Postcard - Tucson, Arizona

"Metropolitan Tucson, Arizona, as it appears from the peak of 'A' Mountain."

1950s?

For awhile, up to 1985 or 1986, this town was home to Dale Luciano and Dada Gumbo Press. Some of my favorite jam titles were published here.

Stevetreads # 3

1st edition, 1987. Chico, California : Jeff Nicholson. White cover, regular digest size.

The number of copies for the 3rd and 4th issues of this series isn't recorded in my list, but I would assume the count is low since the first two issues had a grand total of 3 copies per issue.

The name Stevetreads was a play on my Retreads title, a series devoted to reprinting items printed hither and yon into one collection (I smile as I recall Ted Bolman wanted to start yet another play on this called ReTeds, which I hope he did). Several of the pieces Jeff reprinted were actually reprints of reprints. But in this issue there was something different. Half the book was filled with new work.

Jeff had acquired several pages of unpublished jam comix between Dale Luciano and myself. This was the in-print debut for the cover art and all work from the "Memories" page to the end. These were later reprinted in 1994 in Dada Gumbo Morty.

Brad Foster Has Lit the Fuse

Awhile back I asked for contributions for a minicomix jam. Here's what I posted on December 15:

Also, I'm thinking of putting together some new minis. One idea I have is to invite 8 or more artists to send me a page for a minicomic with a random image or images. I'd put all the pages together and form a story. It builds and expands the concept of the minis I drew with Dale Luciano at Dada Gumbo. If you're interested send me a page via email or snail mail. It has to be clean enough so I can show it to my aging mother but crazy enough to make my grown daughter roll her eyes and wonder when her Dad is ever going to grow up.

Well, Brad Foster has sent in the first drawing via email attachment! I need 7 more comix artists to send me an image. Help force me out of my lethargy and get me back to the drawing board, jump into this comic and send me a drawing. It can even have a word balloon with a random piece of dialogue if you like.

Calling A to Z! Calling A to Z!

Calling A to Z! That is, calling Hank Arakelian and Joe Zabel! If you guys are out there please drop me a line. I'm interested in posting some jams from the past.

Also, I'm thinking of putting together some new minis. One idea I have is to invite 8 or more artists to send me a page for a minicomic with a random image or images. I'd put all the pages together and form a story. It builds and expands the concept of the minis I drew with Dale Luciano at Dada Gumbo. If you're interested send me a page via email or snail mail. It has to be clean enough so I can show it to my aging mother but crazy enough to make my grown daughter roll her eyes and wonder when her Dad is ever going to grow up.

Dada Gumbo Morty

1st edition, 1994, print-on-demand, regular digest size. I have no idea how many of these are out there. It was available from 1994-1996, so perhaps 100 of them, give or take 75.

Special Fandom House edition, 1994, 20 copies.

This is a reprint collection of comix jams with Dada Gumbo publisher Dale Luciano. Some of them were originally released as pages in anthology comix (Dog Boy #7, Scratchez Magazine #8, Stevetreads #3, and Worker Poet #9), others as individual minicomix:

Harnessing the White Elephant

It Has No Story ...

The Persecution and Assassination of Morty the Dog ...

Something Morty This Way Comes ...

All of these were initiated by Dale, who also decided where and how they would be published. He sent me pages with the panels containing random images and I attempted to impose order on them, an exercise I thoroughly enjoyed. I have used this technique in other comix, most lately online at OlyBlog with the UML series and the What's My Line? series.

When I occasionally give cartoon presentations to classrooms, I'll ask the kids to close their eyes and draw a line on the blackboard (or in recent years, whiteboard) and then I'll show them how they can build an image around this line if they approach it with some imagination. I like this method-- it forces me to get outside the cookie cutter way of drawing where I can easily imprison myself since I'm essentially a sedentary and lazy artist.

Cryogenic Comix # 11

1st edition, 1998, 15 copies (9 pink, 5 green 1 yellow cover-- all of these with yellow guts), regular digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, yellow, regular digest size.

From my notes it looks like the Cryogenic Comix series was published in batches in the last couple months of 1998. #1 was solo, # 2-4 were printed at the same time, and # 5-10 was a slightly later run.

# 11-17 appear to have been published as a batch, and finally # 18 was, for reasons that will be obvious when we get there, released as a solo.

This issue has preliminary drawings for a story I drew for one of Dale Luciano's Dada Gumbo anthology minicomix on page 2.

The centerspread has the finished first page of a tale I never published featuring Morty the Dog and Arnie Wormwood. I think I discarded it for some reason and started over, it looks to be vintage 1982 or 1983. The last two pages have drafts of characters I used in Cranium Frenzy # 3 (1982).

1994 Comix Catalog

Hey, I found some of the catalogs I sent out in 1994 during the print-on-demand phase. Notice I was also selling Dale Luciano's Dada Gumbo unsold inventory from the 1980s. Later I added many titles from Clay Geerdes' trunkload of Comix Wave minis.

Sarah and I have discussed republishing some of the older comix and selling them through this website as special editions. Any requests out there for particular titles?