Details for this torrent 


Binky Brown Meets The Holy Virgin Mary
Type:
Other > Comics
Files:
1
Size:
54.22 MB

Tag(s):
Holy Virgin Mary Meets Comic Book Underground Restored Justin Green Last Gasp

Uploaded:
Oct 1, 2012
By:
LeonardTSpock



'Binky Brown Meets The Holy Virgin Mary'

Last Gasp Eco Funnies, 1972

Written and Illustrated by Justin Green

Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary is a 44-page autobiographical comic book from 1972 by American cartoonist Justin Green. It was the first long autobiographical work to appear in underground comics, and was extremely personal, detailing Green's childhood struggle with a disorder which in Catholicism is referred to as scrupulosity, and was later diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

The book had such a long-lasting influence that Green has come to be thought of as one of the most significant underground comics creators. The comic book influenced many other cartoonists of Green's generation and beyond to explore their own personal histories; Art Spiegelman said it made his graphic novel Maus possible.

Binky Brown (the alter ego Green used in all of his autobiographical stories) exhibits compulsive behavior from an early age, but shortly before puberty he begins to develop an elaborate system of obsessions based on the fear that he will contaminate religious sites with his sexual thoughts. Eventually he begins to believe that "rays" from his penis (later emanating also from his hands and feet, and even from furniture) must be kept from striking churches or images of Mary. This disturbing psychological case study is portrayed with frequent touches of humor, as Binky also faces more usual challenges of adolescence. The story follows Brown/Green through his early twenties, when he finally achieves some control over his intrusive thoughts.

At the time he drew the book, Green did not know about OCD and described his condition as neurosis, which he blamed largely on his Catholic upbringing. After being diagnosed with OCD, Green softened his position on CatholicismΓÇöthough he did not return to the ChurchΓÇöand, in his foreword to The Binky Brown Sampler, described the story as "a sin of youth ... but done out of internal necessity."

The book has had a huge, immediate and long-lasting influence on alternative and underground comics. Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman and Jim Woodring have all talked about Green's work as having a fundamental influence on them, Spiegelman going as far as to say, "Without Binky Brown there would be no Maus," in his introduction to Last Gasp's Binky Brown Sampler.

The book was ranked #9 on The Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century, one place higher than Robert Crumb's highest-ranked place.

Comments

(Underground - Restored)

Part of the 'Restoration' process is done to make it possible to enlarge these images. As such, after you have opened the files in a comic book reader some of you may actually need to shrink them down a bit to improve the image quality.

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After it was pointed out to me that people were getting a GonVisor popup, I am now creating these books in such a way as to have stopped that from happening. No GonVisor popup will appear on any 'Restorations' in the future.

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I have almost 1500 Underground comic books in a digital format. I will be restoring and uploading many of my favorites over the coming months. Any requests, just say the word.

So what does 'Restored' mean? Well, with respect to all the work the scanners have done in order to make these books available, the pages were not yellow when first printed. Newsprint? Yes, often they were. Cheap paper? Yeah, that too. But not yellow.

In most cases, the changes make the books look better than they did when they were originally printed. By turning the newsprint or cheap paper they were printed on to a bright white, with crisp, clear greys and solid blacks on top, they look very much like a new b&w comic you would buy right off the shelf today.

This is accomplished by running the b&w pages through the PhotoScape Batch Editor. The Filters applied to the pages are; Grayscale (changes the image to greyscale); a 'Middle' or 'High' setting on Auto Level (greatly improves the blacks); a 'Low' or +1 Sharpen (barely noticeable, even if you watch the changes take place); 'Deepen' is used if there is bleed through from the image on the back of the page or to improve the overall look of color or b&w pages. Occasionally 'Brighten' or 'Darken' are used if needed. Color covers, back or interior pages are 'Restored' on a page by page basis.