-Link- Beanworld merch pics

Ask and ye shall receive. Commenter JJA replies to a previous post with a link to a page with photos of over a dozen Beanworld products, including pins, stickers, a postcard and, yes…

… one of the bolo ties.

Marder-ography – Army Surplus Komikz Featuring Cutey Bunny #5 [1985]

Army Surplus Komikz Featuring Cutey Bunny #5 [1985]

Letter column illustration by Larry Marder

Larry Marder provides a rather odd little illustration in the letter column for this issue, where CUTEY BUNNY creator Joshua Quagmire provides plugs for various then-recent comics, including BEANWORLD. For those who don’t get the reference, it’s a parody of the Wendy Pini comic ELFQUEST, with the regular bean taking the role of one of the Preservers while that odd pointy-headed bean is one of the elves.

You can find out more about Joshua Quagmire’s work over on his web site.

Marder blog art index

I’m not going to make it a habit to link to Larry Marder’s blog when he posts new Beanworld art, since I assume anyone reading this is a regular reader there. However, for my future reference I will try to maintain an index of posts with new art, since you never know when you’ll want to find Proffy’s view of the use of symbols in the latest Harry Potter book.

-Link- Buy Beanworld, support free speech

You’ve all been keeping up with Larry Marder’s new blog, right? Lots of intriguing comments about Beanworld’s future and other topics. For those of you with an aversion to looking right (or who read this site through a feed reader), the sidebar here now has RSS feeds for Larry’s blog. Check out the recent posts or use those orange buttons to add them to your own reader of choice. I don’t have any inside information, but if I were a betting man I’d say 2007 is going to be a good year for Beanworld fans.

Especially those going to the San Siego Con. Larry’s mentioned that he’ll be there, and among the things for sale will be new Beanworld originals in colour frames sold for the benefit of the CBLDF. See one of them here.

Product – TotB logo pin

I’m not one to really buy comic book related merchandise, but among the few items I have are some Beanworld related bits, many of which readers of the original series (as opposed to the collections) will recall seeing ads for. There were pins, rubber stamps, t-shirts, earrings and even bolo ties, among other things, most made by Planet Studios (they don’t sell them now, they seem to just do bulk sales of custom product now). I have two of the pins, including this one, of the TotB logo:

The photo doesn’t really capture the metallic shine.

The vast majority of Beanworld product I don’t have, though (the other pin I have is Mr. Spook, plus a few stickers and such make up most of it). If you’ve got a photo of any Beanworld merchandise (especially a bolo tie), send it along and I’ll feature it on Gunk’l’dunk.

Mark has a few images (including two of the the classic Beanworld Action Figures, which I have one of somewhere) over on this page of the BeanWeb.

Marder-ography – Shadowhawk #17 [1995]

Shadowhawk #17 [1995]
Centerfold pin-up by Larry Marder

Ah, what hath the Flip-Flop Tool done to our Mr. Spook. Transformed him to the urban avenger ShadowBean, it appears (and I know, Mr. Spook isn’t actually a Bean). Pretty cool double page image drawn and coloured by Marder, with a lot of Beanworld elements like the NotWorms, Twinks and Mysterypods. I’m not sure how those claws will help Mr. Spook, since he’s got much better reach with his trusty fork.

-Link- Marder Blog

Hm, July 6, 2007 post, about Half’s BeanWeb:

It is a resource that I refer to constantly as I work on new Beanworld work.

Click it, bookmark it, pass it on.

Bean Spotting – The Mighty Magnor #3 [1993]

The Mighty Magnor #3 [1993]
by Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier

Mr. Spook and his Trusty Fork make a brief cameo almost right in the middle of this insanely crowded double page comic convention scene in the Evanier/Aragones super-hero parody comic THE MIGHTY MAGNOR. Other notables to look out for are a few Groo characters, the Flaming Carrot and Cerebus, plus comic book creators like Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, the crew from MAD MAGAZINE, Stan Sakai and the Evanier/Aragones team themselves.

Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier have had long careers in comic both together and separately, most well known together for over 150 issues of GROO THE WANDERER for almost as many publishers (soon to return after a long hiatus with a new special and mini-series from Dark Horse).

-Link- Rare pre-fried Beans

Dedicated Beanworld fans know that prior to the Eclipse-distributed TALES OF THE BEANWORLD #1 in 1985 Larry Marder passed around some photocopied packages of his work in progress at conventions and through the mail to some people he thought might be interested.

A recent auction on the Ebay featured one of those packages of five issues (looking to make up all of #1 and part of #2 of the series proper) sent to a reader whose address Marder got from an issue of CEREBUS, with the original cover letter (containing cat yronwode’s review) and more.

Forgive me for not mentioning it earlier, but I was planning to bid on it myself. Turns out I severely underestimated the price it would go for. If the winner of the auction, or anyone else who has such a package, wants to write a post about it for Gunk’l’dunk, especially comparing changes made before the final version, feel free to contact me.

-Link- Marder sketch – Mr. Spook in colour

This is a gorgeous full colour image by Marder of Mr. Spook and that infuriating Notworm.