City Limits Gazette # Panda mouth wash (July 1992)

Logo by S. Minstrel, Joe Schnide climbs on board, Chad Woody reports on 1992 Chicago Comic Convention, Troy Hickman on the Fred question, Kevin Brockschmidt gets hitched, Mary Longo on the hobbyism, Mark Campos presents a very special Bil Keane Watch, Lynn Hansen visits McCleary and drops off comix reviews and a list of titles he thinks Kennedy missed.

On the final point, Dogtown Zoo was indeed too late to fit into Jay's Guide. In fact, Jay went to some trouble to squeeze in my first two issues of Cranium Frenzy before his deadline.

Phone photo 571

And it really really hurts when the lease is up and they have to take the tattoo back.

Meet the Working-Class Cartoonist: Bob Vojtko

Richard Krauss gave me the heads up on this Saturday Evening Post profile of our pal, Bob Vojtko!

Phone photo 570

Summit Lake area, Thurston County, Washington

This innocent little creek became a raging river a few winters ago, destroying or severely wrecking every building in it's path and closed a major state freeway route for several days.

The plants in the foreground are called horsetails

Who Killed Joe Sumrall?

I recently posted an issue of CLG that had a contemporary mention of the murder of our cartoonist colleague Joe Sumrall in 1992. And it reminded me how bothered I still am that the case has never been solved.

Why does this particular instance get to me when there so many others out there also unsolved? Perhaps because I felt a bit of a kinship from afar with him as a fellow comic artist. He also seemed to not be entirely taken with the whole J.Z. Knight/Ramtha nonsense, which I am convinced was inspired by an aspect of Hitchcock's Family Plot.

The Olympia area experienced another cartoonist homicide with the killing of David George in 2003. But that case was more or less settled.

Joe Sumrall's killer has never been identified so far as I know. This is a cold case worth warming up. We have not forgotten you, Joe.

Update: An interesting YouTube finding by Sarah:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxJyfqeaKU8

Phone photo 569

City Limits Gazette # Peeling the toaster (July 1992)

Logo by S. Minstrel, Kel Crum weighs in on Fred, Xeric Foundation is created, Luciano revisited or RIP Newave 1975-1985, Bil Keane Watch with Jeffrey Kipper, Bruce Sweeney's Underground Station with logo by Jerry Riddle, CLG reader profile of Wayno, Maximum Traffic and Clay Geerdes on the hobby question, bad cover versions of When I'm Sixty Four, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Why Don't We Do It in the Road, Wild Honey Pie, With a Little Help From My Friends, The Word, Yellow Submarine, Yer Blues, Yesterday.

Also a much beloved coffee stained coaster by Wayno I have been using for nearly two decades on my studio desk.

Phone photo 568

City Limits Gazette # ... (June 1992)

Logo by Maximum Traffic, Jamie Alder-Hank Arakelian-Jim Ryan World War, Randy Reynaldo news, Michael Stengl signs up, Bob Richart gives a long answer to the Fred Flintstone question while Jane Oliver gives a brief one, The Pizz on TV, State of beings # 11. Georgia written by my nephew Tristan Sill, comix reviews by Lynn Hansen, Brad Foster on selling out, The Bil Keane Watch by Bruce Chrislip, Mary Longo joins CLG.

Phone photo 567

The mouse in a tree.

Dreamer, one of the four cats who dwell at my place, caught this mouse and started playing with the rodent. Well, the little guy managed to slip away and climbed a young hemlock in my yard. This gained the interest of other cats who began gathering at the base of the tree, looking up and licking their chops.

Here is a phone photo of the mouse precariously hanging from an uppermost hemlock tree limb, gazing down upon at least three cats of doom.

But even though Kaspar Hauser supposedly uttered "Many cats are the sure death of a mouse" on his deathbed, my felines apparently got bored and went inside to watch TV while the mouse was allowed to escape and live another day.

City Limits Gazette # Albanian sponge (June 1992)

Logo by the incredible Bruce Bolinger, Bill Gaines dies at age 70, Robert Stike "Sick Stick" dies at age 41, Bil Keane Watch, Ben Adams (of Minneapolis) answers many questions, Lynn Hansen on Ronald Gabriel Vicens II "Gato", CLG profile of Jeff Nicholson, responses to the hobby question by Jerry Riddle, Jay Kennedy, Michael Stengl, Jeffrey Kipper, Max Traffic being Max Traffic, bad cover versions of Strawberry Fields Forever, Sun King, Taxman, Tell Me Why, There's a Place, Things We Said Today, This Boy, Ticket to Ride, Tomorrow Never Knows, Two of Us, Wait, We Can Work It Out, What Goes On, When I'm Sixty Four.