Nationality American Name Spain Rodriguez | Notable works Trashman Pseudonym(s) Algernon Backwash Books Trashman lives! | |
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Born Manuel RodriguezMarch 2, 1940Buffalo, New York ( 1940-03-02 ) Awards 2013 Will Eisner Hall of Fame Award Spouse Susan Stern (m. 1989–2012) People also search for Robert Crumb, Susan Stern, Terry Zwigoff | ||
Cartoonist Spain Rodriguez, Dan Fogel and Mark Bode at Escapist comicbook store
Manuel Rodriguez (March 2, 1940 – November 28, 2012), better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, was an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the motorcycle club, the Road Vultures M.C., provided inspiration for his work, as did his left-wing politics. Strongly influenced by 1950s EC Comics illustrator Wally Wood, Spain pushed Wood's sharp, crisp black shadows and hard-edged black outlines into a more simplified, stylized direction. His work also extended the eroticism of Wood's female characters.
Contents
- Cartoonist Spain Rodriguez Dan Fogel and Mark Bode at Escapist comicbook store
- Spain rodriguez
- Early life
- Career
- Death
- Awards
- Exhibitions
- References
Spain rodriguez
Early life
Manuel Rodriguez was born March 2, 1940, in Buffalo, New York. He picked up the nickname Spain as a child, when he heard some kids in the neighborhood bragging about their Irish ancestry, and he defiantly claimed Spain was just as good as Ireland. Rodriguez studied at the Silvermine Guild Art School in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Career
In New York City, during the late 1960s, he became a contributor to the East Village Other, which published his own comics tabloid, Zodiac Mindwarp (1968). He covered the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago as a reporter for the East Village Other, adventures which were chronicled in My True Story (Fantagraphics Books, 1994).
A co-founder (with Robert Crumb) of the United Cartoon Workers of America, he contributed to numerous underground comics in the 1960s–2000s, including Zap Comix, San Francisco Comic Book, Young Lust, Arcade, Bijou Funnies, Weirdo, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. He also drew Salon's continuing graphic story, The Dark Hotel, which ran on the website in 1998–1999.
Spain's starkly forceful, naturalistic style perfectly matched Conan Doyle's eerie stories in Sherlock Holmes' Strangest Cases (Word Play Publications, 2001). In such classics as Mean Bitch Thrills (Print Mint, 1971), Spain’s women are raunchy, explicitly sexual, and sometimes incorporated macho sadomasochistic themes.
Spain's later work included an illustrated biography of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Che: A Graphic Biography (Verso, 2008). Published in several different languages, it was described by comics artist Art Spiegelman as "brilliant and radical."
Death
Rodriguez died at his home in San Francisco on November 28, 2012, after battling cancer for six years.
Awards
In July 2013, during the San Diego Comic-Con, Rodriguez was one of six inductees into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame. The award was presented posthumously by Mad magazine cartoonist and Groo the Wanderer creator Sergio Aragonés. The other inductees were Lee Falk, Al Jaffee, Mort Meskin, Joe Sinnott, and Trina Robbins.