Monday, December 6, 2010
Flying
1st edition 1993, published by Maximum Traffic, Butler, Pennsylvania, enlarged digest size.
West Coast edition, 1994, published by Steve Willis, McCleary, Washington, regular digest size, print-on-demand.
There's no telling exactly how many copies of this jam with Maximum Traffic are out there. Max, along with Steve Lafler, Bob X and The Pizz, created some some of the most highly-charged-with-energy comix of the Newave/Obscuro network. Max might've gone crazy and printed zillions for all I know. For every letter I write to Max, he responds with a dozen to my one.
I suppose calling this a jam might be stretching it a bit. For openers, it started off with a script by Max. I provided the visuals and some ad-libs.
The background graphics on page 9 is pure Max Traffic, which is the only page where I can detect his artwork. However, the free flight art style of mine throughout the comic was very inspired by his story.
Given my history of writing stories on the, shall we say, existential side, it was sort of a relief to illustrate this sparkly tale written by someone else, relieving me of any responsibility for where it was heading or compulsion to turn the conclusion into a comic-tragedy.
The edition scanned and posted here is the one published by Max. Publishing it in enlarged digest size was the right choice. I have also provided the inside cover of the West Coast edition.
This was a very fun project and I'm glad I was invited.