John Kelly is no dummy (in the pejorative sense). But his new magazine is titled dummy. And that leads me to wonder whether this smart guy—”I have been a writer/editor for many years, including my time at jobs at Sarah Lawrence College, Columbia University, the National Basketball Association and other places”—knows something we don’t. I mean, PRINT magazine is no longer printed. But dummy, a magazine about comics in the broad sense, is only in print.
Well, as I said, Kelly’s no dummy! For the last 30-plus years, he has regularly contributed work about comics history, and interviews with cartoonists, to The Comics Journal magazine. He used to direct The ToonSeum, a small “museum” for comic art located in Pittsburgh. And he’s hosted panel discussions and interviews at comics festivals, including Small Press Expo (SPX), Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), Comic Arts Brooklyn (CAB) and others. So he is well-qualified to edit a bright, vibrant and entertaining new print magazine.
After reading the first issue featuring oral histories on “The Art of Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” I was excited to get to the bottom of this minor enigma. dummy + print = smart, or what?
What is the origin of dummy magazine?
I used to publish a zine called XYY in the late 1980s/early ’90s—back when people did such things. Before the internet took over … everything. The internet is great for many things, but I really miss printed materials. And I tend to write pretty long pieces, and sometimes I wonder if I would even read them myself; scrolling through on a phone or desktop, with small images randomly placed wherever, can be pretty tedious. So I’d been thinking about starting up a zine again for a while.
The tipping point came in November of 2023, when Mark Newgarden asked me to speak about zines at his class (“Thinking in Words and Pictures”) at the School of Visual Arts’ Illustration as Visual Essay MFA program. As I was putting together my material for my talk, I mocked up a cover for a fake zine about the artists who designed Paul Reubens’ television show, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.” It wasn’t too far a stretch; I had done a long two-part series about that topic for The Comics Journal shortly after [Paul] Rubens died on July 30, 2023. For that series, I spoke with the artists who had worked on the show—Gary Panter, Wayne White and Ric Heitzman—and was friends with several of the artists who designed the show’s merchandise products, including Mark Newgarden and Kaz. They provided me with an insane amount of never-seen production art and behind-the-scenes materials. I thought it was a shame that all those great images could only be seen digitally—and tiny—on a phone or computer screen.
When I showed the SVA students my mockup fake Pee-wee zine cover, I said, “If I come back here next year to do this class again, I’ll bring an actual printed copy of this.” I had intended to make just one copy, for myself. But I wanted to send a copy to Gary Panter and the rest of the artists in the story. So, maybe 10 copies. I mocked up a copy, printed it out at home and the Pittsburgh cartoonist Frank Santoro ran off a couple more copies on his color copy machine. I thought I was done.
But a few people saw what I was carrying around, which I called the “dummy” copy of my “new zine.” Mostly as a joke. I still thought I would make 10 copies at the most. Who would want an actual printed thing in this day and age anyway? Well, it turned out that there are people who do.
This thing didn’t even have a name at that point, and I was just calling it the “dummy” copy of my Pee-wee zine. I thought, That’s not a bad name for a zine, actually … dummy. At the last moment I slapped on a logo in very basic Futura Condensed Extra Bold—to contrast with the funky content.
I printed 100 copies and posted one announcement on Facebook with some images, saying that dummy was available—if anyone wanted a copy. I wasn’t sure if anyone would actually want one, but I didn’t really care. Those initial copies sold out in three hours, which shocked me. I guess there’s an audience for people who are hungry to have actual printed material. I certainly was one of them. Who knew there were others?
You may not know this, but the printed #0 issue of Sports Illustrated was called Dummy (designed by Leo Lionni) … and it was a real dummy with fake ads and real stories.
Ha. I didn’t know that story, but I’m not surprised. I would think that there might have been a number of publications that called their first mockup issue “Dummy.” Calla, my 15-year old step-daughter, is an editor at her high school newspaper and she calls their production copies of each issue “dummy copies.” So the term “dummy” is still used by people who grew up in the digital age.
What did you learn from the Pee-wee artists that surprised you?
There was an incredible number of bizarre toys, clothing, stickers, trading cards and other merchandise that was created for the show. But there were many other equally wonderful things that didn’t get made, for various reasons. The talent of the people working on that show was ridiculous, from Paul Reubens on down. And the generosity of the artists involved when sharing their stories and rare artwork was truly amazing. They all wanted the story to be told as accurately as possible.
The design and illustrations that you reproduce give the zine an intimate feeling of a scrapbook, while retaining the feel of a bona fide mag. Was this your intent?
Absolutely. I wanted to present intimate, personal memories of a very special time in history and do it in a way that was appropriate for the crazy aesthetic of the show’s design. I wanted to have dummy’s design complement the artwork, not compete with it. I did it all in Adobe PhotoShop and InDesign myself, except for the cover, which Norman Hathaway designed. That was perfect because Norman is not only a great designer, but had also worked on some of the Pee-wee merchandise.
Did you know Paul Reubens, or are you just a rabid fan like so many of us?
I never met Paul Reubens, but I sure would have loved to. I think he was a genius, in many ways, and his impact on our culture is still present today. Maybe the smartest—and luckiest—thing he ever did was choose Gary Panter as the artist to design Pee-wee’s world. Gary is one of our era’s greatest artists and his work continues to influence the visual vocabulary of our culture.
I like that you included a page of legal paper with Paul Reubens’ comments. Was he totally in command of all creative content?
Those are Mark Newgarden’s notes, taken in real time, during a meeting with Paul about the Pee-wee’s Playhouse Fun Pak. I think they’re a great snapshot of Paul’s attention to details. My understanding from talking to those who worked with him is that Paul had to approve every single aspect of the show and its merchandise. And he was smart enough to trust Gary Panter to set the template for the way everything should look.
What’s next for dummy?
I’m just finishing up issue two, which will be about the notorious Air Pirates, a group of rebel cartoonists who in the early 1970s did a series of Mickey Mouse parody comic books that got them in a lot of trouble with the mighty Walt Disney Corporation. And the courts. Disney’s case against them dragged on for nearly 10 years and took all kinds of turns. It went all the way to the Supreme Court and is still studied as a major copyright and trademark case by law students. This issue of dummy will have extensive conversations with all members of the group and around 50 pages of extremely rare and little-seen artwork. The great magazine art director Mark Michaelson (Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, New York), is designing the next issues and his pages perfectly capture the look I’m going for. So it’s extremely fun and I have endless ideas for future issues.
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