Posted in: Comics, TV | Tagged: Denis Kitchen, Karen Kraft, Kitchen Sink Press

Denis Kitchen Comics Documentary Adds Executive Producer Karen Kraft

Denis Kitchen Comics Documentary Adds Executive Producer Karen Kraft

Oddly Compelling: The Life of Denis Kitchen is an upcoming documentary series on the life and times of underground comic book creator and publisher Denis Kitchen, founder of Kitchen Sink Press, and who worked with the likes of Robert Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner and Art Spiegelman through the seventies and eighties. And Karen Kraft, a former production executive at Discovery Networks, is joining the documentary, with a rough cut of the pilot episode pitching to streamers by January 2025. Kitchen will see his life's work and his legacy chronicled in the series, which is set for at least six episodes.

Karen Kraft, whose credits include Rodman, the 2020 Penny Marshall documentary about basketball player Dennis Rodman, is taking up the mantle of EP because of her lifelong love of comics. She served as Creative Executive for the Discovery International Production Group, a division of Discovery Communications, Inc., and managed over 50 producers, writers, field crews, and editors. She was the co-creator and executive producer/producer for Travel Channel's Marvel Superheroes' Guide to New York City, featuring Stan Lee, as well as Animal Planet's Wildfire Rescue, and executive producer for Discovery International's Extreme Engineering.

Kraft added that she was surprised to get the call, because despite never having met Kitchen, she had long been a fan of Kitchen Sink Press. "The work Denis has done over the course of his career has changed not only the comics industry but also the landscape of entertainment. Not only was Denis the first real independent publisher of comics in general, but his comix also influenced other creators. Quentin Tarantino has often spoken about how underground comix helped him shape his own style of non-linear storytelling. Plus, just about everything Denis has published has been engaging, fun and thought-provoking."

Denis Kitchen (born August 27, 1946) is an American underground cartoonist, publisher, author, agent, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

In 1969, Kitchen self-published his comics and cartoons as Mom's Homemade Comics. 4000 copies sold later, he founded Kitchen Sink Press and launched the underground newspaper The Bugle-American, which saw him syndicate comic strips to four dozen other underground and college newspapers, which saw him pick up cartoonists such as Howard Cruse, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Justin Green, Trina Robbins, and S. Clay Wilson, adding an art studio and a record publisher. In 1980, he invited Cruse to edit Gay Comix, one of the first comics to feature the work of openly gay and lesbian cartoonists, adding Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Capp, Mark Schultz, Monte Beauchamp, and Charles Burns to his list.

In 1986, after comic shop manager Michael Correa was charged with possession and sale of obscene material, including comics from Kitchen Sink, Denis Kitchen raised money for his defence, with his conviction overturned on appeal. Kitchen used the surplus money to launch and incorporate the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund as a non-profit charitable organisation in 1990, still running and prominent to this day, and served as its president until 2004.

In 1993, Kitchen Sink Press merged with Kevin Eastman's Tundra Publishing, before going out of business in 1999, with Kitchen becoming an art agent for Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman as the Denis Kitchen Art Agency, partnering with Judith Hansen in Kitchen & Hansen Agency, and witth Kitchen, Lind & Associates for the estates of Harvey Kurtzman and Al Capp as well as Rebecca Guay, Howard Cruse, Eleanor Davis, Todd M. Hignite, Mark Fearing, and William Stout.

Docu-series Producer Soren Christiansen says, "Independently producing a docu-series sometimes means wondering if we'll be able to hit the standard of quality associated with streaming docs. Karen brings with her not only the creative punch that someone with her credits delivers, but also a greater chance of landing the kinds of meetings that result in a pickup by a leading streamer."

In 2010, Dark Horse Comics released The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen, which served as part art book and part autobiography, and looks like the basis for this documentary, just with fifteen years more material.

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