Denis Kitchen

• Born 1946-08-27

Denis Kitchen is an American underground cartoonist, publisher, author, agent, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. In 1969 Kitchen decided to self-publish his comics and cartoons in the magazine Mom’s Homemade Comics, inspired in part by Bijou Funnies and Zap Comix. The selling out of the print run of 4000 inspired him further, and in 1970 he founded Kitchen Sink Press. Kitchen began to publish works by such cartoonists as Howard Cruse, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Justin Green, Trina Robbins, and S. Clay Wilson. In the 1980s through the early 1990s, Kitchen Sink Press would publish industry legends such as Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Capp, and award-winning alternative creators such as Mark Schultz, Monte Beauchamp, and Charles Burns. In 1993, Kitchen Sink Press merged with Kevin Eastman's Tundra Publishing and relocated to Northampton, Massachusetts. Kitchen founded the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund as a non-profit charitable organization in 1990. Kitchen served as the fund's president from its inception until 2004.