Starhead Presents # 1 Cover Prep

It's amazing the things I find while engaged in archaeological digging through my studio.

Here's some of the preparation work by Michael Dowers for the cover of Starhead Presents # 1. Color is not my friend, so either Patrick or Michael Dowers hand colored this draft. I love Colin Upton's saying, "Color is for the weak," it provides me with an excuse for being color-challenged.

I'm also noticing something I forgot about. The draft version is actually an entirely different drawing. I don't remember creating more than one cover. Well, it has been nearly 30 years!

I'm also including a scan of the finished and published covers.

Bezango / Bezango Obscuro

My first comic of 1994 (January), 100 copies. Rose colored covers in enlarged digest format.

2nd ed., around Feb.-March 1994, 50 copies with a salmon cover, also enlarged digest size.

Starhead Comix reprinted the comic in commercial form later in 1994 and retitled it Bezango Obscuro. I'm not positive, but I think Michael Dowers told me he printed somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 copies.

The cover color was supplied by Art Penn, an amazing artist chiefly known under another name as an illustrator of children's books.

Because the comic was originally drawn for the digest size, there happened to be extra space in the margins. This was filled by employing an academic Michael had met in a bar. Dr. Whidbey interviewed me once on Michael's front porch. I recall he was drinking something that smelled like high octane mango, and wore black socks with his sandals. Howerton College, a private school somewhere up north, went under awhile back due to bad investments. Or maybe the whole thing was just a dream.


My only comment on his comments is the use of the word "claim." I know not this "claim," it just is.

There was more padding by including part of Morty Comix #2018, and three issues of State of Beings, which were initially released as comic supplements with the biweekly City Limits Gazette during my editorship, 1991-1993.

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. of June 2005 was a return to the original form, except the 5 copies with red covers were printed in digest form, not enlarged.

"Bezango" is a word I just made up, I like the sound of it. "Obscuro" was a term I began to use frequently while editing CLG. By the early 1990s the Newave was dead and I started using "Obscuro" as another word to describe the kind of comix we produced. Michael picked up on that and added it to the commercial release. I'm not sure if Michael himself or Art Penn created the second part of the cover title logo.

I'm including a scan of the enlarged digest cover, the original color of the cover (a gift from Michael which I prize) with and without the acetate overlay, and commercial comic itself. Whidbey has saved me the trouble of adding trivia notes.

Morty the Dog # nothing

This odd little minicomic was another entry in the subgenre of repackaging stories from digest sized comix into the mini format.

In 1987 Starhead Comix took two old stories of mine and created this mini, 7 x 13 cm. The spine was on the top, and most of the pages faced each other in a way that required the reader to keep flipping the book around. Unlike most other minicomix, this one had color covers and was printed on newsprint.

"A Day in the Life of Morty the Dog" was from Cranium Frenzy #2 (1982), "God's Little Joke" from Cranium Frenzy #1 (1981). I'll supply the backstories once we arrive at posting the Cranium Frenzy series.

I have no idea how obscure or common this minicomic is. I thought Michael Dowers did a great job on composing the cover. I can't place the source for the drawing of Morty he used. Color has never really been my thing, but Michael and his brother Patrick have really given my work more flair when they apply their talents in this area.