Did The Doors read any comics?

Mad magazine cover #23

Since I got involved with The Doors comics This question got stuck in my head: Did The Doors members read any comics? I don´t remember any specific comment in the band members books Riders on the storm (John Densmore) and Light My Fire (Ray Manzarek) . The most clear comment about this was from Danny Sugerman´s and Jerry Hopkins book "No One Here Gets Out Alive". They say in september 1957 the Morrison family moved to Alameda in northern California, Jim spent one year and a half there in highschool. From page 9 and 10 :

"He read MAD magazines avidly and adopted several of the catch phrases as his own. He said he was "crackers to slip the rozzer the dropsie in snide". He worked out elaborate ways to answer the telephone, reflecting the sick side of MAD´s humour or the taint of ethnic slur: "Morrison´s Mortuary...you stab´em we slab ´em".

What about the later years? In the late sixties there was a lot of underground comics popping up in underground newspapers and in the form of comic books. Some of them are Zap Comix and Bijou Funnies. Among the artists of these comics are Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Jay Lynch, Gilbert Shelton and many others.

So when I read the Doors bio comic (The Doors, by Jay Sanford and Greg Fox published in 1991 - read more about it) I was really surprised by this specific frame:

"Passed his days smoking, writing and reading Zap Comix?" I had to ask Jay - the script writer of this comic book - "Is that true???" he replied " I don't know if it's true that Morrison collected Zap Comix, but it doesn't seem unlikely. Not sher how one would confirm or disprove other than asking his parents or others who were close to him."

I think Jay is right and I did exactly what he said! I asked everyone I found on the internet range that knew Jim, worked with him or were friends with him. I didn´t find much I´ll tell ya, but there are some interesting replies:

Salli Stevenson - Circus Magazine interview with Jim Morrison and friend

Aside from Mad Magazine and Superman, I think a western genre comic and stuff like Green Hornet and Spiderman, Jim and I did not discuss comics or the works of Robert Crumb. The others were discussed when we were comparing our childhoods and what we read. Sorry I can't be more helpful about Jim's comics favorites. We never got past childhood favorites.

Leon Barnard - the Doors publicist

Before he joined The Doors' crew, Leon graduated in fine arts. He used to draw and do paintings. Leon said that he and Jim sat on a table to start creating a comic book together. Leon remembers:

Our only and Main disagreement was...which came first: My drawings for him to capture with words...or his words for me to illustrate.
The debate ended in a drawing between "The Two Superstars" at the table that evening...and then he began to drink...a full bottle of Courvoisier presented to him as a birthday gift.

Vince Treanor - The Doors road manager

I never saw Jim reading Comics. He usually had much more weighty tomes in hand - anything unusual or redical. Not that there were no comics in those days. It is just that they did not contain what he wanted for input in that time. Mad magazine was quite the sensation and could do and say things not accepted in common conversation.

Jay Lynch - cartoonist and Bijou Funnies editor

The Doors were out of LA. They didn't do be-ins. They were mostly at the Whisky a-go-go. I never ran into those guys in my travels. Only their one-time manager, Danny Fields. Once I wrote an article for Hustler about Howard Hughes called "Showered by Howard". This was in 1979 or so. It was in the October issue. I used one of Fields' Morrison stories in that piece.
Actually Morrison is still alive. He lives across the street. I can see him out the window. He's trying to light up his barbecue pit. Uh-oh! He's using too much starter fluid...I'd better go help him. He isn't too good at lighting fires...he's always shouting for someone to help him with that chore.

Well, I´ll keep searching and maybe someone will have a more accurate answer.

The Doors biography in a comic book

I was very surprised to find comic books about The Doors (not done by me). Ray Manzarek mentioned in a Guitar Legend magazine interview that Jim Morrison´s life "filled tons of books, a lot of websites and a few comic books". So I guess he knows these comics are out there...

The Doors biography was done by artist Greg Fox with scripts by Jay Sanford, printed in 1991 and edited by Revolutionary Comics numbers 26 and 27 (it´s in two parts).

Front cover by Scott Jackson (click the image to enlarge):

The comic book covers all the known events through The Doors career, with some inaccuracies, but pretty good nonetheless, I really enjoyed reading it.

