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Helium Frog

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Elma, Washington

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Seattle, Washington

State of Beings #6: Colorado

Arrived on this planet with City Limits Gazette # Look Ma, no brain! (Feb. 1992)

I picked in Ouray, Colorado in 1888 to retell Poe's Tell-Tale Heart. My great-grandfather had been a silver prospector there at that time.

Bezango / Bezango Obscuro

My first comic of 1994 (January), 100 copies. Rose colored covers in enlarged digest format.

2nd ed., around Feb.-March 1994, 50 copies with a salmon cover, also enlarged digest size.

Starhead Comix reprinted the comic in commercial form later in 1994 and retitled it Bezango Obscuro. I'm not positive, but I think Michael Dowers told me he printed somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 copies.

The cover color was supplied by Art Penn, an amazing artist chiefly known under another name as an illustrator of children's books.

Because the comic was originally drawn for the digest size, there happened to be extra space in the margins. This was filled by employing an academic Michael had met in a bar. Dr. Whidbey interviewed me once on Michael's front porch. I recall he was drinking something that smelled like high octane mango, and wore black socks with his sandals. Howerton College, a private school somewhere up north, went under awhile back due to bad investments. Or maybe the whole thing was just a dream.


My only comment on his comments is the use of the word "claim." I know not this "claim," it just is.

There was more padding by including part of Morty Comix #2018, and three issues of State of Beings, which were initially released as comic supplements with the biweekly City Limits Gazette during my editorship, 1991-1993.

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. of June 2005 was a return to the original form, except the 5 copies with red covers were printed in digest form, not enlarged.

"Bezango" is a word I just made up, I like the sound of it. "Obscuro" was a term I began to use frequently while editing CLG. By the early 1990s the Newave was dead and I started using "Obscuro" as another word to describe the kind of comix we produced. Michael picked up on that and added it to the commercial release. I'm not sure if Michael himself or Art Penn created the second part of the cover title logo.

I'm including a scan of the enlarged digest cover, the original color of the cover (a gift from Michael which I prize) with and without the acetate overlay, and commercial comic itself. Whidbey has saved me the trouble of adding trivia notes.