The Comix Files: Rick "Ricko" Bradford

 Drawn by Dave Tosh

 Looks like a jam from a comix convention

Rick Bradford of Texas first contacted me in 1992 during the City Limits Gazette days. Although his comix art is wonderful and sparky, we all know Rick as the genius behind Poopsheet, at first a hardcopy resource but it evolved into one of THE most important online resources for creators and collectors of Newave, homemade, zine-like comix. Such energy. The guy must be a strange visitor from another planet with powers above and beyond that of mortal men.

Check out these links:

Poopsheet Foundation

Poopsheet Shop

Mortymail 5/9/12

OK, I admit I have become a terrible correspondent to those of you who contact me via USPS. And I have been for a number of years. Burnout is liberating yet guilt-inducing.

Anyway. It is not my intention to make this a regular feature of Morty the Blog, but I thought I would report on some of the stuff I get in the mail before I send it off the to the Washington State University comix collection. In no way is this making up for Richard Krauss basically suspending Midnight Fiction, and I am not reviewing. If you are looking for a networking place, send your comix to Rick Bradford at Poopsheet.

I let my mail pile up quite a bit before I even look at it. Then I get out the jack-knife, slice those babies open after they have collected dust for a week or more, and mostly pay bills while some old movie is in the VCR. Yes, you heard me, I said VCR. Occasionally some comix stuff slips in there.

Here's what arrived this week:

Kel Crum sent me his latest, Scribbles. I'd like to know how he found legal sized paper to print this work in the classic enlarged digest size which I loved. I finally got to meet Kel at SPACE last year and admired his performance skills during the comix reading show.

Bruce Chrislip sent me a big packet of material. Included were copies of a couple jams from SPACE 2011. I found his reprint (20 years later) of Thurber of Ohio to be especially wonderful. Before Bruce and I left SPACE in Columbus last year to head for Cincinnati, we visited the Thurber House. I really enjoyed visiting the home of one great Ohio cartoonist while accompanied by another great Ohio cartoonist.

I hope one day Bruce and Joan Chrislip return to Washington State.

And finally, our old Newave comrade, Gary Fields, sent this great version of Morty the Dog! 

I love it!

To My Comrades in the Dallas Area

Hope all you Morty the Blog pals down there weathered the twisters and are well, Brad, Rick, Dave, and whatever Lone Star Lurkers there are who read this. You are in our thoughts. The film footage looked horrific. I trust you guys were not part of that carnage bestowed by Mother Nature.

Newave! the Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s

When Michael Dowers told me he was going to put this book together, I had a difficult time imagining what the final product was going to look like. But knowing Michael's amazing history as a visionary publisher and coordinator, I had faith it was going to be great. He didn't disappoint me.

My personal file of the little minicomix which I keep as my portfolio fills up two card catalog drawers. I loaned them to Michael so he could see if there were any he wanted to reproduce for this book. He picked them up at my place, and about 6 months later Sarah and I went down to Puget Island, which sits in the middle of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington and retrieved them.

Although this dense brick of a book clocks in at around 900 pages, it is just the tip of the volcano. But the impact of this little baby has been the Newave event of 2010. A lot of us Oldwavers have dusted ourselves off and gotten to know each other again. We knew in the 1980s we were on to something wonderful, and now we are seeing that we were way ahead of the pack, even pioneers.

Not only has Michael's book been a factor (along with Sarah's lighting a fire under me) in my decision to crawl out of my cave and revisit this comix stuff, but it has also brought forth a whole new audience of the next generation of comix readers.

Michael, you done good.

I'm reproducing the interview portion from this book. Rick Bradford, who is turning out to be one of the main historians of the Newave movement, conducted the back and forth via email. Since the spine of the book doesn't allow me to lay the pages flat on the scanner, I wish you luck on reading the photocopy version.

The Fetid Lake of Doom

Not exactly a full length story-- more like an extended minicomic in regular digest size, but I guess this qualifies as my most recently published book.

This was originally published as an online work on OlyBlog, April 23, 2007. Rick Bradford's Poopsheet Foundation first brought it into hardcopy in October 2007 with 100 numbered copies.

Right after this was printed by Rick, I pretty much stopped keeping bibliographical track of my comix, lectures, etc. I'm not sure what that means.

A little history here. My friend Rick McKinnon started OlyBlog as a place for citizen journalists covering news in the area of Olympia, Washington in 2005. It was one of the early sites deliberately embracing the concept of "hyperlocal news." Rick asked me to join in the starting days (I'm member # 31) because he wanted two things: 1. A local old guy who knew some of the area's history and 2. Someone who was not deadly serious about politics.

One of the early discussion points in OlyBlog centered on whether or not to return the artificial Capitol Lake to it's original state-- an estuary. I suggested the lake be populated with gators, crocs and caimans to make it more exciting. One thing led to another and the Fetid Lake of Doom was born.

This took me about 8 months to complete, I think. And that's at a faster rate than the comic I'm currently working on!

Also attached is a photo of the real FLOD with the Washington State Legislative Building dome.

Trivia:

Page 1, panel 3. Zach Willis is my nephew. He helped fill in the dark background on the last panel of page 4 when we were on a family visit to Springfield, Oregon.

There is a brief clip of page 5 in progress as part of video documentary on artists balancing their day jobs by Mark Shimada. The USNS Fisher did indeed visit Olympia in late 2005, I think.

Page 6: Rick is, of course, none other than Rick McKinnon. By a coincidence, in real life the FLOD was invaded by the non-native nutria about this same time! Nutria just happen to be one of the crunchy little tidbits caimans down in Latin America love to eat. Beautiful!

Page 7: I used XERK! and QUONK! as sound effects because I realized I had never used comic sounds starting with X or Q before. Both of these completed my Obscuro Comix Sound Effect Dictionary. Fetid Lake of Doom by Steve Willis

Mr. Crawford Raises Herfords, Too

First published in 2001, probably in October, with a massive print run of 10 copies (2 pink, 2 yellow, 2 yellow cardstock, 2 green, 2 red).

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. of June 2005 had 6 copies (3 blue, 3 yellow). Two of these six are right here in front of me, so only four of these precious gems were let loose. And I very reluctantly let them go.

I believe the original source for the all the visuals and the text came from a 1950s Wyoming agricultural extension publication. I merely took the drawings and by enlarging certain portions created the greatest masterpiece of my comic career.

This is my best work ever, but I have yet to find anyone who agrees with me. In fact, this blog should just stop right now because it isn't going to get any better than this. Seriously, I laugh out loud every time I read this minicomic.

You think I'm kidding, don't you?

I'm not.

The last page never fails to warm my spleen. I also love the fact that "Herefords" is spelled "Herfords."

A super obscuro minicomic, you can still snap one up from Rick Bradford.

When I die, I want one of these cremated with me. If you want to unlock my mystery, if you want to know who really created all this Morty the Dog stuff-- this minicomic spells it all out.