I found Jay (the script writer) on the web and he told me how it was done:

"I seem to recall the letterer complaining that I wrote far too much text and the artist, Greg Fox, really had to squeeze artwork around captions and balloons. I had a good sized stack of research material, mostly magazine clippings thru the years and several books, plus I had done an interview with John Densmore for some of the material.

The two Doors issues sold very well and remained in print thru about 1997 - they're fairly scarce now. Greg Fox kept drawing for Revolutionary thru 1994 and now does a weekly comic in the NYC paper the Advocate. Cover painter Scott Jackson publishes a line of comics now called Heavy Metal Monsters."

I found Greg Fox (the artist) too so we exchanged e-mails about his work:

"I am a huge Doors fan, so it was a thrill for me to get assigned that Doors comic book; I was working for that Rock N' Roll Comics company for about a year at that point, and had illustrated a series of comic books about various bands; (Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Poison, Kiss, Aerosmith, Whitesnake and several others). Led Zeppelin was the only one I'd say I was a huge fan of. And then the Doors assignment came along, which I jumped at, because they are one of my all-time favorite bands. (I was also thrilled that it was a 2-part story, so I got to spend 2 full issues chronicling the band). I wouldn't say I was overjoyed at the script....certainly, it captured the history of the band, but being such a big fan myself, I probably felt I could've scripted it better. But it worked out OK). I do recall that the Oliver Stone Doors movie was released right in the middle of my drawing those 2 issues; not that it affected my drawings in any way, as I already had such a strong visual idea of the band. But I do recall it was a high-media exposure time for the Doors, (probably the reason why the comic book company chose to profile the Doors at that time)."

Here are some samples of the second part of this nice Doors bio comic book (click the images to enlarge):

The plane to Phoenix incidentThe Doors last public appearence (in the middle of the page you´ll see a quote from Salli Stevenson interview - Salli commented: "I think it's great. I liked the fact that he used the Circus Magazine "I think of myself as an intelligent sensitive human being ...clown" quote, but that drawing's the first time I've EVER been mistaken for a man. LOL" - haha!):

Also Jay Sanford was kind enough to send me an unpublished art for the comic book, by Alec Scott:

If you´re interested, there are a couple of places where you can buy it:
http://www.sonic.net/~comix/comp__r.shtml#Revolutionary_Comics
http://www.demicomix.com/

Greg and Jay also did a series of comic strips for the San Diego Reader called Famous Former Neighbors telling stories of people who lived there. Two of them were about Jim Morrison, here´s one:

Alien Mind - featuring Jim Morrison

Here´s another Doors comic book, a science fiction story printed in 1991 by Rock Fantasy - Alien Mind - featuring Jim Morrison. There are no credits in the comic book.

In the forewords by "Michael" (maybe he´s the editor!) he explains the Rock Fantasy series:

"Rock has often taken the attributes of Science Fiction
or Fantasy to fire the imagination of it´s audience. We
thought it might be fun to turn the tables and combine
Rock´n Roll with Fantasy/ Science Fiction for the printed
page. So we´ve created an imaginary universe and peopled
it with characters in the guise of some of our favorite
rock stars."

The front cover by Nik:
Here is how the story begins (click to enlarge):

Inside the ship Jim is told "Don´t be alarmed, we will not harm you, we´ve come very far in need of the magic you posses!", he is taken to the ship´s central room. They drug him there but he doesn´t notice and from then on he starts thinking everything is normal and seems not to mind he is between weird aliens. They show him the ship´s nightlife to distract him...

The ship travels through the galaxy to a faraway planet where they are going to make Jim perform to a huge alien crowd in a large stadium. They get there and Jim starts the concert with "People are Strange"! BUT...in the control room where they are monitoring Jim´s mind the aliens see it´s going out of control! "There is too much psychic feedback! the system can´t handle..." and...BOOM! their mind control system explodes, Jim he regains conciousness and finally sees he is surrounded by aliens.

Jim makes his scape out of the stadium and jumps into a space ship landed nearby...well, I don´t want to take away the surprise in the end of the story...But I´ll tell you it doesn´t end there, they promess a another follow up comic book featuring Jim, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendryx titled "The great gig in the sky"!

I think you still can find this comic through Ebay: www.ebay.com