Amused to No End

The appropriately entitled Amused to No End (Brad's idea, I think) was a full length comix jam with Brad Foster, who published it under his Jabberwocky Comix label in Irving, Texas on what we Newavers called an "enlarged digest" format-- meaning legal size folded once. He used high quality smooth finish paper. Although the work has a 1986 date, according to my files it turned out to be distributed in January 1987.

I always thought of Brad and I as sort of bookends in the Newave comix movement. Both of us are from the same generation. We were quite prolific in the 1980s (although Foster was by far the most active), we loved the whole self-publishing game, the comix genre, and were very involved with the national social networking of this group of artists. Remember, this was long before Internet, so we relied on telephone and postal service.

And the comix themselves. In many ways these jams were a way we got to know one another and also hone our public persona.

Foster was much more professional in his approach to these comix. He would draw on fine paper, I used the cheapest I could find. He used rulers, I didn't. He used ink, I used felt tip. Our motives and subject matter were generally very different as well. His intricate penwork has earned Brad the Hugo Award more times than I can count. Our differences account for some of the comic tension. As with our first full length jam, we mutually agreed people find abuse to be funny and gave each other permission to throw pies in a clown war.

Interesting in this comic that for once some other artist is trying to kill off Morty the Dog other than me!

Trivia: The wraparound cover looks like the pencils were by both of us, but the inks were all Brad, no question. Page 3: 'Gators and caimans have long been one my favorite animals to draw. Page 6: My frequent use of mangled song lyrics in comix is a direct influence of my years of reading Mad in the 1960s. Page 9: One of the reasons Brad Foster is so fun to read. Lots of nice comic touches in one big panel. Page 15: A classic Foster mechanical invention.

Page 22: Brad and I didn't actually meet in person until a decade or more after this comix was drawn. He was in SeaTac, Washington at a convention as the guest of honor. He said I was more cheerful than he expected. Somehow I had the impression he thought I walked around all day dressed in black, morosely exclaiming, "To be is to die."

Page 23: I can actually remember the moment I followed Brad on this page. I was letting out a loud and long eeeeevil laugh.

Page 28: Brad's carpet cleaning remark is a reference to our earlier jam, One Normal Guy Talking With a Nut.

Scanned and posted with permission from Brad Foster.