Marder-ography – Amazing Heroes #137 [1988]

As part of her editorial responsibilities at Eclipse, Catherine Yronwode would do her Fit to Print column as part of their ads in industry magazines.  In 1988 that included AMAZING HEROES, and in #137 of that magazine there was FtP #197, where she talks about a recent call she had with Larry Marder in her role as editorial consultant on TALES OF THE BEANWORLD.  Some fascinating behind the scenes stuff of the era when Beanworld had its big crossover with the rest of the Eclipse line in TOTAL ECLIPSE and how it all ties in with Marcel Duchamp, as almost all things do.

As an added bonus, Larry Marder also does the header for the column, which is weird and wonderful (I think each column had a unique header submitted by a reader).

I think this might have also appeared in a contemporaneous issue of COMIC BUYER'S GUIDE and maybe other publications Eclipse advertised in.

And another interesting tidbit, one of the readers who they need an address for to fill their orders is a Jeff Smith of Ohio.  Who is very probably the same Jeff Smith who wrote the introduction to REMEMBER HERE WHEN YOU ARE THERE.  And created some book called BONE, but, man, that RHWYAT intro...

Thanks to another Jeff, eagle eyed Jeff A. of Toronto, for spotting this and bringing it to my attention.

Marder-ography – Weirdo #9 [1983]

The earliest Larry Marder letter in a comic book I've found is this one from the Robert Crumb edited WEIRDO #9 [1983]. It's not one of Marder's illustrated letters, but Crumb did hand letter the letter columns in the book, so that's something.

WEIRDO was a long running anthology underground comic that ran from 1981 to 1993 from Last Gasp, for a total of 28 issues. Crumb edited the first nine, succeeded by Peter Bagge and then Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

Marder-ography – The Independent Comic Book Sampler #2 [1988]

This page of Beanish and his then-unnamed muse Dreamishness, along with a bio of Marder and offer for a free comic (offer presumably no longer valid, certainly the address is way out of date) appeared in THE INDEPENDENT COMIC BOOK SAMPLER #2 [1988], published during the Ninja Turtles fueled black and white boom of the era, as you can see from the cover below, and including several dozen other cartoonists of the era.

Thanks, as usual, to Shield Bonnichsen for providing the scan and the publishing info for this hard-to-find book.

Marder-ography – Bad Attitudes [1986]

Another entry courtesy of the Shield Bonnichsen collection of Beanworld obscurities, this page of a Bean under the mistaken impression that he’s cool appeared in a mini-comic called BAD ATTITUDES which was published for the 1986 San Diego Comic-Con.

Marder-ography – MySpace Dark Horse Presents #14 [2008]

In the early days of the 21st Century comics made a partial transition to a digital format of “the internets” from their prior format almost exclusively on “the paper”. It was in this format that Larry Marder’s Beanworld returned after a gap of over a decade, with a story appearing in MYSPACE DARK HORSE PRESENTS #14 [September 2008], a revival of the long running anthology comic from Dark Horse appearing on the social network MySpace.

The 8-page story, “? and !”, serves as both an introduction to some of the main concepts of the Beanworld and a continuation of the tale as we left it so long ago. Proffy and Beanish star, as they take advantage of a Goof-Off Day to go looking for some Slats that Proffy needs in the Four Realities, and Beanish takes the opportunity to try out some thinking he’s been doing on her, about how the Realities appear to be a finite resource. As anyone who knows her would expect, these new ideas set Proffy pondering, though the problem is clearly much more than can be solved in 8 pages.

I’m just so happy to see some new Beanworld again that I can’t really judge this objectively, but I can say that it feels right, a comfortable continuation of the tales clearly leading in a new direction. The colour (now being done by Marder himself) works much better than the previous experiment in colour Beanworld comics, and Marder’s adaptation of new computer drawing methods (as seen in posts on his blog) fits well.

And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg, the next few months should see details of multiple new and reprint Beanworld projects, both on “the paper” and “the internet”.

Marder-ography – Hey #7 [1989]

Back here I linked to an auction for the original art to a bizarre jam piece by Larry Marder, David Tosh, Denis Kitchen, Don Simpson, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Stokes and Mark David Dietz. Thanks to friend of the blog Shield Bonnichsen, I now have some images from the publication of that story “Turn Left at the Light” in HEY #7.

First, the Marder panel in question:

And the full page it appears on, and the Crumb tribute cover by David Tosh (click for full sized images, nudity and language warnings apply):

Look for some more rarities provided by Shield in the future.

