KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL

Among the fascinating artifacts displayed at Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s recent comics exhibition was a letter from Denis Kitchen to Stan Lee, asking permission to publish an underground version of Spider-Man. (Lee’s genial reply boiled down to “Fat chance! Excelsior!”) Tonight’s discussion, “Comics: Underground and Above,” celebrates the library’s acquisition of the Kitchen Sink Press archives, as comics scholar Jim Danky discusses the publisher’s heyday with Kitchen, Howard Cruse, Maggie Galvan, and David Hajdu. Its diverse line included everything from Bizarre Sex to The Crow — but does the archive include the brass balls Kitchen needed to write that letter?

Mon., April 13, 6 p.m., 2015