Clues & Cues

Clues & Cues was the in-house faculty and staff newsletter for South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington. You can see the serious and exalted place in which I was held by my peers, 1992-1994.

I didn't feed them this stuff, but somehow the PIOs knew when to show up. The Obscuro comix lecture was even set up by them!

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)

Bezango: Ghosts and Love

Olympia Power & Light March 24-April 6, 2010.

Typo alert: "Washington State Academy" is supposed to read "Washington State academic."

The illustration was originally on the cover of one of Max Traffic's issues of Buzzizyk and reprinted in Retreads 14. Is that heart flying away, or, coming in for a landing?

If you are into ghost hunting and sightings in the Olympia area, the colleges seem to be the places to start. I understand that in addition to The Evergreen State College and South Puget Sound Community College, there is another ghost (a monk who committed suicide? Did I get that story right?) over at Saint Martins University in Lacey.

SPSCC Exhibit, 1999

South Puget Sound Community College art instructor Carol Hannum organized a series of exhibits which were displayed in the college library in 1999. She asked me to prepare one for the July 5-August 12 slot. At the time I was employed by SPSCC as a librarian and member of the faculty.

I still have the narrative cards, but the images themselves have long since been given away. The exhibit consisted of 7 pieces. One of them was a Woofer the Psychic Dog t-shirt. The others were: The Tall Elf, As I Recall The 'Sixties, various library-oriented comix, Morty Prima Facie, a selection from The Tragedy of Morty, Prince of Denmarke, and Write-In Morty for McCleary Mayor.

The copies of comix were glued to foamboard, and each board had a border with covers of minicomix and other art. Last I knew those boards were distributed to my brother, to the back room of a local jewelry store, and to a juvenile correctional facility south of here.

It was Carol's choice to call me a "Renegade Cartoonist." The term seems redundant to me, since most good cartoonists are renegades in one form or another anyway.

At the same time this event was taking place, just four miles away The Evergreen State College was displaying a TESC Alumni Authors Exhibit, which included covers of As I Recall the 'Sixties, Cranium Frenzy # 1, The Tall Elf, Dante's Coat, as well as "The Four States of Being," the Outside In SW/Morty portrait, the earliest known drawing of Morty the Dog, and others. I believe this is the only time where my work was in two exhibits in the same town at the same time!

Teaching Comix

Some time during my stay in Pullman, Washington (1983-1986) I was asked to give a class for junior high school (now called middle school) pupils about comic art. That started a whole sub-career for me of presenting lessons on comix technique and/or history to students from Kindergarten to college.

My favorite classes are for children from preschool to about 2nd grade. Generally speaking, the magic of comic art is still captivating for them. We cartoonists can communicate so well with this group of kids in classroom settings because we ourselves have never fully surrendered the kid within us to the outside world. Look at all the Oldwavers who are still active. We are now in the 55+ crowd, making us Senior Citizens in the eyes of Burger King and the Pre-Paid Cremation Services folks who send me junk mail (how do they find me? It's rather unsettling) , yet we still put a lot of energy into drawing funny pictures and being playful with lines on paper.

It probably helps that we are also the Boomers, the generation with the never ending adolescence.

I notice that around 3rd grade the children begin to ask about how to make a living at the cartoon game. The practical considerations begin early.

My most memorable presentation was to my daughter's 4th grade class. This is a very small town and most of the kids already knew me. At the end of the talk one little boy asked me to sing my underpants song, which of course I sang loud and proud. It has the tune of "She'll Comin' "Round the Mountain" and goes like this:

Oh, I haven't seen my underpants in weeks
Oh, I haven't seen my underpants in weeks
Oh, I haven't seen my underpants
Haven't seen my underpants
I haven't seen my underpants in weeeeeeeks!

All the girls covered their ears, except for my daughter, who crawled under her desk.

I don't know how many classes I've given over the years, but quite a few, including some at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, where I sometimes would print out special editions of As I Recall the 'Sixties not only as an example of how to make your own comix, but also for a couple history classes.

If you haven't already, I'd encourage my cartoonist comrades out there to take any opportunity you can to teach or talk about comix to your community. It's been my experience that people are predisposed to have fun when they know cartoons will be the topic presented, and who knows, you might awaken the sleeping cartoonist within one of the attendees.

The photo attached here is from a video of a cartoon class I gave at Lincoln Elementary, Olympia, Washington, April 17, 1987. That's Odd Dog on the easel.

The Wild World of Obscuro Comix

This is a VHS videorecording of a lecture I gave at a community event in Olympia, Washington, December 1993, sponsored by South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC). It is not on YouTube, and I'm sort of a klutz with the online video-to-computer graphics, so you are stuck with still shots taken by my phone while the thing is playing on my bulbous antique television set.

Actually I'm scheduled to give another local presentation much like this one in April except the focus will be more on Puget Sound artists in the prehistoric era of self-publishing, when we used to make our drawings on clay tablets and send them to each other via the Woolly Mammoth Express.

This video was included in my Cheaper by the Dozen reviews on OlyBlog. Here's what I wrote about it on September 7, 2008:

The Wild World of Obscuro Comix (Piece of My Mind) / directed by Steve Whalen (1993, VHS). Steve Willis. Originally presented as part of SPSCC's Piece of My Mind series. When I played this the cats left the room, my companion claimed she was, er, "tired" and needed to sleep, the house itself snored and even I got drowsy. This was me 15 years ago giving a lecture about the evolution of comic art leading to "Newave" or "Obscuro" comix. I was a college faculty at the time, so it is very lectury. I'm using an overhead projector, which gives you an idea of how exciting this is. When I gave this talk at the Olympia Community Center I had no idea it would be broadcast over and over on TCTV for a year. Otherwise I would've combed my hair. Only the most esoteric of comix historians would be interested in this presentation. I say "Um" a lot, which I tend to do in front of cameras. This video might still be available at SPSCC, otherwise, you are out of luck. Heh-heh. Bil Keane, City Limits Gazette, and Morty the Dog get a special mention. The first thing I noticed when viewing this was back then I had thick hair and a thin body. Now I have thin hair and a thick body.

The Tall Elf

One of my favorites. Whatever happened to Ross Perot, anyway? That little guy brought a lot of entertainment to the world. I voted for Clinton in '92 and '96, but I enjoyed the way Ross stirred things up.

And for the record, this minicomic was around a good half decade before Will Ferrell's hit movie, Elf, which basically used the same premise or so I gather since I never saw it. I'm betting they didn't use the Joe Stalin/Karen Carpenter idea in the film, though.

So far as I know, all editions of this comic have been published right here in little old McCleary, Washington.

The 1st ed. was on yellow paper, 28 copies, in 1998, probably in May.

2nd ed. on creme cardstock, 23 copies, May 1998. No edition statement.

3rd ed., grey cardstock, 10 copies, 1998 probably in August. This is the one I've scanned and posted. No edition statement.

4th ed., 17 copies (12 blue, 5 green cardstock), 1998 probably in September. No edition statement.

5th ed., 26 copies (7 red, 16 blue, 3 yellow cardstock), March 5, 2000. The cover has a hastily written "Special SPSCC Ed." This was my last comic handout at South Puget Sound Community College during a class lecture (this one for an art class taught by Jane Stone and Bill Swanson) before I voluntarily left the safe and secure world of tenure in order to get some real life experience. It was a decision that might seem crazy on the face of it, but I've never regretted it.

The 6th ed. was the 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed., June 2005, 5 copies on pink cardstock.