Rummaging through the Printeresting archive the other day, I stumbled across this old copy of “Journeys in Printing with Inkster.” It’s issue 118– the rare first appearance of the Mechanical Pressman!
If you recall back in the sixties and seventies, Inkster, arguably America’s most well-known printmaker/viking/superhero, was battling a lot of technology-inspired villains. In addition to the Mechanical Pressman some of the most noteable were Compu-Tor, Doc Xerox (and his Copy Shop), and CMYKNine the Four-Color Werewolf. Even in the eighties there was no shortage of anti-technology sentiment… over a year’s worth of issues were dedicated to the DOS Monster Saga story arc.
It’s interesting, and perhaps reflective of changing attitudes in the printmaking community, that by the late nineties Robo-Pressman (as the reprogrammed Mechanical Pressman came to be known) actually had evolved into one of Inkster’s closest allies in his battle against evil. Hopefully, we can all learn a bit from Inkster comics: every once in a while, technology can be our friend.
While we’re on the subject of comic books, you should visit Robert Goodin’s Covered blog. The site is dedicated to artist reinterpretations of previously published comic book covers. Some of the re-covers stray more from the originals than others but even the most straight-forward copies manage to function as unique works.
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