Larry’s Comic Art Memorabilia

While we are all ‘confined to quarters’ during this terrible pandemic, many of us are doing some version of spring cleaning—sifting through the debris of our life.

I’ve been attempting to organize/clean/purge my studio-office (aka Larry’s Cartoon Vault). It’s a slow going process to be sure.

I’ve also received a couple of old-cartooning-days blasts from the past of late.

Here are a couple.

Kevin Brady sent me this scan of a cartoon drawn by another Kevin—Kevin East.

The drawing commemorates the first encounter of a handful of young, neophyte cartoonists. We all met at the first Bay Con held at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley in 1975.

Me, Marc Miyashiro (who at the time drew ‘Xeno’ for the Berkeley Barb), Michael T. Gilbert (of Mr. Monster fame and various mainstream enterprises including, Superman, Dr. Strange and Mickey Mouse), Kevin Brady (a Dan O’Neil cartooning student who became host and/or wrangler of the soon to be GroundUnder Cartoonists and still making art up in the foothills of the Sierras) and Kevin East (another former Dan O’Neil student and Berkeley Barb cartoonist).


Speaking of the GroundUnder Cartoonists: I just rediscovered, in the Cartoon Vault, a tattered, torn, poorly printed official “GroundUnder’ T-shirt.

The late Roger May instigated the creation (and silk screening) of the meat-grinding T-Shirt featuring cartoon self-portraits of most of the core members.

‘Membership’ was a loose distinction, in deed. We met every Thursday night at Kevin Brady’s place in the Sunset district of San Francisco. We ate, drank, did a lot of show-and-tell, and created some very rambling cartoon jam sessions (many saw print in various Roger May self-published comics such as Vibratory Provincial News). 

Right to left, top row are: The amazing Melinda Gebbie as an amazing squid, Trina Robbins, Marc Miyashiro, Shelby Sampson, Roger May and Dot Bucher. Center: Kevin Brady. Right of Kevin: Michael T. Gilbert. Bottom: Me.


Michael Gilbert dug up a photo (circa 1977?) previously unknown to me.

Right to left are: Hairy Me again, Al Gordon (Marvel, DC inker), then Mary Gordon (a good calligrapher), Michael T. Gilbert, Steve Leialoha (another well-known DC and Marvel artist) and (legendary underground comix pioneer and comics “herstorian”) Trina Robbins.

I don’t know what the heck were supposed to be doing or why.  It looks like an out-take from an Austin Powers movie.

Stay Healthy