Edward Pouncey. Also included is a rare interview with Hayes himself. "Rory Hayes was the real thing; a genuine 'outsider' artist working alongside his more self-aware compatriots in the heady days of the San Francisco Underground Comix scene of the 1960s and '70s. His work retains its raw, primitive power to this day, teetering precariously between chaos and control, madness and oddly endearing teddy bears."-Bill Griffith

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Comix, Art, Horror, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2008

Reviews

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compact collection of Hayes's work, including Bill Griffiths's story on him and a biographical essay by his brother. not just published comics but also art and samples of his unpublished juvenalia. Hayes was one of the more . . . uninhibited, shall we say, of the comix crowd, and that shows especially in his extreme and disturbing material from Cunt Comix, collected here (I think) in its entire dubious glory. Hayes's work is primitive, almost amateurish-looking; from a purely formal perspective, there's not a lot to admire here. What gives it power is that it pretty clearly comes form an unfiltered mind and imagination, putting whatever the id throws out down on paper. Well, mostly, anyways; at times, he seems to be going for shock or grossness just because he can. Mostly, though, this is just unbridled demon-exorcising, one suspects. His conceit of using a teddy bear character in his graphic parodies/homages to EC horror books adds an element of originality, as well. Definitely not for everybody, but if you have a high tolerance for transgressive sexual and violent imagery, and especially if you are interested in underground comix, this is a book you should check out.

[Bob Fish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a child on acid !

https://youtu.be/mtpiwwfqSbY

[Mark Connery · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know that a rational argument can be made about the value of Hayes's work. I find it deeply moving and beautiful.

[Nada · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Psychotic. Psychedelic.

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 3 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

[Shawn M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fucked up but cool?

[Ethan.Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rory Hayes has to be one of my favorite comic artist of all time the amount of inspiration and the amount this man’s work has affected me is unmeasurable! On the sidenote, I named my dog Rory Hayes!

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comics/graphics aren't really my favorite genre, so while Hayes's talent is obvious to me and I find his imagery powerful, his lack of narrative sense and the extreme sexual explicitness of some of the comics turned me off. The text pieces that bookend the collection are very beautiful, though, and help me put his art in context (even though Hayes was adamant that it just be experienced).

[Mark Desrosiers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rory Hayes wasn't the best writer in the world, and his untrained drawing style looks like the sort of thing that Ed Gein would have doodled on the back of his Trapper Keeper. In other words: just nasty and completely nuts, but also hilarious.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really love the cover of Bogeyman #1:



Can't say the rest of Hayes' work does much for me though...

[Shanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

So good.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

WTF. Seriously.

[Monty · Rating 3 out of 5]

yep, demented - fevered crazed horror and sexual fantasies - bloody strange stuff!