West Virginia writer Scott McClanahan (Crapalachia, Hill William) and Spanish illustrator Ricardo Cavolo (Tarot del Fuego) recently collaborated on a graphic novel about the singular singer and songwriter Daniel Johnston. The book is called The Incantations of Daniel Johnston and is available from Amazon and Two Dollar Radio.
Born in 1961, Johnston has been musically active since the late 1970s despite suffering from severe schizophrenia. His first two albums, recorded while was a student at Kent State University, were called Songs of Pain and More Songs of Pain. In 1990 he released an album called 1990 (recorded in 1988, of course) on Kramer’s Shimmy-Disc label.
In 1988, Daniel Johnston had a mental breakdown during a gig at Pier Platters, an independent record store in Hoboken, New Jersey. For two weeks Johnston was unaccounted for until his arrest at the Statue of Liberty after drawing hundreds of Christian fish on the stairs. An acknowledged hero of “outsider art,” Johnston’s music was famously championed by Kurt Cobain, who loved wearing his “Hi How Are You?” space alien T-shirt; a 2004 Gammon Records release called The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered featured covers of Johnston’s songs by renowned artists such as Tom Waits, Beck, TV on the Radio, Death Cab for Cutie, Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips.
I saw Daniel Johnston play the Knitting Factory in 2003, a concert that got a little bit of attention at the time because of some anti-Semitic remarks Johnston made while he was onstage. I was probably 15 feet away from him when he said those words, but they curiously made little impression on me. What I remember far better was the 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew he brought with him to the piano—the first half of his set was pretty good, but it eventually descended into repetitive hammering away on the keyboard… it was an odd and uncomfortable experience, to watch a musician with severe mental difficulties not having his best day on stage.
Jeff Feuerzeig directed a documentary about Johnston that was released in 2005 under the title The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Based on the images seen in this post, The Incantations of Daniel Johnston bears some similarities to the work of French artist David B. as well as R. Crumb’s shorter work about the religious visions of Philip K. Dick.
via Fader
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The Daniel Johnston iPhone App