City Limits Gazette # bezango (March 1991)

This issue of CLG might've been my first use of the word "Bezango" in print.

An innocent mention of King Features editor Jay Kennedy and his connection with Family Circus artist Bil Keane is the first fine line crack in the dam that will soon burst.

I provide a brief synopsis on the comix career of Ronald Gabriel Vicens II, better known as "Gato."

Bad cover versions of And I Love Her, And Your Bird Can Sing, Ask Me Why, Baby You're a Rich Man, Baby's In Black, Back in the USSR, Ballad of John and Yoko, Because, Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite, Birthday, Blackbird, Blue Jay Way, Can't Buy Me Love, Come Together, Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.

Dog Boy drawing by Steve Lafler.

Gato's final letter

Woof Comix

I published this jam with Steve Lafler and Max Haynes while I was living in Pullman, Washington in 1985, probably in February or March. 101 copies were printed on salmon colored paper. It has never been reprinted.

The three of us were all associated with dog cartoons at the time, and, come to think of it, we still are! Steve Lafler's Dog Boy was one of the more commercially successful series to come out of the Newave in the 1980s, being nationally distributed and gaining a following for his wild, high-energy stories and drawings. Max Haynes had a comic called Dog Slobber, as I recall, that had a subtle, quiet humor and nice brain tickler illustrations. And then there was Morty.

We had very different approaches to comic art, and this mini was more typical of the anarchy frequently associated with free form jam comix of the era. From start to end this was one spicy meatball, and I love Max Haynes' ending line, "Will you marry me?"