Postcard - Aberdeen, Washington

"This telephoto view from Belaire Hill shows the Downtown Shopping Center and on the left the Modern New Bridge spanning the Chehalis River."

To help date this, the "Modern New Bridge" was built in 1955.

Somewhere in about the very middle of this postcard stood Eaton's Bookstall, where I bought most of my underground comix 40+ years ago and also met cartoonist John Workman before he moved to New York City. Eaton's was also one of the few places where you could buy my first pre-Newave comic, Gimmie Comics # 1. The building where Eaton's stood is long gone.

Comix Anniversaries in 2013

 

50 years ago, 1963: President Kennedy is assassinated. Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK's alleged assassin, is shot on live TV by Jack Ruby.  I was in grade school and later documented an eerie follow-up in a 2001 minicomic entitled LHO.

40 years ago, 1973: My first obscuro pre-Newave comic, Gimmie Comics # 1, is cranked out on a mimeograph.

30 years ago, 1983: I publish my first 8 page 14 cm. minicomic, Sasquatch Comix # 1. 1983 also marked the very first issue of Morty Comix, which I believe was sent to Hawaii. Other comix published that year: Limbolympia, Sasquatch Comix # 2-5, Retreads # 1, Bonafide Child Innocence # 1, Cranium Frenzy # 4, The Big Picture Picture Book, Outside In # 1-9, As I Recall the 'Sixties, Tragedy of Morty Prince of Denmarke Act 1. Plus there were a number of reprints (called "editions" by collectors) and contributions to various comix with others.

20 years ago, 1993: Most of the year was taken up with editing City Limits Gazette, where I served as editor from Feb. 1991 to Sept. 1993. Also involved with some exhibits, short contribs, a televised lecture called The Wild World of Obscuro Comix, a jam with Max Traffic called Flying, and another with Pat Moriarity in Big Mouth # 3. Bruce Chrislip records our mutual experience with Robert Crumb in Paper Tales # 1.

10 years ago, 2003: By 2003 this old dog was slowing down considerably. Cranium Frenzy # 10, at 60 pages, remains my most recent full length comic book. Will I ever produce another full-length comic? I don't know the answer to that.

2013, what to expect: I'm working on more creative ways to distribute Morty Comix and documenting the process on this blog. Once Ron and Louise are finished with me in the making of their NW cartoonist documentary Bezango WA it is my intention to fully return to my hermit existence here in the hills of the Washington Coastal Range and begin a new phase of my comix art. I have no idea where the lines will lead me.


The last couple years have seen me out and about as a cartoonist in classrooms, panel discussions, performances, conventions, and I even hosted a Mini-Comics Day here in McCleary (which was quite fun!), but we true Mossbacks can only take so much of the sunlight of attention and social interaction.


However, as we all know, Fate has a way of screwing up our plans and sending us places we never expected to visit. I'm enjoying this blog very much (thanks Sarah for making this possible when you set me up in 2010 with your technical know-how) and for now it remains a fun venue for creative expression and provides a medium where my old prehistoric photocopy work can find a new audience.     

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.

Gimmie Comics # 1

1st edition, June 1973, McCleary, Washington, 100 copies, white cover, 10 legal size leaves.

2nd edition, September 1982, Olympia, Washington, 25 copies, blue cover, digest size.

3rd edition, 1984, Gilbert, Minnesota, HSC, 25 copies, white cover, digest size.

Print-on-demand reprint edition, 1994, digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint edition, July 2005, 5 copies, green cover, digest size.

I count this as my first underground influenced comic. The initial edition was hand cranked from a mimeograph. A few copies were in comic shops in Aberdeen and Tacoma, Washington. The Tacoma shop asked me what the heck I thought I was doing. A few of these were sold or given away before I destroyed the remaining 80 copies. So theoretically there are 20 copies out there in the world.

I don't even own a copy of the 1st edition, but my old friend Rex Munger lent me his copy many years later and I copied it, retraced some of the faint lines and reissued the thing with an intro. The 2005 edition has a rewritten introduction.

The graphics were carved into that gummy mimeo master with a stylus. Although not exactly a stellar work, you can see I was already interested in porcupines. There's the obligatory drawing of then-President Nixon as a Nazi. The victim in the New Hampshire pancakes page is a self-portrait. Actually, within a few years I actually was in a New Hampshire diner and deliberately ordered pancakes for breakfast. The artist on the last page is also a self-portrait. Apparently I had cut my hair short by the time I reached the end.

Cranium Frenzy # 10

1st edition, September 5, 2003, 40 copies, ivory cover. All editions are regular digest size.

2nd edition, October 24, 2003, 20 copies, green cover.

Special Oly Comix Fest Edition, May 10, 2004, 32 copies, yellow cover.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies, pink cover.

This is my most recent full length solo comic. It was created as sort of a 30th anniversary of self-publishing obscuro comix-- hence all the reprinted work and dredging up of many old characters. I guess I should get on the dime and really finish up this comic I'm working on now in order to have Cranium Frenzy # 11 ready by 2013 for the 40th anniversary.

This comic was also my experiment with silent timing in comix.

Trivia:

The cover logo was, I think, drawn on toilet paper or a paper towel with felt tip and then enlarged.

Page 3: There are many characters in this story who were left over from the unpublished Bezango WA 985 # 9, such as Oric the waiter. They will be easy to spot.

Page 8: Oogla boogla meebee zeebee was a chant I first used in comix in the early 1970s.

Page 15, last panel: My favorite panel in the whole comic. Shows you how us lowbrows like to celebrate frivolity.

Page 20-22: My comment on the post 9/11 world. Also, a personal photocopier in the hands of a cartoonist can be a dangerous thing.

Page 28: I like the word "thwart" almost as much as I like the word "cranium."