Assorted Thoughts on Insanity : Ephemeral Comix 1980-1982, pages 1-15

1st edition, Late May or early June, 1982, Seattle, Washington. 3 copies. Legal size leaves. Blue cover. Velobinding.

Yes. Only 3 copies. I'll wager very few of you out there have seen this book.

When I started graduate school at the University of Washington in 1980 we were told to save all our lectures notes for our final exam in order to complete the course. Apparently the questions would be based on our notes.

So I saved several notebooks, and passed the exam in 1982.

But while going through my notes I noticed I did a lot of drawing during those mind numbing and countless hours in class. So I clipped out my scribbles and produced a book of almost 200 pages.

One copy was given to The Evergreen State College (where it hopefully still resides in Archives), I kept a copy, and the third was sold to Lynn Hansen. After he died in 1995 I assume it was donated to Washington State University with the rest of his collection.

Not everything in here was drawn during class, but most of it was. In some cases the images were used in some of my comix in the early 1980s. You can also see where I was playing around with concepts that I later enhanced in my books.

My scanner can't handle legal size, so each page is covered in two images. It isn't easy to scan this behemoth.

So settle in. This is going to take awhile.

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It started snowing a few minutes later.
Tumwater, Washington

Knowing Our Lines

Ulp! That's today! Guess I better get a script together.

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Sunday morning conversation

Steve and I were discussing once again the merits of pdfs vs plain scans for his blog. The following bit of dialogue occured:

Sarah: You are such a contrarian.
Steve: No I'm not!

There was a long pause. Then we burst into hearty laughter.

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An Untitled Portfolio

1st edition, Fall 1977, Olympia, Washington. 100 copies, dark blue cover, light blue guts, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, Fall 1982, Olympia, Washington, 25 copies, light blue cover, enlarged digest size.

3rd edition, presented as a print-on-demand title starting in November 1995. Regular digest size.

1st Danger Room reprint edition, July 2005, 5 copies, red cover, regular digest size.

My 4th and quite possibly most important comic in terms of my development as a cartoonist.

This was originally drawn as a class project for the program "Self Exploration Through Autobiography," an interdisciplinary writing/literature class at The Evergreen State College during Fall quarter, 1977.

Earlier that year I had lived in Seattle and taken a couple life drawing classes. One was during Summer quarter at Shoreline Community College and the other was a night course at the University of Washington Experimental College. In both cases I learned to loosen up my drawing hand a bit and give myself permission to make plenty of mistakes. Since I never studied art at Evergreen, these two courses constitute the only graphic art training I've had in my adult life.

It would be a writer, not an artist, who turned my head on comic art. His name is Thad Curtz, one of the best teachers I've known. At the time he was very interested in child psychology and the creative process. Today our paths still cross on OlyBlog, where we are fellow moderators.

Another member of the Evergreen faculty, Peter Elbow, was an adherent of freewriting. His book Writing Without Teachers was one of the good old Evergreen standbys in the 1970s. I would enroll in Peter's class the following year, but by then I had already been using his techniques as applied to comic art-- thanks to Thad's guidance.

During this period I was enamored of the works of William Steig. His books like All Embarrassed, The Lonely Ones, and Persistent Faces from the 1940s really grabbed me. His work would be my model for climbing out of the stilted and constricted method of cartooning I had been employing in my earlier books.

In fact, I dedicated this book to Steig and sent him a copy. He wrote back a brief and nice response. Imagine my surprise when in one of his later books (I don't remember which one) he employed my "Boy Kaboing" interlude concept with a bunch of people dancing to "Hot cha, cha cha cha." He lifted my idea! Oh, well, turnabout is fair play since his style heavily influenced mine, so I can't kick too much.

In fact I still use this method of storytelling now and then. Bezango WA 985, which ran 8 issues, is built on the same kind of foundation.

005

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Bruce Chrislip's SPACE Report

My old friend Bruce Chrislip filed his report on the 2011 SPACE experience in today's Midnight Fiction website.

In what must sound like an oxymoron, that was a short long weekend for me. It all went by so fast and furious. At least Bruce's report proves it wasn't a wild dream.

Also, I want to start a magazine for those us non-Buckeyes who are overly fascinated by a certain Cincinnati sausage and call it Goetta Life.

Above: Bruce and Joan, my wonderful hosts, presiding over the Cincinnati version of the Bottled City of Kandor. Shortly after this photo was taken I was introduced to Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory-- and I had only been in town for an hour or so!

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Twilight over my house

Understanding Comics -- trivia time!

Scott McCloud's amazing deconstruction of comic art, Understanding Comics (1993) includes a couple nods to Morty the Dog and his creator. Can you find them?

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Buster, the King, regards the photographer as he instructs the young alpha-in-waiting, Charlie, in the fine art of bird watching