Something Funny's Going on at WSU Library

I'd characterize this as fluff piece. It's from the Lewiston Tribune, April 15, 1991, five years after I stopped working at WSU. Lewiston, Idaho was not far from Pullman, home of Washington State University.

Notice the covers of then ultra rare titles Reader's Digest X and Ill Comics in the photo. It's also amusing that out all those titles to choose from the author highlighted One Normal Guy Talking With a Nut.

He also mentioned John E.'s hilarious President's Proctologist, one of my favorite comix of all time.

Steve Willis Archives v. 1

1st edition, March 1991. Chico, California : Onward Comics. 50 copies. Blue cover, regular digest size.

Jeff Nicholson expanded the Stevetreads idea in this series. But unlike the former title, all four volumes in this were published at the same time.

Volume 1 was basically an enlarged version of Stevetreads # 1, a consistent pattern throughout the Archives.

The image in this work that captures my attention the most is the ad for One Normal Guy Talking With a Nut, which I don't believe has been posted on this blog before.

One Normal Guy Talking With a Nut!

1st edition July 1985, Pullman, Washington : Kage Comics. Letter size cardstock stapled at margin.

2nd edition, 1985, Pullman, Washington : Kage Comics. Letter size cardstock stapled at margin.

Available as a reprint-on-demand title, 1994, regular digest size.

Clint Hollingsworth originally published this in a format that makes it difficult to scan, so you Morty the Blog readers are stuck with my posting the digest size version, which is unfortunate given the amount of fine detail work by Brad Foster. Also you'll need to extra enlarge the images to read the thing.

My personal copy is the 2nd edition and it is pink. I don't know if Clint used different colors in his printings. As a note to you bookpeople, Newave collectors tended to regard printings as editions, something that was more or less institutionalized in the network by Jay Kennedy in his Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide.

Clint's original editions included some extra material: Foster's short pieces "The Button" and three whimsical illustrations, and my story "A Glimmering Ray of Despair." These extras were all excluded from the print-on-demand version.

This was a very enjoyable jam with one of the most prominent artists associated with the Newave comix movement. Sending this thing back and forth between Washington State and Texas was like a long game of chess with a master. We made attempt after attempt to trap each other in this visual gamesmanship.

Brad and I are from the same generation and shared a somewhat parallel development as cartoonists, growing up with shared influences. We also, and I think I can speak for Brad here, found the Newave network to be a great outlet for our artistic freedom and expression. An outlet that was fairly unique at the time.

With those things in common, the differences were in the details. And we had fun with those differences in this jam.

Amused to No End

The appropriately entitled Amused to No End (Brad's idea, I think) was a full length comix jam with Brad Foster, who published it under his Jabberwocky Comix label in Irving, Texas on what we Newavers called an "enlarged digest" format-- meaning legal size folded once. He used high quality smooth finish paper. Although the work has a 1986 date, according to my files it turned out to be distributed in January 1987.

I always thought of Brad and I as sort of bookends in the Newave comix movement. Both of us are from the same generation. We were quite prolific in the 1980s (although Foster was by far the most active), we loved the whole self-publishing game, the comix genre, and were very involved with the national social networking of this group of artists. Remember, this was long before Internet, so we relied on telephone and postal service.

And the comix themselves. In many ways these jams were a way we got to know one another and also hone our public persona.

Foster was much more professional in his approach to these comix. He would draw on fine paper, I used the cheapest I could find. He used rulers, I didn't. He used ink, I used felt tip. Our motives and subject matter were generally very different as well. His intricate penwork has earned Brad the Hugo Award more times than I can count. Our differences account for some of the comic tension. As with our first full length jam, we mutually agreed people find abuse to be funny and gave each other permission to throw pies in a clown war.

Interesting in this comic that for once some other artist is trying to kill off Morty the Dog other than me!

Trivia: The wraparound cover looks like the pencils were by both of us, but the inks were all Brad, no question. Page 3: 'Gators and caimans have long been one my favorite animals to draw. Page 6: My frequent use of mangled song lyrics in comix is a direct influence of my years of reading Mad in the 1960s. Page 9: One of the reasons Brad Foster is so fun to read. Lots of nice comic touches in one big panel. Page 15: A classic Foster mechanical invention.

Page 22: Brad and I didn't actually meet in person until a decade or more after this comix was drawn. He was in SeaTac, Washington at a convention as the guest of honor. He said I was more cheerful than he expected. Somehow I had the impression he thought I walked around all day dressed in black, morosely exclaiming, "To be is to die."

Page 23: I can actually remember the moment I followed Brad on this page. I was letting out a loud and long eeeeevil laugh.

Page 28: Brad's carpet cleaning remark is a reference to our earlier jam, One Normal Guy Talking With a Nut.

Scanned and posted with permission from Brad Foster.