Evergreen Lecture

Last night I had fun talking with a classroom of 40 plus students in "The Women's West" program taught by Jolie Sandoz and Ann Storey at The Evergreen State College. My talk, which was a bit rambly, attempted to tie together the threads of the Baby Boom, the history of Evergreen, and Newave Comix and the creative freedom afforded by photocopy technology. Most of the students were in their 20s, the same age I was when I attended Evergroove.

I printed up special TESC editions (75 copies each) of Write-In Morty the Dog for McCleary Mayor, Dante's Coat, Ambergris, To Touch the Face of Larry,  and As I Recall The 'Sixties, as well as a sample of Bezango WA 985.

For you bibliographic completists, the above minis also had a blue test copy, except for To Touch the Face of Larry, which had two copies. I used the lecture opportunity to promote Mini-Comics Day in McCleary and who knows? Maybe we'll see some future cartoonists come out of this.

I had a blast and this was the first time I have given an academic lecture in several years. This was also my first time talking to an Evergreen audience, and it was sort of strange delivering this in a building that didn't exist when I was a student there. They were a good group, very attentive and asked good questions. We even had a drawing exercise.

Thanks for having me over, fellow Geoducks!

SPACE 2011 Report, pt. 15

Bob Corby (left) and Kel Crum (right) invited me to participate in a reading of our comix. The panels were displayed on a screen as we narrated them. I was a little frightened at the prospect but the experience was more fun than I expected.

Kel told me he sometimes feels like an oddball among oddballs, which brought my reply that means he just doubled his odds. A professional in the radio world, Kel did a great job reading his work. Kel's stories lent themselves well to out loud reading. One tale included his main character, Cornelia. My favorite was the comic about the fellow who kept having his head fall off.

Bob Corby was next. Bob is the organizer of SPACE, which must be a very big job. His humor is gentle and personal. He read from his mini, Why I'm Not Musical, a comic with great graphics that really fit the mood of the narrative.

I read from Ambergris, which meant I had to sing a little. I'm sure my local friends and family will cringe when I say that, since I'm known as the second worst singer in the world, after Jim Jarvis (another McCleary guy). Then I read "Edgar Cayce Talks to the Dead," and finally "How Cats Got That Way."

It wasn't until that morning that I figured out exactly how the tune of the Ambergris song went. And I didn't know how Morty the Dog's voice was going to sound until I actually started reading the cats story.

Thanks to Kel for instigating my participation and to Bob for his great patience in guiding me through the technology of sending my work ahead of time. The resulting fun was worth the anticipatory nervousness.

Ambergris

Ambergris was first published July 14, 2001, 40 copies on yellow cardstock. Six more copies, also on yellow cardstock, were printed as the 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. in June 2005. In fact, the copy scanned here is one of those. The edition statement is on the last page. Both editions were published right here in McCleary, Washington. It was also scanned and presented on OlyBlog in 2007.

During the first few years of Century 21 I stopped hand lettering several of my stories as an experiment. It was an attempt to put an emphasis on the writing and I thought the typescript letters looked more formal.

Also, after a life threatening surgery in 1995, I found that my drawing hand had lost quite a bit of steadiness. For awhile I was using #1 lead pencils as my drawing tool, as I did here in Ambergris. For many years the felt tip pens picked up on my shaking hand like a seismograph and I found the #1 lead pencil to be steadier. I also enjoyed the texture of the line it made and how grainy it appeared when the image was enlarged. My drawing hand has since regained enough steadiness where I can use felt tip again.

The little guy in the story who is singing is a character I invented in the 1970s while a student at The Evergroove State College in Olympia, Washington. He has yet to be named. Using poetry and song in my comix is one of my joys.

As with many of these scanned images, you will have to click on each one to read the text without squinting.