Showing posts with label Top Notch Tavern. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Top Notch Tavern. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Phone photo 914


Topnotch Tavern and Willis Motel
Raymond, Washington

The story I've been told is that the Topnotch was founded by my grandfather's twin brother, London Willis, in the 1930s or 1940s. London was an old moonshiner/bootlegger in the 1920s who apparently attempted to drive to Japan and had a little trouble once his vehicle hit the salt water. It is safe to say alcohol was involved.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Bezango, WA 985 #4















1st ed., Mar. 18, 2002, 40 copies (20 green, 20 blue).

2nd ed., June 2, 2002, 15 copies, blue cover.

3rd ed., July 21, 2002, 5 copies, parchment cover.

An unknown number of copies were available as print-on-demand for a short time starting in Aug. 2002.

1st Danger Room Reprint Ed., June 2005. 5 copies (1 pink, 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 green, 1 blue).

I forgot to mention when I wrote the initial intro to this series that our comix comrade Mark Campos performed a visual reading of selections of this series at Seattle's Bumbershoot in August 2003. I think I have a photo from that and I'll include it here.

This special earthquake theme issue is based on the fact that we have a lot of quakes in this part of the world. Most of them are pretty mild, but occasionally we get a real corker.

Trivia: Page 3: Olympia once had a Christmas Island. I included it in a recent column for Olympia Power and Light (attached). Page 6: He's very real. Page 8: Around 1959 I once visited a Santa like this, in the top floor of Olympia's Mottman's Mercantile. It was one of the events that started me on the road of disbelieving much of what I saw. Pages 11-12: There really is a Zuba but her name isn't Zuba. Page 13: Fabiola lived just across the Columbia River in an Oregon town. Page 14: Marion Zioncheck was a very flamboyant Washington State member of Congress in the early 1930s. And there really was a kid named Greg who was Mars in a 3rd grade play about the planets I participated in. I believe I played Saturn. Page 17: She's still around. Page 18: This fellow is based on a guy I heard about in Raymond, Washington. If you visit Raymond, the Top Notch Tavern, which is still there, was once owned by London Willis, my grandfather's bootlegging twin brother.