The Secret Identity of Steve Willis / by Jon Brogger

A somewhat disjointed and typo-ridden rollercoaster of an interview with a journalism student at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington. I remember Jon was a fun guy to talk with. Originally published in Sounds v. 11, no. 2 (November 1996)

Storm Warnings

1st edition, February 1986, Pullman, Washington. 50 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, February 1986, Pullman, Washington. 30 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size.

3rd edition, 1990, Seattle, Washington : Starhead Comix. 17 x 13 cm. Color covers.

Available as a print-on-demand title in regular digest size, 1996.

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

The nationally distributed Starhead version reprinted the 1980s story "Downtime Laff Riot" and a maze not found in the original edition.

My initials follow me around. I was born in Spokane, Washington. SW. I live in Southwest Washington. SW. Storm Warnings. SW.

I'm not particularly fond of this comic, especially the Rainmaker story. Oddly, it seems to me that out of all my comix, this one is the most acceptable to fans of conventional comic books.

Trivia:

P. 3-4: Mr. Wright also appeared in Delayed Stress Syndrome Funnies.

P. 13: Mukey and porcupines. It doesn't get much better than this, one of the few bright and happy spots in this book. Notice Mukey has a Max Fleischer character type of nose here. He was still under construction.

P. 23: Hey, isn't that ... Brad Foster in that crowd? Why, yes, I think it is!

Stevetreads # 1

1st edition, 1987, Chico, California : Jeff Nicholson. 3 copies, regular digest size.

That's right, only 3 copies.

The hopefully-not-really-retired-from-comix-for-life cartoonist Jeff Nicholson, creator of Ultra Klutz, Through the Habitrails, Colonia, and Father and Son published a 4-issue short run of this "bootleg" Stevetreads series to fill out his own collection.

I believe everything in this first issue has already been scanned and posted here in various places.

We'll be seeing quite a bit of Jeff's work down the road when I reach the part of the backlog containing our Ultra Klutz jam.

Hmm, I see a cat hair got into the scan of the final page. That makes it a cat scan, right? I guess I should've stopped the machine by hitting the paws button. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

Mukey the Mutant Membrane

I'm trying hard not to get a cold today. How fitting to be posting this, of all comix.

1st edition was available as a print-on-demand comic in 1996, I'm guessing about 100 copies out there. This and following editions are regular digest size.

Special ultra-rare goldenrod edition, 3 copies, 1999. Entirely goldenrod.

1st Danger Room Reprint edition, July 2005, 5 copies, green (of course)

This book was used as a vehicle to explore my always uncomfortable relationship with capitalism. I figured using this big piece of snot would be too disgusting for anyone to take seriously as a commercial character. After all, I invented Mukey about 1972-1973 and he hadn't gained much of an audience in all those years.

I was wrong. I think Mucinex should pay me a royalty for their Mr. Mucus character. Another example of the mainstream catching up to us obscuro guys.

Mukey has been a supporting character in many comix over the years, but this is the only comic where he is the focus. I keep hoping one day my brother, Bryan, will write a play about Mukey. A musical. And then it will be turned into a movie. And then the franchise rights will ...

Oh.

See? See what this character does to my thinking? He's dangerous.

Trivia:

Pages 12-15 are entirely true. Page 15 anticipated the publication of Sean Tejaratchi’s Kool Man.

Back cover and inside back cover. My daughter Rose felt that Mukey was "disgusting" while Gumby was "refreshing." Personally, I always thought Gumby was terrifying.

Attached is a photo of her art piece, made at the same as this comic, "Mukey and Gumby in a fight (and Morty)." Gumby says: "I could beat you any day in looks" Mukey replies: "Ya. You wish." Morty observes: "Can't you to be quiet. I need to think!"