Postcard - Berkeley, California

"Stadium, University of California Berkeley"

1920s-1940s

Apparently the stadium was built directly over a big earthquake fault. My cousins always warned me never to sit on the west side of the stadium if I ever went there for a game because I could wind up in the Pacific Ocean. 

Postcard - Longbranch, Washington

"Picturesque Puget Sound. While this view shows Longbranch, it is typical of the entire Puget Sound area. Hundreds of protected coves and bays provide haven for the thousands of boaters who navigate these waters every year. This view shows a few of the lucky skippers enjoying their favorite pastime. Mount Rainier stands guardian over all."

From the 1980s. You have to click on and enlarge the image to see Rainier. McNeil, Eagle, and Anderson islands are in the background. McNeil (on the left) is the home of a state prison. Anderson (on the right) was the epicenter point for our delightful 2001 earthquake.

Phone photo 2249

One of two nuclear power cooling towers that were never used, thanks to two defaults. First the WPPSS default of the 1980s, which was an enormous fiasco, and second de fault underneath, and by that I mean the Satsop earthquake fault. We experienced two earthquakes around 1999-2000 that were 5 pointers practically right under this baby.

So today there are two giant derelict towers visible from the freeway, two monuments-- one to the greedy and one to the gullible.

You Are In Our Thoughts

To our East Coast brothers and sisters we extend our thoughts and prayers for your safe delivery through Frankenstorm. To our Pacific Northwest comrades up north in British Columbia, we hope you have survived the 7.7 earthquake and the afterquakes.  North America is undergoing a character test by Mother Nature this week. And to our fellow Americans in Hawaii, hope you don't suffer too much from the BC tsumani.

And jeez, there is still an election we have to experience.

To Our Comrades Back East

We realize summer has been sort of a bummer for you guys. First, horrible heat, then an earthquake, and now a hurricane.

All we have to complain about in terms of Mother Nature out here in the coastal Pacific Northwest this season is the unusual lack of real summer this year, since we've had mostly rain and overcast most of the time. Pretty mild in comparison to your trials.

Sarah and I have you in our thoughts.

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.

Phone photo 66

I was driving on Deschutes Parkway in Olympia this morning and thought I'd get a nice sunrise shot of the Washington State Legislative Building reflected in Capitol Lake. But then I remembered the so-called lake was really a dammed estuary now filled with invasive species such as nutria, some kind of tiny snail, and dangerous caimans-- this body of water is known as the Fetid Lake of Doom, or FLOD to those of us in-the-know. So I took a photo of the road instead.

Actually this is the third Deschutes Parkway. It was first constructed around 1949-1950 when the "lake" was formed. Then the 1965 earthquake, a 6.5 event which I recall was fun, made chunks of the parkway collapse into the water. So it was rebuilt. The 2001 quake (6.8, and not so fun) once again wrecked the road. So it was rebuilt.

Isn't that more interesting than a boring yet-again picture of our capitol dome reflected in the water? I think so.

6.8 Aftershocks

This blogging format is definitely not the way to read this minicomic. I used a word wraparound technique, where sentences ran from page to page, requiring the reader to flip the book at least 5 times to read the entire piece. The disorienting essay method was employed as a way to share how experiencing a massive earthquake can literally jolt you out of the familiar frames of reference.

6.8 Aftershocks was published Apr. 21, 2001, a couple months after the worst earthquake I've ever experienced. And being a long time Washington State native, I've been through a lot of them, including the 1965 6.5 quake. But the Feb. 2001 event was by far the scariest.

The first print run had a grand total of 15 copies (2 white, 2 pink, 2 red, 3 blue, 3 green, 3 yellow). In June 2005, 5 blue copies were printed as the 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed.