Something Morty This Way Comes, or, Why are Health Care Costs so High?

Although the date on the cover declares 1985, this jam with Dale and Pat Luciano was actually published in early 1986 by Dada Gumbo Press in Ashland, Oregon.

Another sideways minicomic, measuring 11 x 14 cm.

That's a self-portrait on pages six and seven, back when I had a thin body and thick hair. Now I have a thick body and thin hair.

The Persecution and Assassination of Morty the Dog by the Ingrates of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis De Sadadada

... and if you think I'm going to repeat that title in the course of this little description, forget it.

This one was published by Dada Gumbo (Dale Luciano) in 1985 when he was still in Tucson, Arizona.

As I recall, we didn't send these jams back and forth and back and forth. Usually Dale would send me an entire comic with images and words pasted in at random, and then I would impose what narrative order I could. So when my part was finished, the comic was basically done.

A sideways minicomic, it measures 11 x 14 cm.

You can add this to the list of comix where Morty the Dog bites the Big One. But as has been postulated before, Morty is probably a breed of dog and not an individual animal. That would explain why it appears he keeps dying over and over again.

It Has No Story, and It's Only Part of a Small Cult Phenomena, or, Low-Budget 'Pataphysics Made Easy

Hey, how many books can you name with the word '' 'pataphysics " in the title?

This was published by Dada Gumbo in Tucson, Arizona in 1985, not too long before Dale Luciano moved to Ashland, Oregon.

Like the previously mentioned Harnessing the White Elephant, this was later reprinted in Dada Gumbo Morty in 1994.

As usual, Dale had sent me panels with images slapped on in Dada random. I saw my job as attempting to form a story with what I was given.

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.

Eternities of Darkness

This minicomic is the 2nd part of the Cranium Station DMZ trilogy (see earlier post for a more complete history).

First published by Dada Gumbo in 1984. Unlike Cranium Station DMZ, I don't believe this also had a digest-sized version published as well.

The scanned copy here is from the 2nd ed., published by Starhead in 1992.

The June 2005 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. had a print run of 5 copies (green covers, yellow guts).

Trivia: The title is a line from Nabokov: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." Cover: I'm told I fell down some stairs and was seriously injured when I was a very small child while living my native city of Spokane, Washington. The experience must've burned into my bank of memories I can't remember but still access, since the image of falling down steps is one that keeps showing up in my work. There is another not so subtle secret message embedded in the comic. Page 4, Tony Dow was the actor who played Wally, older brother to Beaver. Page 9, I occasionally use the name "Jubby" for different characters in my comix. I just like the sound of it. Page 11: I had the honor of interviewing J.P. Patches and met Gertrude in 1975. Two great guys who I'm sure influenced my cartooning to a great degree.

Cranium Station DMZ

This was the first of a trilogy including Eternities of Darkness and Hungry Stairs to Heaven. It is a circular story and can be picked up anywhere in the narrative without worry or anxiety about missing out on the "plot."

The first edition was published in 1984 by Dada Gumbo Press in Tucson, Arizona both in minicomic and digest-sized formats. I had been using the comic metamorphosis technique since the early 1970s, but Dada Gumbo's publisher Dale Luciano really gave me an encouraging venue to explore this method with some more detail.

Starhead published the 2nd ed. in 1992, during a time when they were briefly housed at Ocean Shores, Washington on the other end of Grays Harbor County from McCleary! The cover included red highlights.

When I had my print-on-demand catalog in 1994, this trilogy was not included. This was due to fact I was also selling unsold inventory for Clay Geerdes and Dale Luciano. And Dale still had copies of the set left over and available at that time.

The 1st Danger Room ed. in June 2005 had 5 copies with green covers and yellow and white guts.

The entire trilogy was finally published in a form it which it was meant to be presented in 2010 as part of Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s, published by Fantagraphics and edited by Michael Dowers.

Some points of trivia. The comic has a not so subtle secret message, the influence of my friend Lynn Hansen (1958-1995), who was obsessed with the hidden messages in Beatles' songs and images. The bottle of Wildermuth on p. 3 is reference to my old college pal and conceptual artist Kevin Wildermuth. The guy with the glasses on p. 5 is me. Page 7: clowns have long been a source of sordid fascination for me. In the early 1970s I had a seedy clown character named Jobbo Bonobo, which grew into a rather disturbing cult a few years later at The Evergroove State College in Olympia.