Morty the Dog

Friday, June 10, 2011

The Groening of America / by Paul Andrews

From Pacific, August 19, 1990, the Sunday supplement magazine for the Seattle Times/Seattle Post-Intelligencer. My Mother-in-Law, God bless her, gave me this clipping and helpfully underlined my name whenever she saw it.

Andrews first talked to me at least two years before this piece was published, so he put some time into this.

Phone photo 485

Thursday, June 9, 2011

This is Our 1000th Post

And I still have a ton of stuff yet to scan and share. But it will come to an end eventually and after that-- who knows?

"Well, the past is gone, I know that. The future isn't here yet, whatever it's going to be. So, all there is, is this. The present. That's it."

Jane Jenkins Oliver Scrapbook

I enjoyed an eight year correspondence with Jane. In hindsight I wish I had been more frequent on taking her up more often on invitations to contribute to comic projects. But I did manage to send in a few pages for her minicomix.

In looking over this folder of her mail I get angry thinking about how she was taken away so early. She certainly was one of the major female Newave cartoonists and I believe she would be gratified today to see the more equitable gender balance of cartoonists producing self-published and obscuro comix as compared to the 1980s.

Jane needs to be more celebrated and recognized as a pioneer. You can find a nice 1986 interview with her by Tim Corrigan in the Newave Reader.

Phone photo 484

Embedded Bezangos

Sasquatch (Olympia Power & Light, June 16-29, 2010) posted with Sasquatch Comix # 1

On Comics (Olympia Power & Light, June 2-15, 2010) posted as Bezango On Comics

On Top of the World (Olympia Power & Light, February 24-March 9, 2010) posted with Washington State Legislative Building

Isthmus Time (Olympia Power & Light, May 19-June 1, 2010) posted with Bezango WA 985 # 4

Phone photo 483

Bezango: The World's Fair and the Gayway

Olympia Power & Light, March 23-April 5, 2011

J.P. Patches and Gertrude are still around, I'm happy to say. There is a mistaken belief that Matt Groening based Krusty the Clown on J.P., but down in Portland they had their own live kid show host, another clown named Rusty Nails. I used to watch Rusty when I visited my cousins in Vancouver, across the Columbia River.

Matt and Lynda Barry and I used to talk about J.P. and Rusty quite a bit. It was during the time we were together in college that I interviewed J.P. in person, and both of my fellow cartoonists were hungry for the details. Lynda also grew up as a Patches Pal.

I must say having seen both J.P. and Rusty, there was no comparison. J.P. had the magic, Rusty did not. I'm convinced Krusty is Rusty.

Phone photo 482

Bezango: Local History in a Crossword, Oh Yeah!

Olympia Power & Light, March 9-22, 2011

Crosswords are a lot harder to create than I thought. Some day I want to try and make a crossword testing the player's knowledge of Newave comix trivia.

Phone photo 481

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The Real Breakfast of Champions

So here's my original recipe for good breakfast chow. Get some frozen beef sausages, frozen chocolate chip waffles, and Marmite.

Marmite, by the way, has recently become an illegal product in Denmark. Their loss. Some say it tastes like salty motor oil, but I say it is one of the most excellent food products on the planet.

Toss the waffles in a toaster, then after they fill your kitchen with an aroma of toasty chocolate goodness, slather a generous portion of Marmite on one side of one waffle. As you can see in the photo, I have the super big size jar of Marmite thanks to my brother Bryan bringing it to me from England.

Microwave 3 sausages for 1 minute, 50 seconds, then place them on the Marmite, which acts as an amazing adhesive.

And viola! A better than neat taste treat and a perfect way to start a new day. I usually have 2 or 3 of these a week for breakfast.

Phone photo 480

Call Kate

Bezango: A Love Story of Sorts

Olympia Power & Light, February 9-22, 2011

Isabella really exists, although she doesn't really announce the product out loud. Other than that detail, this is pretty much a true story.

OK, perhaps a few other points were, er, embellished for dramatic effect.