Phone photo 2949

I have been living in this house for 19 years and this is the first time moles have shared my yard. Fortunately I am not a lawn freak. When these mounds were in the back alley my cats liked to dig into these little hills and poop in them. Hopefully this time-honored tradition will continue.

My yard is currently populated by raccoons and has also played host to other wild animals such as possums, cottontail rabbits, feral peacocks, and even a porcupine.

$175 - Original Art - Slim Chance and Fat Fate

The art for "Slim Chance and Fat Fate," the only story from the 1986 comic Storm Warnings that I like.

Set in Eastern Washington State, the visual metamorphosis tale includes Mukey the Mutant Membrane, porcupines, Orville, Thelma, a Morty the Dog coin, a deranged Mr. Zip, truck drivers, and the Acme Correspondence School of Bullfighting.

Felt tip on nonphoto blue, heavy stock paper is uneven, generally measuring 12 x 9.5 in. Seven pages. Some slight discoloration on the top non-art margins of p. 1-2. Page 1 title is actually taped on, which is strange since it doesn't appear to be covering anything. I detect a small amount of whiteout on page 5, panel 6.

$175 ppd.
Check or money order to
Steve Willis
PO Box 390
McCleary, WA 98557-0390

SOLD!

Suuri Kurpitsa

Finnish cartoonist Pauli Kallio invited several of us American Newavers into his amazing anthology series, Suuri Kurpitsa (translated = "Great Pumpkin"). I've included the cover of the issues followed by my contributions.

While many of us here in the states were messing around with cheap photocopy, Suuri Kurpitsa had slick paper production values and color on the covers. I couldn't decide what was more thrilling: having my work published in high quality hardcopy, or someone thinking enough of my comix to take the trouble to translate them.

Finland, by the way, has quite a role in Pacific Northwest history. Here in Grays Harbor County, you can see many Finnish surnames adorning the signs of business enterprises, especially in Aberdeen. Down in the neighboring Lewis County, the town of Winlock was basically a Finnish colony. Nearby Astoria, Oregon had a major Finnish neighborhood that was home to Maila Nurmi, also known to us Ed Wood fans as Vampira.

It would also be safe to place the Finns as among the most politically radical ethnic groups up here in the first half of the 20th century.

Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. So I'll slap myself in the face and start my morning chores now, like filling the porcupine with helium. No, that isn't a quaint euphemism for anything-- I really do have to fill the porcupine with helium. Otherwise he gets earthbound and cranky.

Storm Warnings

1st edition, February 1986, Pullman, Washington. 50 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, February 1986, Pullman, Washington. 30 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size.

3rd edition, 1990, Seattle, Washington : Starhead Comix. 17 x 13 cm. Color covers.

Available as a print-on-demand title in regular digest size, 1996.

1st Danger Room Reprint edition. July 2005. 5 copies, blue cover, regular digest size.

The nationally distributed Starhead version reprinted the 1980s story "Downtime Laff Riot" and a maze not found in the original edition.

My initials follow me around. I was born in Spokane, Washington. SW. I live in Southwest Washington. SW. Storm Warnings. SW.

I'm not particularly fond of this comic, especially the Rainmaker story. Oddly, it seems to me that out of all my comix, this one is the most acceptable to fans of conventional comic books.

Trivia:

P. 3-4: Mr. Wright also appeared in Delayed Stress Syndrome Funnies.

P. 13: Mukey and porcupines. It doesn't get much better than this, one of the few bright and happy spots in this book. Notice Mukey has a Max Fleischer character type of nose here. He was still under construction.

P. 23: Hey, isn't that ... Brad Foster in that crowd? Why, yes, I think it is!

Gimmie Comics # 1

1st edition, June 1973, McCleary, Washington, 100 copies, white cover, 10 legal size leaves.

2nd edition, September 1982, Olympia, Washington, 25 copies, blue cover, digest size.

3rd edition, 1984, Gilbert, Minnesota, HSC, 25 copies, white cover, digest size.

Print-on-demand reprint edition, 1994, digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint edition, July 2005, 5 copies, green cover, digest size.

I count this as my first underground influenced comic. The initial edition was hand cranked from a mimeograph. A few copies were in comic shops in Aberdeen and Tacoma, Washington. The Tacoma shop asked me what the heck I thought I was doing. A few of these were sold or given away before I destroyed the remaining 80 copies. So theoretically there are 20 copies out there in the world.

I don't even own a copy of the 1st edition, but my old friend Rex Munger lent me his copy many years later and I copied it, retraced some of the faint lines and reissued the thing with an intro. The 2005 edition has a rewritten introduction.

The graphics were carved into that gummy mimeo master with a stylus. Although not exactly a stellar work, you can see I was already interested in porcupines. There's the obligatory drawing of then-President Nixon as a Nazi. The victim in the New Hampshire pancakes page is a self-portrait. Actually, within a few years I actually was in a New Hampshire diner and deliberately ordered pancakes for breakfast. The artist on the last page is also a self-portrait. Apparently I had cut my hair short by the time I reached the end.

Cranium Frenzy # 10

1st edition, September 5, 2003, 40 copies, ivory cover. All editions are regular digest size.

2nd edition, October 24, 2003, 20 copies, green cover.

Special Oly Comix Fest Edition, May 10, 2004, 32 copies, yellow cover.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies, pink cover.

This is my most recent full length solo comic. It was created as sort of a 30th anniversary of self-publishing obscuro comix-- hence all the reprinted work and dredging up of many old characters. I guess I should get on the dime and really finish up this comic I'm working on now in order to have Cranium Frenzy # 11 ready by 2013 for the 40th anniversary.

This comic was also my experiment with silent timing in comix.

Trivia:

The cover logo was, I think, drawn on toilet paper or a paper towel with felt tip and then enlarged.

Page 3: There are many characters in this story who were left over from the unpublished Bezango WA 985 # 9, such as Oric the waiter. They will be easy to spot.

Page 8: Oogla boogla meebee zeebee was a chant I first used in comix in the early 1970s.

Page 15, last panel: My favorite panel in the whole comic. Shows you how us lowbrows like to celebrate frivolity.

Page 20-22: My comment on the post 9/11 world. Also, a personal photocopier in the hands of a cartoonist can be a dangerous thing.

Page 28: I like the word "thwart" almost as much as I like the word "cranium."