A Glimmering Ray of Despair

Originally published 1984 (during the high tide of Reaganism) in the very first issue of Cartoon Loonacy.

Made available in 1994 as a print-on-demand monograph.

You could say I had some issues with theocracy.

Phone photo 193

Montesano, Washington

The Glass Doll

Another book for early readers published by the Olympia School District. This one was printed in January 1979.

I was given a limited number of words in which to create a story, and obviously "glass" and "doll" were on the list. Once again Odd Dog shows up, the proto-Morty.

The "A Lost Cat" page is my favorite, showing this feline drifting along in existential meaninglessness.

Phone photo 192

Grays Harbor County Courthouse, Montesano, Washington

I have been called for jury selection here more times than I can remember, but they never pick me. It used to be we all had to watch a video with Raymond Burr explaining the process.

This is the building where the IWW members accused of conspiracy in the Centralia Massacre case were tried in 1920.

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.

Phone photo 191

Breakfast at the Beehive, Montesano, Washington

Giant-Size Mini Comics

You can find my reprinted work in issues #1 (August 1986, edited by Larry Marder), #3 (December 1986, edited by Jay Kennedy) and #4 (February 1987, edited by Paul Curtis). Published by Eclipse Comics.

To be selected for this series by three editors of this caliber was exciting but also, for some reason, sort of intimidating. For a lot of readers of mainstream comic books, this was their first exposure to the world of Newave/Obscuro/small press comix.

Richard Krauss has a nice summary of the four-issue run of Giant-Size Mini Comics over at his Midnight Fiction website.

Phone photo 190

He won. I voted for him too.

Fundamentalcase Follies

John Eades was a reviewer of obscuro comix the mid-1980s. He was also a student at Florida Atlantic University, where he edited the campus newspaper, Atlantic Sun.

He reprinted my comix in the paper, and although he chose some of my more mild pieces to get past the conservative administrators, they apparently still kicked up a fuss. Apparently knowing he was going to get canned anyway, John asked me to pick a hot button issue and draw a comic that would be the equivalent of poking a stick in an antpile.

Hence, the birth of Fundamentalcase Follies, and consequently, the end of John's career as a newspaper editor at FAU.

The strip ran in the Feb. 5, 1986 issue. It was made into a print-on-demand comic in 1994.

Phone photo 189

Seattle, Washington

Fun in Acapulco

A weird "half-comic" named in honor of the movie starring Elvis, who happens to be a character in the first story.

1st edition, September 1982, Olympia, Washington, 30 copies, pink cover, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, August 1984, Alamogordo, New Mexico, 30 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size.

1996, print-on-demand, regular digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, July 2005, 5 copies, pink cover, regular digest size.

The story "Tomorrow is Yesterday" was reprinted in Portland Underground Comix # 3 (Portland, Or. : Pastime Pub. Co., 1983)

I have always liked the cover of this one. The rest of the comic comes across as sort of a crazy quilt of ideas linked together with a fraying string of consciousness.

Inside back cover, panel 4. That's a self-portrait.

The back cover is entirely true, except for maybe the final panel.

Phone photo 188

Seattle, Washington

From Penny Lane To Abbey Road: The Beatles, 1964-1970

When comix collector Lynn Hansen died in April 1995 he left behind a massive collection of recordings, books, videos, etc. related to his other collector interest-- the Beatles. Lynn had, save for one 45 single, everything the Beatles commercially recorded and produced. He also had a ton of bootlegs.

Lynn's father, Ralph Hansen, asked for suggestions on what to do with the Beatles material. My advice was to have it join Lynn's comix collection as part of the Washington State University Library. Ralph and I are both librarians so the idea made perfect sense to us.

Two years later WSU held an exhibit of some of Lynn's Beatles collection. This 25 page book is nice little walk through the albums.

The cover was also distributed as a poster. The image was originally drawn as the cover for Number 9, a book Lynn had written about the Paul McCartney death hoax. Ralph and I published it in late 1995. Our introductions to the WSU booklet had also originally appeared in Number 9.

Phone photo 187

Seattle, Washington