The way that life can twist and turn about always amazes me. For instance, a couple of years ago I received a Facebook message from a guy I didn’t know. He happens to be the grandson of my grandmother’s brother.
Don’t ask me what kind of cousins we are as that always confuses me.
He had some family photos to share that were new to me and my brother. Now he is a Facebook friend that my brother and I would like to visit one day.
This kind of event happens to all of us at one time or another and it has happened again to me.
When I was a mere boy and beardless youth, I was a huge fan of movies and comics — something that has only increased in my dotage. I published a fanzine at that time about those subjects and one day one of my writers sent me an underground comic book called “Air Pirate Funnies.”
“Underground” comics were created by independent artists and writers and distributed in bookstores and head shops in the late 1960s and intro the early 1980s. They were freewheeling creations dealing with culture, politics, sex and drugs.
I have to admit I was a bit shocked as I read this issue of “Air Pirate Funnies.” The artist/writers had produced a parody of the classic Disney characters living a life far from the constraints of Disneyland.
I have to admit the broadside they fired at the pop cultural institution of the Walt Disney organization tickled me.
The story of the Air Pirates, the name oven to this group of artists, is a fascinating one as ultimately, they were sued by the Disney company and a judge found their work to fall outside of the protections of freedom of speech and was deemed as copyright infringement.
The judgement did not prevent these artists from going on with their careers, I’m happy to report.
One of the artists was a very talented guy named Gary Hallgren. I was in the Open Square complex in Holyoke a few years ago and I was shocked to see his work in the window of an artist studio there.
Gary Hallgren lives in Western Massachusetts? Really? Why, yes, he does.
I introduced myself and wrote a story for this paper. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of talking with him numerous times. He’s a great talent and a very nice guy.
So here I am friends with a guy whose work I’ve enjoyed for a very long time.
I bring this up for a reason as Gary’s artwork is being featured in an exhibit at the Art for the Soul Gallery at Tower Square in Downtown Springfield. “A Retrospective: 1971 — Presents: Gary Hallgren” features a wide range of his paintings and sculptures.
The exhibit is on display through Jan. 19.
I went to the opening reception and was bowled over. Gary excels in taking elements of popular culture and looking at them through his own lens. For instance, there are references to Blondie and Dagwood, Buck Rogers, Nancy and Sluggo, among others. There are metal sculptures made by found objects. He mixes and matches different mediums in a work of art.
I find his work enormously creative and funny.
He has become well known as an illustrator for magazines, books and newspapers. He had a limited series of comic books from Marvel and did work for MAD and other humor magazines. He is the artist for the nationally syndicated comics strip “Hagar the Horrible.”
His lates book, “Amazing Stories: Comix for Mature Readers,” is a collection of various comics, and has been described as “a mixed bag of satire, weirdness and vaguely autobiographical stories of the rock and roll life of a teenager in the ‘60s.” It is an unadulterated slice of the underground comix attitude in the 21st century.
If you want to see examples of pure creativity, make sure to stop by the Art for the Soul Gallery before Jan. 19.
