Bezango WA 985 #5

Rough draft ed., July 18, 2002, 2 copies on white (as opposed to wheat).

1st ed., July 21, 2002, 30 copies (20 red, 10 yellow)

2nd ed., rev. Aug. 14, 2002, 30 copies (3 blue, 18 pink, 9 red)

Print-on-demand for a brief time starting Jan. 23, 2003.

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

Trivia: I can't remember why the 2nd ed. is revised. Page 5: The TV station was inspired by a little Mom and Pop outfit that broadcast on the other side of the county out of Ocean Shores, Washington about 20 years ago. Page 6: When I revised the 2nd ed. I apparently missed a typo. The second paragraph should start off with: Perky is always waiting for apologies that will never come. Page 8: In college I had a roommate who wore a robe just like this. Page 10: "Mostly Butter" has long been a business dream of mine. Anyone out there willing to invest about 3 million-- please contact me. Page 14: This fellow is sort of composite of about three men I knew. The guy in real life with the bowling league mother didn't brag about the Acuff connection, instead he made it a funny running joke. Page 18: Notice the Washington State University t-shirt.

I am not a vegetarian and I like my steaks well done. Burned.

Phone photo 89

McCleary in an overcast nutshell. The big factory in this village manufactures high quality doors. Here we see one of those distinctive doors on a long abandoned business establishment in town. The rest of the country is experiencing the kind of unemployment statistics that here in Grays Harbor County have always been considered normal.

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 88

Beerbower Park, McCleary, Washington

Bezango WA 985 #3

1st ed., Feb. 24, 2002, 36 copies, parchment cover.

2nd ed., June 2, 2002, 9 copies, blue cover.

3rd ed., July 21, 2002, 6 copies, orange cover.

Print-on-demand, for a brief time starting in Aug. 2002.

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

All editions were digest size.

This issue explored the politics and government of Bezango.

Trivia: Page 3: Morty, obviously. Page 5: Even though we live in one the wettest parts of the United States here in Grays Harbor County, men around here don't use umbrellas. We just don't. Page 6: I notice many mayoral losers in my town over the last couple decades move away after their defeat. Interesting. Page 9: Actually based on a specific person, but I have a feeling we all know someone like this. Page 10-11: In real life the brothers were merely twins. We really did have undetonated Japanese balloon bombs in the woods around here as late as the 1960s. A local hunter was killed when he tripped over one and set it off 20 years after the War.

Page 13: The lawn ornament caper really happened here in McCleary in the late 1980s/early 1990s, and the gathering of the ornaments in the Municipal Courtroom for reunions with their owners was a pretty funny sight. Page 14: "Head Loader" is an occupation in the woods, but I thought it would make a nice double-meaning name for a logger's bar as well. Page 17: My Dad's generation of oldtimey troublemakers. Page 18: The portrait of Gov. Rosellini, who served from 1957-1965, could still be seen in a place of honor in McCleary City Hall as late as the 1990s in thanks for all the State help he had given us.

Phone photo 87

Another shot of the sign mentioned in the post for the minicomic Write-In Morty the Dog for McCleary Mayor! The sign was painted and anonymously left by local troublemakers Jim and Eddie Jarvis. At least that was the results from my Ronco DNA Analysis Home Economy-Size Kit.

Bezango WA 985 #2

1st published Dec. 8, 2001, 50 copies, digest size, parchment cover.

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

Starting in August, 2002, this was a print-on-demand comic for a brief time.

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

This issue has the local festival as the theme. Here in McCleary we have the Bear Festival, where bear stew is served. Seriously. In Winlock they have Egg Days, where eggs are eaten. It makes me wonder what they consume at Montesano's Festival of People.

The mountain beaver is real animal pretty much regulated by nature to the Pacific Northwest.

The character on page 3 was someone I witnessed up in suburban King County. The man on pages 4-5 is based and modified from a story that came from Port Townsend. The guy on pages 6-7 was a neighbor. The fellow on page 12 was from a story I heard about a local character in Winlock. I have a cousin on the Winlock City Council, by the way, and need to talk to him about why they have the world's 2nd or 3rd largest egg replica on display. The page 13 character really exists to this day. Page 14: I wrote about the Midnight Sponge in Evergroove Trivia pt. 39. Page 15: This guy gave me a ride while I was hitchhiking on Cooper Point in the 1970s. Page 18, my daughter, Rose, used to collect pieces of the road.

Phone photo 86

This was Rhodes Grocery in McCleary, Washington when I was a kid. A big, bald Greek fellow named Nick ran the place and would talk your ear off. I remember he had one of those huge cheese wheels. I believe this was McCleary's very first concrete building when it was constructed in the 1920s.