As I was working on this project I actively thought that it might be presented in multiple ways.

 

First, there could be a presentation in book or magazine format. I had been inspired by comic books and the graphic novels which had grown out of them. When I was 19 I used to have fantasies about becoming a grunt worker in an offset printing operation so that I might one day figure out a way to print my own magazine. When I actually went into a few of these sorts of businesses, well trained seasoned printers with ink stained fingers tended to laugh at me. After all I was bringing nothing to the table other than a kind of privileged enthusiasm.When I later shared my frustration about this with friend Ron Wiesel, he laughed and said, "I know you can do it! Get Reed College to pay for it!" Yes, Ron was a skilled opportunist if nothing else. So in the Fall of 1983 (with Ron's encouragement) I began a campaign to create not just a college literary magazine, but also a graphic arts publication. This, of course, might just happen to include extensive portions of my own work.

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I had to learn how to do much of this printing work myself, but I did manage to put together a magazine titled Oasis, that included pages 1-18. I have since lost all but the proof of the 500 copy run; but there may exist a few copies in the sample department of Mohawk Paper where close friend Jim Forni was working at the time. I was indeed very pleased with this form of presentation; however, I never did manage to have the whole sequence printed. I spent much of 1985 sending solicitations to just about every comic/graphic novel publisher in North America. Not surprisingly, no one was interested. The most memorable response came from Deni Loubert, the (then) wife and publisher of Dave Sim's Cerebus. "I think we both know the limitations of our industry."

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But if I was envisioning a printing, I was also still creating drawings on 100% rag paper. Had I wanted only to have it printed I would have created very different camera ready drawings. Yes, I treated each sheet as essentially a two page presentation; but I also lavished considerable attention to intricate detail. I used multiple different kind of inks for different textures. I gave various frames their own titles. I even wrote these titles in between the frames! I also signed every block of drawings (what I called panels) in pencil. It was clear that I also envisioned these things in a gallery setting. You might have noticed that there is in fact a gallery setting in the actual graphic novel with these very things on the walls.

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In early 1986 I did have a full gallery show of all the drawings at PDXS Gallery in Northwest Portland. It was in a very underpopulated warehouse area behind the famous Powell's Books and Henry Weinhard's brewery. It was not exactly the gallery shown in the drawings but it served its purpose. This was the era of the emergence of SoHo in Manhattan and artsy repurposing of industrial spaces. My show was essentially an ancillary part of friend Ron Wiesel's latest project. (name recently changed to Run Vzel). This involved monologue style performances in the round by Ron of several of his own short stories, punctuated by original music, projections, film loops, and lighting effects. Ron brought it all together seemingly without regard to aesthetic integration. He referred to us all as collaborators. And I suppose we were, united in our chance to have the platform that Ron had managed to secure for himself. It was slapdash but still somehow seemed to work. Luis and Victoria, the gallery owners seemed receptive to having my work; though Luis did once facetiously ask me, "You're not going to kill yourself or anything are you?"

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To his credit, Ron managed to get some people into the gallery, including then Oregonian theater critic Bob Hicks. Hicks summarized my contribution as callow. Fair enough, I suppose. Ron from that moment on always referred to this dismissal as "Bob Hicks and His Hot Licks."

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The Oasis printing and the On the Last Night show were not the most satisfying; but they did give the project a bit of closure. By 1986 I had moved on to more fine art drawing projects. 

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But