Phone photo 132

Point Plaza East, Tumwater, Washington

Cranium Frenzy # 4

1st edition, spring 1983, Olympia, Washington. 74 copies, cherry cover, enlarged digest size.

Available as a print-on-demand title, 1996, regular digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies, yellow cover, regular digest size.

Easily the most unusual issue of this series to date.

To start with, the cover was a linoleum block print using an oil-base color. I remember all those covers hanging to dry from clothes lines in the studio, making the room look like a used car lot. The subsequent printings did not have original block print covers.

The other unique part of this issue had to with the contributors. Nine other people had artwork in this comic: Robin Coder-Willis, Lee Norton, Anina Sill, Kevin Sill, Dean True, Jon Turnbow, Petrina Walker, Stevie Webb, and Kevin Wildermuth.

Kevin W. created the stamp seen in the upper right-hand corner of the cover. Except for Turnbow, all the other artists in the book were not involved with cartooning. In this comic he used the name "T. Warp." Jon is better known today under the name Strongbow.

For various reasons, I'll just be scanning and posting my own work here.

In a lot of ways my 1983 story also fits our current era.

Phone photo 131

Cranium Frenzy # 3

1st edition, February or March 1982, Seattle, Washington, 60 copies, white.

2nd edition, March or April 1982, Seattle, Washington, 27 copies, white.

Both editions are an odd size, 18 x 11 cm. The 1st edition has a typo in Prof. Verner Von Vernervon's word balloon, the word "know" is omitted. This was corrected for the 2nd edition.

This title was made available on a print-on-demand basis through my Reprint Series in 1994-1996. This version was enlarged to a regular digest format.

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, was also in the regular digest format. 5 copies (4 yellow, 1 green).

Basically the entire comic is one illustrated essay, a technique I first used in college while studying with The Evergreen State College faculty member Thad Curtz, a writing instructor who pointed me in some directions that really helped me grow as a cartoonist.

The caption subtitle is "an annotated portrait gallery," which made creating this comic so enjoyable. I love drawing faces, and this format enabled me to present all sorts of characters.

Trivia:

The Plowzone People comes from a job I had for a bit entering data in a computer for the University of Vermont involving an archaeological plowzone.

Three seconds in the life of Rindo Bloch inspired Bryan, my brother, to write a play called Ten Seconds in the Life of Fenwick Green. The posters for the play reprinted the three panels from Cranium Frenzy # 3.

The sordid space age specimen was my self-portrait in 1982.

Phone photo 130

Icon in Tumwater, Washington

Cranium Frenzy # 2

1st edition, Seattle, Washington, January 1982, 40 copies, yellow cover, enlarged digest.

2nd edition, Seattle, Washington, early 1982, 25 copies, yellow cover, enlarged digest. The 2nd ed. can be identified by a faint vertical line on the cover.

Available as a print-on-demand in regular digest size, 1996.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies (1 green, 4 red), regular digest size.

If I'm not mistaken, I think I burned all the original art to Cranium Frenzy # 1-2, and possibly # 3, in the fireplace of the house I was renting in Seattle. A few of my housemates attended the wake. My thinking at the time was that the art needed to be destroyed, much like a woodblock that had been used to make limited prints.

All of my 1981-1982 Seattle imprints were printed by a couple brothers originally from, I think, Iraq, who ran a print shop on University Ave. called Mecca Printing. Believe it or not, Lynda Barry had directed me to them by chance when I ran into her just across the street from the place. I sometimes wonder what became of them in Century 21 America. They had the first self-service photocopier I encountered where one could play around with amazing features like enlarging and reducing! You can't imagine how much of a difference this made in my publishing output. Prior to 1981, getting any comix art reduced in size was a major hassle and usually costly.

Trivia:

P. 2: Panel 4. Studio 54 was still in operation in 1982. In 1979 I actually made a whole party stop cold for a few silent seconds in Burlington, Vermont when I asked in complete innocence, "What is Studio 54?" It was a fine moment when they asked what planet I was from. I still had hay in my hair, apparently.

P. 3. Humptulips is a real place, right here in Grays Harbor County, Washington.

P. 5. A play on one my favorite lines from Caligula, by Albert Camus: "Men die and they are not happy."

P. 6. I think Brooke Shields was the source of the quote.

P. 7, panel 3. Another one of my favorite panels ever. Panel 7, based on Fred C. Dobbs from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a movie I really enjoy.

P. 10+: This was originally a short story I wrote in college ca. 1978 while studying with the writing instructor Peter Elbow, who taught me some wonderful methods in creating stories-- namely the use of freewriting. Still, when I read the whole thing out loud to him, Peter just sat poker faced and encouraged me to get more serious. But all my classmates were laughing pretty hard.

P. 11. More Hamlet stuff anticipating The Tragedy of Morty, Prince of Denmarke.

P. 12: Computers were just about at the point of really taking over and becoming part of office labor's daily experience when this comic was drawn. The name Mark Sense is a play on a now outdated computer term.

P. 22+: What was I thinking?!?

P. 26+: Arnie Wormwood was a character I liked who didn't get very far. I eventually killed him off, and unlike Morty the Dog, he pretty much stayed dead.

P. 33: You don't hear too much about Edgar Cayce these days, he seemed more of a household name in 1982. The Magus Bookstore in Seattle's U District had this page on display as you entered their section for paranormal books.