Dogtown Zoo # 1

OK, here's the screwy deal with the first three editions of this title. They all have the same info on page [2] of the cover: "First and final edition of 60 copies printed in Seattle and Olympia, Wash." But that is, in actual fact as we understand it in this plane of existence, not true.

1st edition, June or July 1982, Seattle and Olympia, Washington, 60 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size. This was published during the time I moved from Seattle to Oly. I don't remember where it was printed, but the job was so bad I basically discarded most copies and started over. I think I went down a few streets in Oly and just stuck them in people's mail or newspaper boxes at random. Today this edition is one of the harder-to-find books I've published.

[2nd edition], 1982, Olympia, Washington, 30 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size.

[3rd edition], 1982, Olympia, Washington, 30 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size. Indistinguishable from the 2nd edition.

Print-on-demand, 1996 (reprint series), unknown number of copies, regular digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, July 2005, 5 copies, yellow cover, regular digest size.

Page 5, panel 3: Another reference to Olympia's newspaper, The Daily Olympian. I think they changed their title to just The Olympian about the time I drew this comic. Who knows, maybe one of those blue cover editions found it's way to the owners of the paper and they decided it was time to change their name as a result of this snarky little detail in the story!

Page 9, panel 1: I always loved that leprosy scab joke, ever since I was a kid.

Page 10, panel 5: Based on Albert Camus, The Stranger, I think.

Page 11, panel 1: "Squirmy Eyed Q-Ball" is an insult my brother came up with and I have employed numerous times in my comix.

Page 12, panel 3: "Unga" was a comic sound my old friend (and comic art fan) Rex Munger used frequently.

Page 15, panel 4: Batum and Schrag are two small hamlets in eastern Washington State.

Page 17: If I don't use the long fadeout, then I'm concluding a story with Morty on the sax. Sorta tiresome after awhile if you ask me.

Page 18, panel 3: In addition to the obligatory "NRA" and "Reagan 80" stickers the others say: "We've been to Humptulips, WA," "Falwell for Prez," "Mukey River, Ioway," "Winooski, Vermont" (I used to drive a taxicab in neighboring Burlington. Sometimes I'd take drunks home from a certain bar in Winooksi. A female bartender would assist a few of these patrons to the car. In just a few years, by a weird coincidence, the bartender and I met again in Puget Sound country, where we were both librarians!).

Another bumpersticker, "Wildermuth Caves, Mo." is in honor of Missouri native (now Seattle resident) and conceptual artist Kevin Wildermuth. Speaking of bumper stickers, he made one that declared "I'd rather be masturbating" and proudly placed it on his rear bumper. While this was on his car I rode with him from Oly to Seattle. The response from the other motorists is worth an entire article.

Page 23: Another early version of the Big G.

Page 25: Apparently Prof. Verner Von Vernervon was a character I used a several comix in the early 1980s.

Page 27, panel 1: I think the fellow with the beard is Dean True, a friend from college days. There's probably a story behind his quote, "Avacados are too expensive to mash into your face," but I have no memory of why I included that.

The title of this comic has a little history. Around 1980 I got into a drinking contest with a Scandinavian guy in a Spokane bar. He was a fellow houseguest of some friends. I can only recall that I didn't lose. Anyway, the next morning we both accompanied our hosts on a little field trip, to an area they called Dogtown. And we stopped and looked through the fence at a small private zoo. In my hungover state I mumbled "Dogtown Zoo," but it took a couple years to surface in print.

Bonafide Child Innocence #1

1st ed., 25 copies, February or March 1983, Olympia, Washington, white.

2nd ed., 30 copies, March 1983, Olympia, Washington, white.

3rd ed., 67 copies, June 1984, Gilbert, Minnesota, HSC, white.

1st Danger Room Reprint Ed., 5 copies, July 2005, McCleary, Washington, yellow.

All printings are in regular digest size.

This was my smartass jab at the at-the-time very popular stick comix genre. I had mixed feelings about publishing this in the first place, but someone had to say something. So I did. A few people quietly thanked me.

Actually I can fully understand the reasons why stick figure comix can be a good thing, especially when articulated by Matt Feazell, a great cartoonist who, by the way, accepted my critique most graciously and like a grownup.

Personally, my favorite in this genre can be found online, at the accidental art site, Stick Figures in Peril.

The originals of Bonafide Child Innocence were drawn either in Spokane, Washington, where I was born, or in Olympia, where we moved when I was a little squirt. The source of the drawings was a ledger my mechanic grandfather in Centralia, Washington kept. In it he has notations like "Model A Ford Pump," and latest date I can find is 1944. It measures 30 cm. high, and the back cover reveals it was one of the few things to survive our house fire on the farm in the mid-1960s. And it is packed with narrative cartoons I drew before I knew how to read.

Another childhood item I have acquired is a face drawn on wood. Actually, it was on a piece of furniture my Father had built, a coffee table with a box shelf. I remember drawing the face on this table and getting caught by my Mother, who informed I was going to be in Big Trouble once my Father came home from work. But in fact he was delighted. You see, they thought I was sort of "slow," since I wasn't talking, walking, eating, thinking, etc. at the same rate as other kids. So any spark of artistic expression was seen as, "Hey, he's not a complete moron! Yay!"

The incident helped spur me to draw more, but my Mom made sure that from then on I had paper. She even captioned some of the stories for me! See, now you can blame my parents for these comix.

The table was rediscovered almost five years ago after my Dad died and we were cleaning out the farm, preparing to sell the place. It was stashed in a corner of the basement, but not in very good condition. I managed to save the panel with the drawing on it, and here it is!