Postcard - Ocean Shores, Washington

 

"Ocean Shores. Spectacular peninsula on the Washington seacoast, a complete new resort city with golfing, sport salmon fishing, clamming, dozens of motels, many private homes, six miles of sandy beach."

[Click on image to enlarge] In the far distance you can the entrance to Grays Harbor and Westport. Looks to be from the 1970s.

For a brief time Starhead Comix was headquartered here, located just outside the range of this camera shot, off the lower left-hand corner on Rain St.

Buttons - Comic Art - 1980s?

 

Starhead Comix

Artist unknown

This button is about the size of a nickel

Buttons - Comic Art - 1980s?

Starhead Comix

When I compared this to the previous Starhead button I realized the images were actually quite different, and that they were probably made one at a time, each image on each button applied directly.  Pretty amazing. I wonder how many were made like this?

Buttons - Comic Art - 1980s?

Starhead Comix

Looks like this was baked on to some sort of clay. Also, as a subsequent button will show, I am guessing this image was hand made and not the result of mass production.

Raining Quills pt. 4

Seattle, Washington : Starhead Comix, 1991. Steve Willis, Hank Arakelian, Mack White, S. Minstrel, Lynn Perez, Brian Cremins.

Another entry in the start-with-the-same-first-page-for-every issue jam. See Raining Quills pt. 2 and Raining Quills pt. 3

The final three pages were inspired by a ride I enjoyed in Disneyland in 1971. The Haunted House tour included a place where busts on headstones were cheerfully singing. That image stuck with me.

Seattle Star

Oh, Washington my home, wherever I may roam--

Michael Dowers first published the comic tabloid Seattle Star in the mid 1980s. Most of my contributions were recycled from my books, but Michael added color to several of them. Here are the colorized versions. All the black and white stuff you guys have already seen in this blog.

I liked the fact that no matter if the comic was reprinted in color or black and white, Michael liked to use a lot of my cartoons with a Washington State or Pacific Northwest theme in keeping with the Seattle Star feel.

Before Fantagraphics moved up here in the late 1980s, Michael Dowers' Starhead Comics publishing concern was probably the main venue for outsiders to learn about comix art from the Pacific Northwest.

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.

T-shirts

Actually I've covered the story of the OlyBlog t-shirt earlier this year. But it belongs in the gallery of t-shirts anyway.



Michael Dowers made this t-shirt in the 1980s (I think) using the Starhead Comix logo I drew.



From the 2002 AIE Summer Program, including Bezango WA 985 on stage! The images are from the comic series.

A page from Cranium Frenzy # 3 which was captioned "Three seconds in the life of Rindo Bloch" inspired this play by my brother, Bryan, and the original image was used in the t-shirt.

Cast member Jeff Kingsbury went on to be elected to the Olympia City Council for one term and his name became an Oly household word-- and not exactly in way anyone would choose.












I first drew the image for Woofer the Psychic Dog (co-written by Bryan) back in 1986 and it just keeps living on whether it is performed in New York or Olympia. To publicize the 1988 Oly premiere I created a long banner which spanned 4th Ave. about where the Danger Room is today.