Marder-ography – Strip Aids [1987]

STRIP AIDS was a benefit comic from 1987, with proceeds going to London Lighthouse. Among the contents was this one page jam piece, featuring the “Jill de Ray” (a pseudonym for Alan Moore) character Maxwell the Magic Cat, and artists Larry Marder, Monte Beauchamp, Skip Williamson, Kim Deitch, Jay Lynch and Dan Clowes drawing their own characters.

Thanks to Shield Albright for providing the scan for this piece (signed by Larry Marder, no less) that I didn’t even know about before.

[STRIP AIDS shouldn’t be confused with the related 1988 anthology STRIP AIDS USA]

Marder-ography – DIYB certificate

One of the regular features of the second half of the TALES OF THE BEANWORLD series was the Do-It-Yourself Beanworld contest, where Larry Marder would provide a four panel wordless comic sequence and invite readers to fill it in as they saw fit. Several entries would run in a later issue, with the winners getting a certificate suitable for framing. I’ve gotten a few people e-mailing since I re-started Gunk’l’dunk asking about the certificate, but I’ve yet to dig out my copy (from contest 10). Fortunately, Stéphane Bura, one of the winners of contest 8, provided a scan, seen over on the right. Below is Stéphane’s winning entry from TotB #17.

Larry Marder has made mention on his blog recently that the DIYB contest will probably be seen in some form in the future of the Beanworld, possibly as an on-line feature.

Marder-ography – Journey #6 [1984]

Journey #6 [1984]

Illustrated letter by Larry Marder

This is the first of the many letter column illustrations by Marder to appear in William Messner-Loebs comic JOURNEY. It’s a great example of how Marder was able to make the very simple designs very expressive, as the Bean figure in this one speaks volumes about his enthusiasm for the comic he just read and the worlds it opens up.

By the way:

Jim Bridger by Stanley Vestal
Lord Grizzly by Frederick Manfred
The Frontiersmen by Allan Eckert

Marder-ography – Savage Dragon #50 [1998]

Savage Dragon #50 [1998]

Pin-up by Larry Marder

Erik Larsen’s SAVAGE DRAGON is a bit of an anomaly among the founding Image comics, in that Larsen has continued to write and draw it from its inception, instead of handing it off to other hands.

Anyway, back in 1998 he reached a milestone, #50, and decided to celebrate it with a big 100-page issue with a lot of guests on pin-up pages and back-ups while continuing his string of writing and drawing the main story. Among the pin-ups was this piece from then Image executive director Larry Marder. Taking the same approach as he did with his earlier Shadowhawk piece he reduces the character down to iconographic basics, in this case the impossibly muscled arm, the clenched fist, the fin and the angry eyes (looking kind of like Dreamishness’ eyes during Total Eclipse), and surrounded by symbols of power and energy. Sort of a spawn (if you’ll pardon the expression) of the Kirby branches of the Inspiration Constellation. Cute piece, I think.

Marder-ography – Tales of the Beanworld (self-published) #5(+extras) [1983]

Concluding Shield Albright’s much appreciated comparison of the self-published Beanworld issues with the eventually published final version a few years later, this time what may have been the final self-published issue (can anyone confirm?) with the first part of TotB #2, plus all the additional material sent with the issues.

Thanks again for the detailed info, and check out Shield’s detailed chronicling of another comic book creator at neilgaimanbibliography.com.

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TOTB self-pub #5/TOTB #2

1/1-2: Scan will show you many differences. Can only see half of Gran’Ma’Pa, whose roots are rounded at the end. Explanatory box provided for Gran’Ma’Pa says a little more. The beans in a daze have no dialogue; notably one bean is no longer laughing. Proffy’s speech includes text from the first two panels of the next page in regular edition. No prayer speech bubbles are used. The speech is slightly altered, most significantly some text is in thought bubble instead of spoken and “This mountain of chow” in the regular edition was originally “Your mountain of chow.” (Consider the tone of accusation changed with that one word!) A horizon line is present with what could be bushes. The ground has grass clumps, but no specks.

2/2: Three tiers. Top tier has text from panel three of top tier regular edition. Image is a distant view of the scene showing, from left to right, a bean with his hands in the air, Gran’Ma’Pa (in full), Proffy on the chow, the Chowdown Pool and Proffy’s Fix-It Shop, along with three wandering beans. Second tier is the classic image of the Beanworld and the four realities, etc, same text as reg. edition second tier. Third tier matches exactly.

3/3: Top half is the same. Bottom half has same text and layout, but was redrawn. Original had more specks of chow in the pool, the beans with their hands in the air were both looking at Mr.Spook, and the lower left bean was missing.

4/4: Most art was reused, but Proffy was redrawn, originally sitting on the chow, stomping feet. Spook is redrawn, but in same position. The Pluk & Plop word balloon was in a box instead of giant quotation marks.

