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

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.