The Comix Files: Chester Brown

One of the advantages of being a perpetual amateur cartoonist is that I get contacted by amazing artists early in their careers before they really get discovered. Such was the case with the incredibly talented Toronto-based Chester Brown during our correspondence from 1984-1986. At the time he was producing a photocopy digest called Yummy Fur.

I loved the way he usually included a bunny graphic with his signature. It was fun jamming with Chester on our mini Lump Soup Sciopluieas in 1985.

During this era I sent Chester a Morty Comix that was something like 100 or 200 pages long. He shot back his own version, which was just as long, and is now in the comix collection at Washington State University.

Olympia Comics Festival 2012, pt. 13

My final bit on the Oly Comix Fest.

All the comix, business cards, and brochures that were traded or given to me will go to the Washington State University Comix Collection, the oldest academic collection of underground, Newave, and small press comix on the Pacific Coast. This library collection was started long before comix were considered acceptable by the mainstream in the early 1980s, even by other librarians. As a result, WSU holds many rare titles from the pioneer days of self-publishing, as well as early works by cartoonists who are now internationally famous such as Matt Groening, the Teenage Turtle guys, Chester Brown, etc. Anyone on the West Coast who has an academic interest in the subject of the history of self-published or underground comix will have to visit this collection. There is no other public place in Ecotopia that can come close in terms of broad coverage.

The Oly Comix Fest really has roots in the old Newave Comix movement. God bless you Clay Geerdes. 

Morty Comix #1500

There were a few Morty Comix that were 80 to 100 pages thick. This one was originally sent to Marc Myers. I know another one about this same size was sent to Chester Brown, and I'm sure there were several others out there.