Dale R. Luciano's Dada Gumbo Press showcased his interest in Dada and Surrealism. An educator in theater arts by trade, Dale wrote a landmark survey of Newave comix artists which was serialized in several issues of
The Comics Journal in the mid-1980s. He was the first serious writer from the outside to recognize and cover with any depth the Newave comix movement. At the same time he went native, and started publishing an wagonload of some of the most interesting minicomix of the 1980s.
Dale and I jammed on several comix projects. Our collaborative work would typically follow this process: He'd send me several panels with random images pasted on them. That was the Dada portion. Then I would attempt to form a story around the images. Sometimes I wasn't sure what Dale with do with our work-- would they part of a larger anthology, or, as a stand-alone book?
Harnessing the White Elephant had no vol. 1, no. 1 as far as I know. 100 copies were printed in May 1986 by Dada Gumbo in Ashland, Oregon. The comic is sideways, 11 x 14 cm. As you can see by the content, I was not a big fan of the Art Establishment. Actually, my opinion since then has softened a tiny bit-- but not much. This minicomic also showed up in 1994 in
Dada Gumbo Morty, a collection of all Luciano/Willis jams under one cover, reprinted during my print-on-demand publishing period.
Scanned and posted with permission from Dale Luciano.
