Steve Willis and Morty the Dog : Sometimes You Feel Like a Mutt / by Bruce Chrislip

An article Bruce Chrislip wrote for The Comics Journal # 219 (January 2000).

A nice way to say goodbye to the 20th Century.

The Old School / by Robert Boyd

As part of his "Minimalism" column in The Comics Journal # 183 (Jan. 1996), Robert Boyd covered a couple of my books as well as some comix librarianship activity.

Groening on Evergreen

Recently reread this part of Matt Groening's Comics Journal interview in April 1991 where he talks about his time at The Evergreen State College. He's pretty dead on when describing then place back in the 1970s.

I actually recall copies of Arcade sitting around the office of The Cooper Point Journal, the student newspaper Matt edited. Now that I think about it, they probably belonged to Matt!

Matt is being modest here. I was acquainted with Matt and Lynda before they knew each other, and although Matt's chief ambition was to be a writer, he was already into cartooning. Lynda was multi-talented in drawing and writing with a desire to be an art teacher, and Matt, I believe, encouraged and promoted her entry into cartooning. But they did provide each other with a lot of creative spark and energy.

I was some local rural hayseed with barbed wire holes still in my jeans, dazzled by their banter. But they were nice to me anyway.

The Comics Journal Reading List

I was asked to contribute to The Comics Journal Reading List for three years in a row, 1990-1992, and for three years in a row I was a smartass jerk about it. Then they stopped asking me. I wonder why?

City Limits Gazette # Brass angel at high tide (Nov. 1992)

Logo by Michael Stengl, giant cartoon heads in deadly combat, quotes out of context, my typewriter breaks, Joe Sumrall's murder is still unsolved, Bil Keane Watch by Mark Campos, another Bil Keane Watch by Steve Lafler, comix reviews by Lynn Hansen, bad cover versions of Yesterday, Bil Keane Watch, Comics Journal appendix references to the small press by Gary Usher.

City Limits Gazette # ...---... (April 1991)

Uh, er, did I say the first issue of CLG was the only one printed in broadside format? Oops. Guess this one was as well.

The "cranky letter" I make reference to in the second news item had been published in The Comics Journal # 140 (Feb. 1991). I'm including the actual printed letter below. As you can see, the Family Circus zen party is being prepared.

Harnessing the White Elephant Vol. 2, No. 1

Dale R. Luciano's Dada Gumbo Press showcased his interest in Dada and Surrealism. An educator in theater arts by trade, Dale wrote a landmark survey of Newave comix artists which was serialized in several issues of The Comics Journal in the mid-1980s. He was the first serious writer from the outside to recognize and cover with any depth the Newave comix movement. At the same time he went native, and started publishing an wagonload of some of the most interesting minicomix of the 1980s.

Dale and I jammed on several comix projects. Our collaborative work would typically follow this process: He'd send me several panels with random images pasted on them. That was the Dada portion. Then I would attempt to form a story around the images. Sometimes I wasn't sure what Dale with do with our work-- would they part of a larger anthology, or, as a stand-alone book?
Harnessing the White Elephant had no vol. 1, no. 1 as far as I know. 100 copies were printed in May 1986 by Dada Gumbo in Ashland, Oregon. The comic is sideways, 11 x 14 cm. As you can see by the content, I was not a big fan of the Art Establishment. Actually, my opinion since then has softened a tiny bit-- but not much. This minicomic also showed up in 1994 in Dada Gumbo Morty, a collection of all Luciano/Willis jams under one cover, reprinted during my print-on-demand publishing period.

Scanned and posted with permission from Dale Luciano.