Bob Gorman GWAR and Richmond flyer collection

Access and use

Location of collection:
Virginia Commonwealth University, Cabell Library
James Branch Cabell Library
Virginia Commonwealth University
P.O. Box 842003
901 Park Avenue
Richmond, VA 23284-2003
Contact for questions and access:
POC: SCA Staff
Phone: (804) 828-1108
Fax: (804) 828-0151
Preferred citation:

Bob Gorman GWAR and Richmond flyer collection, 1992-2016, Collection # M 574, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Summary

Extent:
1.6 Linear Feet 1 oversize folder in a print box housing multiple collections
Creator:
Gorman, Bob (Artist) and Gorman, Bob (Artist)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Bob Gorman GWAR and Richmond flyer collection, 1992-2016, Collection # M 574, Special Collections and Archives, James Branch Cabell Library, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA.

Background

Scope and content:

Collection includes original art by Bob Gorman; promotional flyers from Metal Blade Records on GWAR shows and album releases, as well as other acts signed to Metal Blade Records; promotional flyers for events at Hardywood Brewery, and two Richmond newspapers discussing GWAR.

The majority of the collection materials were created in the early 2000s, with some materials created as far back as 1992 and as late as 2016.

Biographical / historical:

Robert "Bob" Gorman has been working with GWAR, a heavy metal band with science fiction and mythological themes and a rotating line-up of musicians formed in Richmond, VA, since 1988. At first, his work consisted of prop fabrication and live character roles. Later, his contributions expanded to include stage management, and since 1997, he has served as the shop foreman for the fabrication department.

Since 1988, Gorman has also been heavily involved in an artist collective, production company, and independent record label named "Slave Pit" that was founded in 1984 and originally housed in the Richmond Dairy building in Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia. [1] Gorman has been a contributing writer, penciler, inker, and colorist for Slave Pit's self-published "Slave Pit Funnies." Besides GWAR, the collective also worked with Death Piggy, Dave Brockie Experience, X-Cops, Locus Factor, and Mensrea.

[1] - This collective of mostly (or entirely) white artists chose to name their company "Slave Pit" when, in the 1840s and 1850s, Richmond was the largest market for the sale of enslaved people in the upper South, and the Jackson Ward area they operated out of is a historically Black neighborhood that white business owners and the Virginia General Assembly disenfranchised through red lining, strategic condemnation of thousands of houses and apartments, and by building a highway through the middle of the neighborhood in the 1950s.

In a 2015 TEDxRVA Talk titled "GWAR and Regional Identity in Richmond, VA," Michael Bishop (a GWAR bassist and singer) discussed the name of the production company. In it, he argued that the collective's use of the word "slave" was meant as a "DIY ethic of punk rock" and "voluntary devotion to art" that "represents the freedom to create." However, he also stated that "we can't divorce that word from the concept of slavery, especially not in Richmond, Virginia," and that the name "betrays privilege, it betrays GWAR identity in that in our narrative, slavery is an option, just like it was an option for us to live and work in Jackson Ward, and it might not have been that way for the other people who lived there." Although the record label is now named "Pit Records," the name for the artist collective and production company has not been changed (as of July 2025).

Acquisition information:
Gift of Robert "Bob" Gorman, 2018.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard