Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes, and Mysteries

Ringo Award for Best Comics-Related Publication 2026 NOMINEE

In Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes & Mysteries, Bob Levin, with his characteristic open-mindedness and intellectual curiosity, enters into and investigates the artistic sensibilities of cartoonists as disparate as Vaughn Bode, R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Trina Robbins, Johnny Craig, Guy Colwell, Edward Gorey, Harvey Kurtzman, Frank Frazetta, Art Spiegelman, Alex Toth, and Dave Sim. For nearly four decades, Levin has been weaving strands of critical opinion, historical research, pop cultural analysis, journalism’s five Ws, biography, memoir, and the occasional tasty fiction into a never-before-seen-on-this-planet basket, which has made his writings on comics unique and indispensable. So if you want to learn what really happened to Ghastly Ingels, or The Someday Funnies, or the “Keep On Truckin'” copyright – if you dare to confront art that provoked criminal conviction and Senatorial investigation, and which led to a trashed art gallery, a vandalized museum – even a ban by the “Berkeley Barb” – this book is for you.