A couple faces

January 1999

Meeting Notes, July 1990-Sept. 1991

Today I've been weeding through my books and in the process ran across a notebook I kept of work related meeting notes from July 1990 to September 1991.

This was a time period when the Washington State agency I worked for had converted into a private nonprofit corporation (only the 2nd such instance in the history of Washington). After privatization in July 1990 I was promoted to a position where I managed anywhere between 12 to 20 people at any given time. This was a bibliographic utility called WLN (now extinct since around 1999/2000) and I kept copious notes of every meeting. For anyone interested in the history of online library services in the Pacific Northwest, or in the topic of public to private conversion, this notebook might be a valuable primary document.

WLN (originally called the Washington Library Network, then Western Library Network, and finally just WLN) was a great place to work and we had an excellent set of products and top notch crew of dedicated people. Even so, I was recruited and lured away by South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington in September 1991 where I worked as a librarian and member of the faculty. WLN was the hardest job I ever left, but in the long run it turned out to be a good decision.

Anyway, I noticed while looking through these notes that there were a lot of illuminations. Almost all of them in pencil (sorry, I know many are difficult to see). Contrary to being distracted, we cartoonists actually listen and think better while moving our drawing hands around. Non-cartoonists think we're goofing off, but actually we are processing what we are hearing through our special comix-vision. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

During the second half of the time period covered here I revived City Limits Gazette. Some of the drawings seem like the very beginnings of comic ideas that were later fully developed and published, such as Tulpa and State of Beings # 2.

Illustrations in Search of a Story

1st edition, October 28, 2001, 15 copies, regular digest size.

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

In this low printrun comic, you can see preliminary drawings for work in Ted, Monkey Trap, and Bezango WA 985 # 1. The last title's 1st edition was also published on October 28, 2001.