Thank You, Jim Carrey!

Cold Dead Hand

Beautiful work. Earning the displeasure of Fox News is like winning a Medal of Honor.  In just a few minutes you accomplished more than Bowling For Columbine took too long to get across in a smarmy manner. I live deep in gun crazy country and am a product of it, and your bit here was 100% accurate in all respects.

In terms of short, irreverent, and comedic bits that insult great swaths of people, you have joined us old underground and Newave cartoonists. God bless you. And welcome to the fight. Now I know our side will win.  Right wingers exist on a foundation of fear, and in their world they fear humor more than anger in my political experience. They really really hate being laughed at.

Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: Washington (Seattle)-Wyoming + Canada

Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: New York (Brooklyn)-Washington (Seattle)

Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: Connecticut (Hartford)-New York (Brooklyn)

Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: California (Redlands)-Connecticut (Greenwich)

Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: Alabama-California (Orinda)

Shortly after Jay Kennedy released The Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide (1982) I went through it and re-sorted the geographic information by hand. Remember, this was long before Internet. I was interested in the demographics and regional distribution of this thing of ours. Plus, I am a librarian. This is what we do.

This was all hammered out on a manual typewriter, probably in 1982. I'll be posting this in parts. It has never been distributed in any form.

Jay's list, of course, was not complete, but he made a very good effort. If you hit the tag for the Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide you'll see some folks had issues with the publication. Jay is gone, and so is his biggest critic, Lynn Hansen. I liked them both very much and still miss these two guys.

In 1982 I didn't expect to outlive these two good men, but here I am, still around even though I am among the most sedentary of humans. The guy I list as my family doctor died several years ago. I smoke cigars and don't exercise. Fate has given me the task of being a relic and bloviating about the past of an obscure art movement, passing the torch to the students of the esoteric. So here I am blogging for you.

And, as Vonnegut said, so it goes.

This will be a long list, so you comix historians keep checking in. 

Olympia Comics Festival 2012, pt. 13

My final bit on the Oly Comix Fest.

All the comix, business cards, and brochures that were traded or given to me will go to the Washington State University Comix Collection, the oldest academic collection of underground, Newave, and small press comix on the Pacific Coast. This library collection was started long before comix were considered acceptable by the mainstream in the early 1980s, even by other librarians. As a result, WSU holds many rare titles from the pioneer days of self-publishing, as well as early works by cartoonists who are now internationally famous such as Matt Groening, the Teenage Turtle guys, Chester Brown, etc. Anyone on the West Coast who has an academic interest in the subject of the history of self-published or underground comix will have to visit this collection. There is no other public place in Ecotopia that can come close in terms of broad coverage.

The Oly Comix Fest really has roots in the old Newave Comix movement. God bless you Clay Geerdes. 

City Limits Gazette # Digger Digger Rocking Chair (Nov. 1991)

Logo by Mel. White, the number for this issue came from something my daughter (then 3 years old) said, news from Bruce Chrislip, reviews by Lynn Hansen, Bil Keane Watch and illustration by Wayno ("The Dysfunctional Family Circus of Cruelty!!"), Mark Campos on underground comix, Jerry Riddle on Kennedy's Guide.