Frank Xerox: the comics that inspired Frank Zappa
Elvis Presley famously once said, “When I was a boy, I always saw myself as a hero in comic books and in movies. I grew up believing this dream”. As an adult, Frank Zappa seems to have felt very similarly about an Italian comic strip that deeply moved him.
RanXerox was created by Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore in 1978. The sci-fi comics followed the titular antihero, a creature made of Xerox photocopier parts, and featured in the Italian magazine Frigidaire.
American illustrator and comic-book artist Richard Corben has described the RanXerox character as “a punk, futuristic Frankenstein monster”, adding that “this artist and writer team have turned a dark mirror to the depths of our Id, and we see reflected the base part of ourselves that would take what it wants with no compromise, no apology – and woe to the person who would cross us. But it is all done with a black, wry, satirical sense of humour.”
Following a concert in Rome in 1982, Zappa was first shown the comic strip by a young journalist from Frigidaire and was so taken with and amused by the RanXerox character she had shown him that he asked to be put in touch with its creators.
In fact, Zappa was so impressed by the character that upon meeting the makers, he requested that they draw an entire book’s worth of comics for him depicting all that had happened to him and his band during the eventful European tour – at one show near Milan, a swarm of mosquitoes disrupted the performance, while following shows in both Geneva and Palermo, the audiences rioted after the concerts were cut short – with Zappa himself as the superhero figure.
Originally slated to be a six-page comic strip, the scope of the project was reduced, with Tanino Liberatore ultimately suggesting that he create the album art for Zappa’s next release instead. In an interview with the Italian magazine XL in 2012, Liberatore remembered his work on the project, “Since I don’t like covers with a lot of details or messages, and I prefer a strong drawing to leave a powerful impact, I proposed to draw the front cover according to my approach, leaving to him any decision concerning the back cover. Frank accepted.”
Adding, “So in the back, I drew the promoters who worry only about sniffing cocaine, The Pope, the girl who let Zappa know about RanXerox. Also, the famous ‘3-1 Vaffanculo’ banner, the infamous Palermo tear gas riot and the sun with the face, because he loved an Italian olive oil with a similar logo.”
While the reverse of the album contains a lot to consider, the front cover is much simpler: Frank Zappa as RanXerox, wielding a broken guitar in one hand and a mosquito-swatter in the other, in reference to the outdoor concert in Milan, where the sheer number of mosquitoes marred the show.
If the artwork sounds like a confusing and disorienting mess with ideas all thrown together by someone far too talented to have been reduced to such an offering, then it at least shares all those qualities with the music on the album. It is quite the wonder that this strange record, which features a fly-swatting Frank Zappa on the cover as RanXerox, keeps coming back into print.
