Denis Kitchen | |
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Denis Kitchen at Columbia University in 2015
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Born | August 27, 1946 |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Cartoonist, Publisher |
Notable works
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Kitchen Sink Press Comic Book Legal Defense Fund |
http://deniskitchen.com |
Denis Kitchen (born August 27, 1946) is an American underground cartoonist, publisher, author, agent, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Kitchen grew up in Wisconsin, attending William Horlick High School, Racine, where he cofounded and edited Klepto, an unofficial school paper, also contributing stories and illustrations to the paper. He continued this interest at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where in 1967 he cofounded and served as art director for the humor magazine Snide, also supplying cartoons.
In 1969 Kitchen decided to self-publish his comics and cartoons in the magazine Mom’s Homemade Comics, inspired in part by Bijou Funnies and Zap Comix. The selling out of the 4000 print run inspired him further, and in 1970 he founded Kitchen Sink Press (initially as an artists' cooperative) and launched the underground newspaper The Bugle-American, with Jim Mitchell and others. Under the name of the Krupp Syndicate, he syndicated comic strips to almost 50 other underground and college newspapers. In addition to the Milwaukee artists like himself, Mitchell, Bruce Walthers, Don Glassford and Wendel Pugh, Kitchen began to publish works by such cartoonists as Howard Cruse, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Justin Green, Trina Robbins, and S. Clay Wilson, and he soon expanded his operations, launching Krupp Comic Works, a parent organization into which he placed ownership of Kitchen Sink Press and through which he also launched such diverse ventures as a record company and a commercial art studio. In 1980 he invited Cruse to edit Gay Comix, one of the first comics to feature the work of openly gay and lesbian cartoonists.