Justin Green, who invented the American autobio comic book with Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, a direct inspiration for Maus, has died at 76
Justin Green, who effectively created the American autobiographical comic book with his landmark 1972 independent comic, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, which directly inspired Green’s roommate at the time, Art Spiegelman, into creating Maus, has passed away at the age of 76.
Born in 1946, Green was raised Catholic in Chicago until he rejected the religion when he was 13 because he believed that it gave him “compulsive neuroses.” He was later diagnosed with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Green was studting painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in the late 1960s when he was first exposed to the then-nascent world of underground comix, specifically the work of Robert Crumb. The field of comix spoke to Green, and soon he moved to San Francisco, which was then the center of the underground comix scene. His first comic work, “Confessions of a Mad School Boy”, was written and drawn in San Francisco but published back in Rhode Island.
Green then invented the Binky Brown character in the comix newspaper, Yellow Dog, in a story called “Binky Brown Makes up His Own Puberty Rites” in 1969. He did a second Binky Brown story in Laugh in the Dark in 1971. Brown was Green’s stand-in to tell his stories of dealing with his Catholic upbringing. The two initial stories proved promising enough that Ron Turner, publisher of Last Gasp, actually paid Green a $150 a month stipend to allow Green to concentrate on Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, which was published by Last Gasp in 1972.
The 44-page comic detailed Binky Brown’s relationship with the Church and his ultimate rejection of the institution. This was essentially the first autobiographical American comic book story and specifically, Green’s heartfelt confessional style really struck a nerve with the independent comic book creators of the era, and it was also a sales hit, going through two separate printings of 55,000 copies apiece. Robert Crumb, the man who inspired Green to move to San Francisco in the first place, began to work autobiographical stories in his comics (with “The Confessions of R. Crumb” appearing in The People’s Comics later in 1972). Green’s roommate at the time was Art Spiegelman and Binky Brown was the direct inspiration for Spiegelman to create his own heartfelt confessional comic book story, which ultimately became Maus (it was initially just a three-page comic in 1972 before Spiegelman began to develop it as a book in the late 1970s).
Green was a masterful sign painter and during the rest of his career, it was his sign-painting that was his main source of income. He actually wrote a comic strip about the sign-painting business called Sign Game that ran in the trade publication Signs of the Times. He also did a comic strip in Tower Records’ official magazine where Green would do biographies of famous musicians.
Green is survived by his wife, the acclaimed cartoonist Carol Tyler (also known for her autobiographical work), and their daugher, Julia.
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