CRUMB, EISNER & KURTZMAN at SECRET HEADQUARTERS

Please join us in celebrating:

Art from the collection of Denis Kitchen

CRUMB, EISNER & KURTZMAN at SECRET HEADQUARTERS

Opening Friday March 3rd, 2006 from 8pm till 10pm

We are pleased to announce our newest art opening featuring artwork from the collection of Denis Kitchen.

Cartoonist, writer, editor and publisher Denis Kitchen who may be best known for his comix publishing company, Kitchen Sink Press has worked with some of the most respected creators in comic book history. Since 1990 Denis has been exclusively selling original cartoon art for clients such as Robert Crumb, and both selling art for and representing the Will Eisner estate, the Harvey Kurtzman estate, the Russell Keaton estate and Peter Poplaski, as well as representing Capp Enterprises, Inc., among others.

Artists featured at the SECRET HEADQUARTERS will include:

ROBERT CRUMB (1943- ) is the most prominent member of the "underground comix" movement. His comics are distinctive for their cross-hatched artistry, idiosyncratic story-telling and uncompromising subject matter. He has increasingly achieved recognition in the high-brow fine art world, a status denied even famous fellow artists who labor in the traditionally low-brow cartooning profession. His life has been thoroughly documented, both by ample numbers of his own no-holds-barred autobiographical comics and in several documentaries, including the award-winning Crumb by Terry Zwigoff.

WILL EISNER (1917-2005) is recognized internationally as a legend in the field of sequential art, a term he coined. His cartooning career spanned nearly seventy years and eight decades. In 1940 Eisner created his most famous character, The Spirit, a masked crime fighter. The Spirit was the lead feature in an unprecedented format: a 16-page color comic book that was inserted in Sunday newspapers, the first of numerous Eisner innovations. At its height The Spirit insert appeared in twenty major market newspapers with a combined circulation of 5 million readers each Sunday, quintupling the circulation of America's best-selling monthly comic book.

In 1965, Eisner created the very first successful graphic novel ---and popularizing the term--- with the publication of his seminal A Contract with God, (1978). The semi-autobiographical "graphic novel" revolutionized the art form, inspiring countless fellow professionals worldwide to follow. The graphic novel is now America's fastest-growing literary genre. Following A Contract with God, at an age when his contemporaries had retired, Eisner created over twenty additional graphic novels and instructional books, including such classics as A Life Force, Dropsie Avenue, To the Heart of the Storm, Family Matter and The Name of the Game --- roughly a book per year till his death.

HARVEY KURTZMAN (1924-1993) was a cartoonist, writer and editor with enormous influence on several generations of cartoonists and readers. Kurtzman is probably best known as the comic genius who created MAD in the early 1950s at Entertaining Comics (E.C.). MAD, under Kurtzman, vigorously and fearlessly lampooned American institutions, including other comic strips and television, a medium then in its infancy.

Secret Headquarters will proudly feature Crumb, Eisner and Kurtzman's original works of art through April 2nd, 2006.

Located in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles, California. Secret Headquarters offers a sophisticated take on the traditional comic book store. Specializing in comic book culture, Secret Headquarters features the best in graphic novels, trade paperbacks and monthly titles.