5-7/5-7: Same

8/8: Three tiers match first three panels. First tier, Boom’r instead says “Prof G. Having A Tough Time?” Ground has light layer of zip-a-tone. Second tier, can’t see the top of the Fix-It Shop, no exclamation point. Third tier, can see Proffy’s arms, one holding the door, the other held up in exasperation. Twinks on ground have wavy lines above them (like stink lines or anger lines – hard to describe a line without showing it!). Boom’r is not laughing. Zip-a-tone used for ground again. Door stays in panel. Minor text change of “You ‘N’ Yer Big Ideas” to “You & Your Big Ideas”. Narration box says “To *picture of regular bean* Continued!”

And that’s the end of the five issues I received. However, that is not all that was in the package! This was a promotional package. It included the five self-published comics, a photocopy of Cat Yronwode’s Fit To Print review from The Comic Buyer’s Guide Oct 21, 1983 (background drawn by Marder), and a single sheet survey with self addressed stamped (20 cent!) envelope back to Larry Marder. All this was sent in an envelope with a Beanworld sticker on the front.

  

Marder-ography – Journey #9 [1984]

Journey #9 [1984]
Illustrated letter by Larry Marder

Marder got a full page this issue for his 4-page missive about some of the many questions that the series had raised.

Read more about the Iroquois and the Five Nations here.

Find out more about JOURNEY creator Bill Loebs here.

Marder-ography – Tales of the Beanworld (self-published) #4 [1983]

Continuing Shield Albright’s much appreciated comparison of the self-published Beanworld issues with the eventually published final version a few years later. Just a few minor changes in the conclusion of “The Legend of Pop! Pop! Pop!”.

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TOTB self-pub #4/TOTB #1

1/25: Same, except that the Home Sweet Home painting in the regular edition replaces the self-pub logo and the family portrait was moved up a bit.

2-4/26-28: Same

5/29: Same, except the smudged remains of the villain are slightly smudgier

6-7/30-31: Same

8/32: The Chowdown pool and occupants are the same, but the background is different. The pile of chow is just to the right of the pool. The weapon is missing from the background. The grass horizon line is a line with vertical marks for grass instead of a jagged line. The sky has clouds on the horizon and a larger sun, both shaded with pencil (which, frankly, looks rather sloppy). While Mr.Spook seems to be the same picture, it seems his fork was redrawn.

Marder-ography – Phantom Force #2 [1994]

Jack Kirby‘s influence on Marder’s work is profound in both obvious and subtle ways, and as posted before Marder has taken a few opportunities to pay some small measure of tribute. Another example is in this 1994 comic book published by Image Comics, which wound up coming out shortly after Kirby passed away early that year, where various inkers worked over Kirby’s pencils on one of his later creations. Unfortunately, Marder wasn’t one of the inkers (just imagine how that would have looked), but he does provide a two-page text essay in the back of the book, titled “A Kirby Tale”.

If you are a comic book fan of a certain age, there was this fateful day in the early ’60s, when you were quite young, (more often than not during some childhood malady) when you first gazed upon a wondrous thing called a Marvel Comic book.

Within its four color covers was a ticket to ride the universe. At the wheel was comic books’ greatesr trailblazer, pathfinder and navigator – Jack “King” Kirby. The ideas and concepts contained in a Kirby comic immediately transported the reader into a delicious realm of possibilities. Some possibilities were majestic, some tragic, some frightening, some funny – all were spellbinding. First with the Fantastic Four and later Thor, the young untapped-cartoonist-in-me pondered the cosmic implications contained in Kirby’s creations.

I fell into a place with the gravitational pull of a black hole called The Influence of Jack Kirby’s Super Hero Work.

Marder continues to write about his discovery of the culture of the Native American Hopi tribe of the American south-west, and in particular how their ceremonial Kachinas, and how his fascination with them was fuelled by their resemblance to the designs that populated Kirby’s work, and the connections he found between Hopi mythology and Kirby’s work, and strongly informed his own development of Beanworld.

Finally, the year before Beanworld was published, he asked Kirby about the connections at a convention, only to find out that Kirby wasn’t familiar with those Hopi myths, and any similarities were coincidence, but remain very real to him.

Marder-ography – Tales of the Beanworld (self-published) #3 [1983]

Continuing Shield Albright’s much appreciated comparison of the self-published Beanworld issues with the eventually published final version a few years later. Very few changes in this particular issue, presenting the middle of the first story.

