Phone photo 1789

Olympia, Washington

The old HQ for The Daily Olympian, designed by Joseph Wohleb

Vote Mad Hatters Tea Party International

Our U.S.-Canadian political party was gearing early for the 1976 elections. This ad was published in the April 15, 1973 issue of the Daily Olympian. The only person who responded was a college professor with a serious drinking problem. We didn't exactly set the world on fire.

Olympia, Washington : a People's History / edited by Drew W. Crooks

Published by the City of Olympia in 2009 as part of celebrating the 150th birthday of Washington State's capital city. Local historian Drew Crooks edited a history of the place with each chapter by a different author, making this an anthology.

The chapter on the history of The Evergreen State College was really a boiled down version of my extended history on OlyBlog written in 2005-2006 called Evergroove Trivia.

Difficult to scan, I apologize for the poor visual quality.

Lynn Hansen's Beatles Collection

Lynn Hansen didn't just collect undergound and Newave comix, he also acquired anything to do with the Beatles.

This article isn't really quite accurate:

First, Lynn didn't leave a will regarding his estate, so far as I know. The earthly possessions he left behind were distributed by his father, Ralph. It so happened that Ralph and I had met independent of Lynn at a librarian conference in Eugene, Oregon about ten years before Lynn died. By 1995 Ralph was retired. I think he had been Head of Technical Services at Boise State University.

Being not all that familiar with Lynn's comix and music collections, Ralph approached a few of us who were Lynn's friends and asked our advice. That Lynn's comix would go to Washington State University seemed a natural choice, since he had been a generous donor when I worked at WSU and was building the collection.

But the Beatles collection was a different kind of problem. Lynn had a zillion bootlegs, which would've made selling the stuff problematic for those of us not as schooled in the nuances of the trade. WSU seemed like a good home for the Fabs material, and the school accepted them.

An inventory of the collection can be found online at the WSU website.

A couple years after acquiring the collection, WSU held an exhibit of some of the material.

Secondly, Lynn and I did not meet at comics convention. Rather he first contacted me in 1981/82 when I was living in Seattle and he was in Idaho Falls. We quickly became regular correspondents as he ordered copies of every comic I published. We first met in person around 1983-1985 in Idaho Falls at his place. Over the years he was our house guest here in McCleary several times.

OK, I've set the record straight now. And even after all these years I still miss the guy and continue to wonder about many of the little mysteries he left behind.

Mad Hatters Tea Party International

From about 1971 to 1974, I teamed up with a bookdealer and cartoonist from Victoria, B.C. named John Newberry to form a political entity called the Mad Hatters Tea Party International. John was a couple years older than myself and we shared an interest in the role of comix in the political process.

As the MHTPI we created silk-screened posters, mimeo broadsides, and even an ad in the Daily Olympian. This particular broadside was printed on legal size paper using the same mimeograph machine I used to print Gimmie Comics # 1 in 1973.

Phone photo 407

Originally known as the Barnes Bank Building when it was built in 1869, this is possibly the oldest commercial structure in downtown Olympia, Washington. It was constructed with bricks produced by the factory of colorful local pioneer William Billings. This is probably the only remaining business building in Oly that was around when President Hayes paid a visit here in 1880. In fact, the President and his crew (including General Sherman) lodged a stone's throw from this spot in what is now an ugly parking lot.

To the left of the photo is the Joseph Wohleb designed HQ for the Daily Olympian in 1930. That paper moved to the Eastside ca. 1970. At about that same time, the furniture store that stood on the right of the photo (now a parking lot) burned in a spectacular fire. I remember watching it from the vantage point of my Grandmother's home on the Eastside ridge.

Daily Zero, April 21, 1977

During his tenure as editor of the Cooper Point Journal, campus newspaper for The Evergreen State College, Matt Groening organized a pretty dead-on parody of The Daily Olympian (now called the Olympian), the mainstream paper for Olympia, Washington. Charles Burns is included among the contributors.

During the previous quarter I recall hearing Matt talk about this project, but by April I had moved to Seattle.

To see the entire paper, hop on over to OlyBlog. You don't have to be a fellow Mossback to enjoy the trip.

Matt Groening at The Evergreen State College, 1977

From The Sunday Olympian, Feb. 6, 1977.

I seem to recall Matt saying something about the Daily Olympian reporter holding up a copy of The Cooper Point Journal and declaring no one could get away with this kind of writing in real life after college.