The Comix Files: Anonymous 2

This anonymous letter from 1988 included a torn out shred from the Feb. 17, 1988 (exactly 26 years ago today!) issue of the East County News, our local weekly newspaper. I believe this article was kicking off the East County Comix strip I drew for that paper for nearly two years. 

The reproduced panel "Repeat after me, 'Question authority!'" panel was originally used, I believe, in the Cooper Point Journal, student newspaper for The Evergreen State College. Libertarian Socialist might sound like an oxymoron, but that comes the closest to describing my political philosophy.

As a result of watching too many demonstrations at Evergreen, I grew to hate megaphones. After awhile I concluded that anyone using them was a hustler. Hence, this cartoon panel, which I still love.

But the irony is missed by many. The following anonymous writer was apparently arrested as a result of protesting the WPPSS nuclear plant here in Grays Harbor County. And it never went online. Whoever you are, thank you! for helping to stop that insane project.

Here was her cartoon response:

Morty Comix # 2436

Morty Comix # 2436 accompanied me for dinner at an Elma, Washington restaurant. I placed the comic inside an issue of our local weekly, The East County News, which had a cover article about a former neighbor of mine being arrested and charged with embezzling a big chunk of change from the City of McCleary, where she was employed. Then I returned the newspaper to the "Free" area. Someone will get a special comics section of the paper! This was the same newspaper that used to run my East County Comix strip.

Suuri Kurpitsa

Finnish cartoonist Pauli Kallio invited several of us American Newavers into his amazing anthology series, Suuri Kurpitsa (translated = "Great Pumpkin"). I've included the cover of the issues followed by my contributions.

While many of us here in the states were messing around with cheap photocopy, Suuri Kurpitsa had slick paper production values and color on the covers. I couldn't decide what was more thrilling: having my work published in high quality hardcopy, or someone thinking enough of my comix to take the trouble to translate them.

Finland, by the way, has quite a role in Pacific Northwest history. Here in Grays Harbor County, you can see many Finnish surnames adorning the signs of business enterprises, especially in Aberdeen. Down in the neighboring Lewis County, the town of Winlock was basically a Finnish colony. Nearby Astoria, Oregon had a major Finnish neighborhood that was home to Maila Nurmi, also known to us Ed Wood fans as Vampira.

It would also be safe to place the Finns as among the most politically radical ethnic groups up here in the first half of the 20th century.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. So I'll slap myself in the face and start my morning chores now, like filling the porcupine with helium. No, that isn't a quaint euphemism for anything-- I really do have to fill the porcupine with helium. Otherwise he gets earthbound and cranky.

Retreads 11

1st edition, November 2005, 25 copies, white cover, regular digest size.

Trivia:

Page 4: Nancy and Steve were both writers. It just hit me that I drew book covers for both of them. I have already posted Steve's. Nancy's book cover is soon to come.

Page 5: I don't ski. However I can pose with the gear for a photo shoot and if my expression is suicidal enough I can look convincing.

Page 8: In addition to talking me into drawing posters for his plays, my brother Bryan asked me to draw this ad for his dog running service when he lived in New York.

Page 10: Drawn during a time when several of those electronic evangelicals were exposed in various scandals for being the hypocritical con artists they are.

Pages 13-22: The remainder of the East County Comix strips I posted here in the Larry of McCleary and Other Characters book.

Larry of McCleary and Other Characters

1st edition, February 1989, 47 copies, grey cover, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, April 1989, published by Eastern Grays Harbor Historical Society, McCleary Museum, 60 copies, grey cover, enlarged digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, July 2005, 5 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size.

In the late 1980s I tried my hand at a comic strip in our regional weekly, The East County News. I wanted to create a strip with a local appeal, capturing some of the quirks that made eastern Grays Harbor County a bit, er, different that the rest of western Washington.

The strip continued for another 10 months after this collection was published. The remainders were assembled in an issue of Retreads, I think. We'll see when we get there.

From reading the strips you would correctly conclude I had become a new parent in this period of time. 1988 to be exact.

Trivia:

Page 4, strip 1: This was also reprinted in Cartooning Washington.

Page 4, strip 3: I also used this line in Write-In Morty the Dog for Mayor!

Page 6, strip 2: Olympia, the Legislative Building, and the hills in the background where McCleary sits.

Page 7, strip 2: Elma, 7 miles away from McCleary, used to have annual festival honoring the lowly slug. For some strange reason it never really took off. Shelton, of course, is a town full of roughnecks and buffoons, not like genteel McCleary at all.

Page 13, strip 13: Yelm is near Olympia and home to J.Z. Knight, a mystic who has apparently become wealthy channeling the spirit of "Ramtha," a warrior from long ago. From the film clips I've seen, I suspect she grabbed the idea from the Hitchcock film Family Plot, as she does a pretty good Barbara Harris imitation.

Page 16, panel 1: I originally used this line in one of my comix from the 1970s, but I can't remember which one right now.

Page 17, panel 2: Our Shetlands did this to our trailer when I was growing up on the farm.

Page 18, panel 1: You have to see the slugs around here to believe them.

Page 20: We have two nuclear power cooling towers standing tall and ugly in this region. They have never been used (Thank God!) and remain standing today as monuments to the folly of man. This story has the unfortunate acronym of WPPSS.

Larry of McCleary