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TOTB self-pub #3/TOTB #1

1/17: Main panel redrawn as first panel second tier. Bottom tier redrawn as a panel and new dialog (see cover scan)

2-8/18-24: Appear to be the same

Marder-ography – Lady Arcane #2 [1992]

Lady Arcane #2 [1992]
Art by Larry Marder

This is a rather unusual Beanworld cameo. LADY ARCANE was a spin-off of the Hero Graphics books FLARE and CHAMPIONS, featuring Donnah Hannah, a magical super-hero who is the grand-daughter of Doctor Arcane. In the lead story this issue, “Gifts” (by Dennis Mallonee, Duval Stowers and Craig Stormon), Lady Arcane visits some other-dimensional friends of her grand-father as part of her training, and receives various magical objects or knowledge from them. The one we’re concerned about here is her brief visit with Professor Garbanzo of the Beanworld, where she gets a Twink and a Mystery Pod. On the next page she refers to them as “goofy knick-knacks” and her grand-father informs her:

Those “knick-knacks”, as you describe them, embody the essence of the technology of that world. That was a magnificent gift.

There’s also a brief plug for TALES OF THE BEANWORLD on that page. Proffy’s brief cameo was drawn by Larry Marder, and if I’m remembering what Mallonee mentioned years ago correctly there was some plan for the use of the objects in the future, although I’m not sure if that ever worked its way into a published story.

Marder-ography – Tales of the Beanworld (self-published) #2 [1983]

Continuing Shield Albright’s much appreciated comparison of the self-published Beanworld issues with the eventually published final version a few years later.

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TOTB self-pub #2/TOTB #1

Page 1/11: Cover has same text as top tier, completely different images. Note how fork design differs from pin-up on back of regular edition

Page 2/11: First panel done in silhouette, other 6 panels seem to be the same (with the exception of the jump panels being shortened to fit in a three tier page instead of a 2 tier page

Page 3-7/12-16: Appear to be the same

Page 8/17: Top two thirds of the page is Gran’Ma’Pa dropping the weapon. Same layout, but self-pub has split it into three panels. First panel is Spook & Proffy. Second panel includes two chow sol’jers with chow-pluk-rs saying “Is Gran’Ma’Pa dropping a sprout-butt?” “Huh?” Third panel is the weapon dropping down. Self-pub bottom tier was dropped from regular comic. Spook runs up “It stops without a single bounce and FLOATS!” Proffy runs up “Gran’Ma’Pa sends us a remarkable gift!” Pluk’r stands by and says “That thing is weird…” while two other sol’jers stand by and watch

Marder-ography – Tales of the Beanworld (self-published) #1 [1983]

A while ago I mentioned the auction for a package of the self-published TotB issues that Larry Marder mailed around prior to the proper series being distributed by Eclipse. Well, the winner of that auction, Shield Albright (who maintains neilgaimanbibliography.com), has done this great rundown of differences between the first issue and the story as it was eventually published. Similar comparisons for the other issues will follow.

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Overall, the layout, art, and text are nearly the same. In some panels, I’d guess he copied and pasted the art, but much is definitely redrawn. Here is a direct comparison, with corresponding pages of the self-published number one to the Beanworld/Eclipse number one.

TOTB self-pub #1/TOTB #1

Page 1: Horizon line and clouds (at horizon, not in sky) behind Gran’Ma’Pa. The labels (“The Boom’r Band” etc) are missing. Story does not have a title beyond Tales Of The Beanworld

Page 2: Dropped completely from Eclipse/Beanworld press issue. Same layout as page one (G’M’P with the beans scattered around doing their things), this page has the labels and the map of known Beanworld placed over Gran’Ma’Pa’s folliage.

Page 3/Page 2: Minor text changes. Second tier of art completely different.

Page 4/Page 3: Top tier is not in silhouette. Second tier with Boom’r band included. Hoi Polloi do not talk

Page 5/Page 3-4:Top tier includes the Hoi Polloi text missing from previous page. Second and third tier match first and second of regular comic.

Page 6/Page 4-5: Missing bottom tier from last page is top tier of this page. Instead of “No! No! No! Not the fork!”, Hoi Polloi says “Think yer some hot stuff, huh?”

Page 7/Page 6: Basically the same

Page 8/Page 7: No hearts! Hoi Polloi speech very different (“Hubba hubba”!)

Page 9/Page 7-8: Hoi Polloi text missing from last page is the top tier of this page, the H-P are in silhouette. Rest of page matches top two tiers of regular series

Page 10/Page 8-9: Last tier of page 8 through second tier of page 9

Page 11/Page 9-10: First tier is last tier from page 10. Second tier is jumping into the pool. Third tier is the chowdown pool from page 10. Fourth tier is same text as page 10’s second tier, but split into three panels.

Page 12/Page 10: Full page of nighttime, page 10’s last tier, but skips the final caption (“This is the way…”)

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-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.