Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: California (Redlands)-Connecticut (Greenwich)

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Buttons - State Campaign - 1972

Don Bonker, Secretary of State

Bonker tried and failed twice for the Washington State Office of Secretary of State. First in 1972, when I picked up this button, and again in 2000.

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Favorite Movie Quotes: The Brothers Bloom

"I want an unwritten life."

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Geographic Newave/Underground Comix Index: Alabama-California (Orinda)

Shortly after Jay Kennedy released The Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide (1982) I went through it and re-sorted the geographic information by hand. Remember, this was long before Internet. I was interested in the demographics and regional distribution of this thing of ours. Plus, I am a librarian. This is what we do.

This was all hammered out on a manual typewriter, probably in 1982. I'll be posting this in parts. It has never been distributed in any form.

Jay's list, of course, was not complete, but he made a very good effort. If you hit the tag for the Official Underground and Newave Comix Price Guide you'll see some folks had issues with the publication. Jay is gone, and so is his biggest critic, Lynn Hansen. I liked them both very much and still miss these two guys.

In 1982 I didn't expect to outlive these two good men, but here I am, still around even though I am among the most sedentary of humans. The guy I list as my family doctor died several years ago. I smoke cigars and don't exercise. Fate has given me the task of being a relic and bloviating about the past of an obscure art movement, passing the torch to the students of the esoteric. So here I am blogging for you.

And, as Vonnegut said, so it goes.

This will be a long list, so you comix historians keep checking in. 

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Pioneer Rock, Thurston County, Washington

Enormous boulders were dropped here as the ice sheet retreated. This particular specimen used to sit alongside State Route 8 but was removed to the entrance of Boy Scout Camp Thunderbird (at the southern point of Summit Lake), about 20 years ago. It bears a barely readable inscription honoring early pioneers.

Buttons - State Campaign - 1972

Jim McDermott is known today as the long time Congressman from Seattle and is the most outspoken liberal in the Washington State delegation in that Other Washington. Since 1988 he was won elections by ridiculously huge margins (over 80% in 2010 for example). But it wasn't always so. Long ago he made two unsuccessful bids for Governor. In 1972 he failed to win the Democratic primary and in 1980 he lost the general election.

I might be wrong, but I think I picked up this button in his 1972 bid, when he was a little known member of the Washington State House of Representatives. And in 1972, when he was trying to win name recognition, it seems strange to have a button with no words on it. Maybe it was this sort of marketing that lost him the primary.

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Favorite Movie Quotes: Wyatt Earp

"Do you think you're the first man to lose someone? That's what life is all about. Loss. But we don't use it as an excuse to destroy ourselves. We go on. All of us. Even you, Wyatt."

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McCleary, Washington

Buttons - State Campaign - 1972

Dore, Attorney General, Try Him You'll Like Him

Fred Dore, a Democrat, borrowed a popular television advertising phrase used by Alka-Seltzer at the time, "Try it, you'll like it." But he still lost the 1972 election for Washington State Attorney General.

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Montesano, Washington

Ferrante & Teicher Piano Portraits

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Montesano City Hall

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The backside of the Grays Harbor County Courthouse

Buttons - State Campaign - 1968

O'Brien

Robert S. O'Brien, a Democrat, served as Washington State Treasurer for 100 years. I picked up this button in 1968. This specimen has a couple beautiful qualities. First, the image itself  projects luck. Secondly, since the button merely has his surname, O'Brien could use this same image for several election cycles.

Comic art fans will be interested to know O'Brien's Republican opponent in 1968 was Eddie Alexander, the same guy who owned the print shop with the very rude workers who printed Delayed Stress Syndrome Funnies.

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The Beehive, Montesano, Washington

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1957 Wurlitzer 200

Beehive, Montesano, Washington

Buttons - State Campaign - 1968

Governor John O'Connell, Democrat

In 1968 three term Washington State Attorney General John J. O'Connell made an attempt to unseat incumbent Gov. Dan Evans. I like the way the designer of this button used the now outdated voter lever in place of an apostrophe.

Although Dan Evans enjoyed the nickname "Straight Arrow" in his 12 years as Governor of Washington State, I must say I recall all three of his gubernatorial campaigns, 1964-1972, as being quite nasty. In fact, in his last campaign he employed serial killer Ted Bundy.

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A diner in Montesano, Washington called the Beehive which has been around since the 1930s and still has an Art Deco look has lots of interesting things on the walls, including this framed decal of Rat Fink by Big Daddy Roth.

Roth and I have a history, as portrayed in my minicomic, Musical Chairs.

By the way, I cannot praise the Beehive enough. A great place to stop for you Puget Sound folks on the way to the coast. Monty, our county seat, is a nice town and worth exploring a bit.

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Yah its Fxxking Dusty! Slow

Sign seen at truck scaling station
White Star, Grays Harbor County, Washington

We are experiencing unusually dry weather this month in this land of perpetual rain

Buttons - State Campaign - 1968

Dan Evans

I found this button on the ground when Washington State Gov. Evans was running for his second term in 1968.

Comic art historians might be interested to know Gov. Evans, along with State Sen. Gordon Sandison, was an important figure in the creation of The Evergreen State College. TESC is now known as a hotbed of cartoonists. When Gov. Evans stepped down after serving an unprecedented consecutive three terms as Governor, he became the President of Evergreen and it was viewed as a very controversial move at the time.  

The editor of the school paper, The Cooper Point Journal, during this turmoil was none other than Matt Groening. And here's a bit of Matt trivia. He's not only a great cartoonist, he's also a great journalist. He could've been an amazing investigative reporter, but as it happened his talents were used to better advantage.

Here's yet another bit of trivia. The Evans administration actually employed me ca. 1976 to conduct phone polling. I got paid per each completed survey. It was a night job conducted by college students mostly. This gig was very educational for me in that I heard the vox populi unfiltered.

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Industrial ruins, Deschutes River, Tumwater, Washington

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Industrial ruins, Deschutes River, Tumwater, Washington

Buttons - State Campaign - 1974

 

Brown for Governor

I picked up this button in Santa Barbara in the summer of 1974, when Jerry Brown was running for the office of Governor of California

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Deschutes River, Tumwater, Washington

The low rainfall this time of year has afforded us more of a view of Mother Nature's sculpture on the riverworn rocks than usual.