(W/A/CA) Bob Levin 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.

In May 1989, Dwaine Tinsley stood at the summit of an unlikely career. As cartoon editor for Larry Flynt's notorious Hustler magazine, he had assembled a staff of pen-and-White-Out-wielding Lenny Bruces whose unprecendentedly offensive socio-sexual cartoons had spearheaded that publication's fight against the forces of censorship and repression that sought to overthrow the political and cultural gains of the 1960s. His primary personal contribution was 'Chester the Molester,' a hulking middle-aged man who craved pre-pubescent girls. And then Tinsley's teenaged daughter accused him of sexually violating her over the course of five years. Most Outrageous is the story of the trial of Flynt's most notorious protege. Bob Levin's writings have established him as the most thought-provoking chronicler of cartoonists today. While focusing upon the work and lives of the most off-beat creators in the field in order to champion the pursuit of individual vision, he has explored issues common to artists of every medium. Most Outrageous carries his search into new, unsettling ground.