Jamie Alder was a major artist in the Newave comix scene. In a group of very diverse artists, he was usually classified as surrealist. Being included in his classic minicomix series Exquisite Corpse Comix was considered a real honor by those of us who were lucky enough to have been invited.
I never met Jamie in person, but we had a pretty lively correspondence from 1982 to about 1993 or 1994. We had quite a bit in common. He was from the same part of Michigan where one set of my ancestors lived before coming to Washington Territory. We both were products of families in the equine biz, we both loved animals, and comix! He always came across as a very kind, gentle, and funny person in his letters. I was very saddened to learn he died last Mar. 22 at the age of 58.
When Jamie first wrote to me, he was still in Michigan, but within the year he had moved to California. That was where he lived when he invited me to participate in his Exquisite Corpse jam series. Although Jamie coordinated the whole comic, it was actually published by Starhead Comix in Seattle.
In order to understand the concept behind this work, I have included a scan of Jamie's instructions he provided for me. The comic itself doesn't quite look like the way I have scanned it. You actually have to sort of turn it upside down and inside out while you read it. You could print out the pages if you want and piece them together the way Jamie intended.
Some jams work, some don't. I don't think this one really worked. Our styles were too different. I'm really more of a long-winded storyteller and Jamie was a visual poet. But it was fun to work with him. Other issues in this series with different artist combinations were much more graphically stunning.
There are several nice tributes to Jamie on the Web, and I'll contribute another. I'll follow this post with a Jamie Alder Scrapbook, scanned from visuals I found in my file of correspondence with him.
