Mitch Miller Always Gave Me the Creeps

I'm sure he was a nice person, but when I was a kid whenever his television show Sing Along With Mitch came on (early 1960s), I felt like fleeing the room. Yet I was transfixed into staying in place by what I perceived as his aura of eeeevil, commanding me to sing along whether I wanted to or not.

The fact he looked like another showman of the era, Satanist Anton LaVey, didn't help.

To this day I hate it when musical performers order an audience to obey their will with the words, "C'mon, everyone sing along! Hey! I can't hear you!" etc., etc. Listen, I came here to be entertained, not being bossed  around! What are you? A Stalinist? This is a big reason why I avoid live concerts.

I can't help but notice that the words "Satanist" and "Stalinist" are near anagrams.

Limbolympia

1st edition, January 1983, Olympia, Washington, 50 copies, ivory cover, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, March 1983, Olympia, Washington, 56 copies, goldenrod cover, enlarged digest size.

Print-on-demand reprint series, 1994, McCleary, Washington, regular digest size.

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

So named because I was back in Oly 1982-1983 and not feeling all that great about being trapped in that city, yet again. I was holding down a temporary job in my field after having just gotten married and wanted something permanent. Hence in Limbo in Olympia.

Trivia:

I think the Darwin Corksniffer story might've been born in a writing class with instructor Peter Elbow during my senior year at The Evergreen State College 1978-1979. I revived the idea and made it into a comic.

"The 13 O'clock Movie" story has the feel of purging a bunch of stuff.

Apparently Joe Stalin knew a lot more English than he let on. I once made a constructive suggestion involving Stalin's stuffed corpse to the Russians via my comic The Tall Elf.

The D.B. Cooper story is true. The case remains unsolved although several strong candidates (all of them now dead) have emerged in the last decade.

There have been a lot of reprints over the years of some parts of this book, but Found Loose in the Mail was made into a minicomic of it's own by Hal Hargit in 1987.

The Tall Elf

One of my favorites. Whatever happened to Ross Perot, anyway? That little guy brought a lot of entertainment to the world. I voted for Clinton in '92 and '96, but I enjoyed the way Ross stirred things up.

And for the record, this minicomic was around a good half decade before Will Ferrell's hit movie, Elf, which basically used the same premise or so I gather since I never saw it. I'm betting they didn't use the Joe Stalin/Karen Carpenter idea in the film, though.

So far as I know, all editions of this comic have been published right here in little old McCleary, Washington.

The 1st ed. was on yellow paper, 28 copies, in 1998, probably in May.

2nd ed. on creme cardstock, 23 copies, May 1998. No edition statement.

3rd ed., grey cardstock, 10 copies, 1998 probably in August. This is the one I've scanned and posted. No edition statement.

4th ed., 17 copies (12 blue, 5 green cardstock), 1998 probably in September. No edition statement.

5th ed., 26 copies (7 red, 16 blue, 3 yellow cardstock), March 5, 2000. The cover has a hastily written "Special SPSCC Ed." This was my last comic handout at South Puget Sound Community College during a class lecture (this one for an art class taught by Jane Stone and Bill Swanson) before I voluntarily left the safe and secure world of tenure in order to get some real life experience. It was a decision that might seem crazy on the face of it, but I've never regretted it.

The 6th ed. was the 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed., June 2005, 5 copies on pink cardstock.