Larry's Vault: Napkin Drawings

In the olden days (circa 1970’s-early ‘80’s) when I lived in San Francisco, I squandered a fair amount of time in coffeehouses and bars with fellow Bohemian types and invariably our napkins would quickly become covered in images.

Napkins make for great drawing surfaces; the paper allows for a certain amount of ink ‘bleed’ and provides a nice toothy texture—and they are free.

In any case we did a lot of them, just as I suspect many artists (when not on their laptops and smartphones) do today. I’ve managed to hang on to some of the oldies which is the focus of todays ‘Vault'.

I’m surprised how many of these highly fragile artifacts have survived.

Not all are signed and my memory banks aren’t always helpful in this matter.

In some cases I’m making educated guesses to the artist’s identity.

Some likely suspects include cartoonists Melinda Gebbie, Marc Miyashiro, J. Michael Leonard, Kevin East, Hal Robbins, Norman Quebedeau …

I’ve declined to post a few of the rudest and crudest of the lot. (As funny as they maybe I feel a little uncomfortable posting them).

Hugo Scornik

Dalison

Also by Dalison

Another by Hugo

Unknown sculptor

Drawing of me by painter, Ivan Kustura

Ana Becker

Another by Ana Becker

Nice one (by Norman Quebedeau? Marc Miyashiro?)

By my old chum Alan Cumings

Another by Dalison, obviously drawn in North Beach.

A nice one by a great unknown.

I believe this one is by cartoonist J. Michael Leonard.

I've not been able to positvely I.D. this one  (Hal Robbins?)

This is probably by my old pal, cartoonist/watecolorist Kevin Brady.

This is supposed to be me. I'm pretty sure this is by cartoonist Kevin East. It was probably done during a Bay Con which was held one year at the Jack Tar.

This is also a drawing of me done by Educomics founder Leonard Rifas (but this time with more hair).

(Not a clue)

Nice one (Maybe again by Marc Miyashiro?)

Nice horse by Dalison.

Another nice one by Dalison (note the use of coffeestain as a sepia wash).

More to come in the next post.