GUNK'L'DUNK e-mail newsletter for fans of _Tales_of_the_Beanworld_ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue 08 28 May, 1992 Gunk'l'dunk is here to provide a forum for fans of Larry Marder's _Tales of the Beanworld_ (TOTB), and to promote wider readership of this unique comic. This newsletter is sent out...slightly more often than TOTB. Compiled by Jeremy York, jeremy@stat.washington.edu Submissions, and comments on content and/or format gladly accepted! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION AND ADMINISTRIVIA Hiya, folks. Well, I'm well into thesis overdrive state of mind, which explains the lag between Gunk'l'dunks. If I can get done on time, I've got a job for next fall, so I'm in a dreadful hurry and I'll probably only get out one more Gunk'l'dunk before this fall. Then, I'll be a visitor at Carnegie-Mellon University for two years, and will probably revive Gunk'l'dunk in Sept or October of this year. I know of a couple of gate-wayed mailing lists out of CMU, so I may be able to set one up for Bean fans as well! In this issue, you'll find news from Larry Marder about the State of the Beanworld (it ain't dead, folks!), and dribs and drabs of misc discussion. As always, back issues always available, by anonymous ftp from ocf.berkeley.edu, or by mailing me. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTIONS New to the list? Drop me a line, tell us a tale of your world. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BEAN NEWS Here's the latest scoop, straight from Larry : The second trade paperback is with the folks at Eclipse. Due to technical glitches and various typically strange things at Eclipse, it's been delayed a bit; they've promised Larry that it will be out by mid summer. The next TOTB issue will be a doozy, folks. It will have been worth the wait, I think. The story is that Larry's been working on it a lot, and really started getting into it. When he went back and started numbering pages, he already had 38 of them for a 32 page book, and the story wasn't even finished yet! He decided to just focus on the story; format and marketing decisions would get made later -- he'd let the folks at Eclipse figure out what to do. So, the next TOTB that we see will be approx 48 pages, and it's the entire story of the first generation of Beans -- it all takes place before TOTB #1. We'll see Professor Garbanzo become who she is, we'll see Mr. Spook come into the Beanworld and find out more about his origin...Lots of major, major stuff; Larry sez it's the most unrestricted work he's done since TOTB #1! It may be split over 2 issues, it may be released as a little book, "Larry Marder's Beanworld : Book 0", it may be issue 19 1/2...He doesn't really know at this point, and he's much more concerned with the story itself. Look for something to come out in late summer or early fall... A Beanworld T-shirt will definitely be coming out in August, done by the folks at Planet studios. It should be available through the regular comix distributors, so bug your local comic store about it in July or August. Or contact Planet Studios, PO Box 284, Chimayo, NM 87522, USA. More T-shirts are planned, from the sounds of it. A Beanworld lithograph from Planet is still a possibility, but no real movement there. The folks at Planet have been working with local silversmiths about possibly creating a set of little silver Beanworld charms or action figures! No idea how much they might cost or whether it'll really happen, but keep your eyes open! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TALES FROM THE MARDERWORLD Ciao! #4, the fanzine done by James Drew (jrd@frame.com), is out now, and has the first part of the Larry Marder interview that I did. Now, the interview is available from me or at the ftp site for free; but the Ciao! layout is really cool and much nicer to look at or show to a friend. The 'zine also has art, fiction, and lots of reviews. Focus of #4 is on furry stuff. The next issue will focus on gay issues in comics. Ciao! is available for $3.50 from James Drew, 1093 Plaza Drive, Sunnyvale CA 94089, or contact him by e-mail. All proceeds go to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Larry is still reading, correcting, and adding to the rest of the interview; part II may be available sometime soon. Hopefully, the remaining two parts of the interview will appear in Ciao! as they become available. Another interview appeared in Amazing Heroes #200, from Fantagraphics (7563 Lake City Way NE, Seattle WA 98115, USA); the exciting thing about this one is that Larry drew the interview as a comic. So, there's a TOTB type caricature of himself and the interviewer, and funny sight gags playing off the stuff in the interview. Also, a quick one page rundown on the work of Marcel Duchamp and why it's so important to Larry. You won't be able to live without it, really! (Also in that issue is the first chapter of Scott McCloud's new book about comics - incredible. Scott's a pal of Larry's, and is responsible for the excellent Zot! books) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION From: nevins@husc.harvard.edu Those who are interested in Henry Darger's work [as mentioned by Larry in part I of the interview] can find some samples of it in RAW volume 2, number 2. Darger is the artist who created his own colossal world, and then documented it with thousands of pages of journal- writing, mural-sized scroll paintings, etc. *****gunk'l'dunk***** From: RiffRaff (Kenny Hobbs) HOBBKD@MOREKYPR.bitnet As far as T-shirts go, I've always envisioned having all the beans marching *all the way around the shirt* to form a continuous ring. All the Spear Fling'rs, and the Pluck'rs, and Spook and Beanish and the lot. I think that would be a *COOL* t. [Thanks, Kenny. I sent some stuff to Larry last month, including your message. We'll just have to wait and see what the folks at Planet do...] *****gunk'l'dunk***** [There's a TOTB reference in Peter Bagge's _Hate_, issue #8. Bill, tell us about it...] From: The Ahkond of Swat (Bill Sherman) Well, in the current issue, Buddy Bradley (the main character) decides to join his roommate Stinky in managing a rock band. The band keeps changing their name; at one point it's "Unsupervised Existence", and later it's "Tales of the Beanworld". Buddy yells at them about it, wondering where they came up with such a stupid name. 8^) It's more of a tip-of-the-hat than a real "reference", I guess. *****gunk'l'dunk***** From: David Goldfarb Comic Relief in Berkeley *finally* got #19 back in stock. Reading over the story, I noticed something that nobody's commented on yet. The "service stations" are surrounded by a thing called a boomrail. When a parental totality wants some reproductive propellant, it sends out coded messages that beat on this boomrail. The boomrails are black with a white squiggly line going down the middle -- just like the Boom'r Bonnets of the Boom'r Band. Just what that signifies about the nature of the Bonnets I'm not sure. We should note that the sound caused by the message is important to the process. When Heyoka turned the Beanworld influence upside-down, it didn't start dripping propellant, the way the influences did in Mr. Teach'm's example. I believe that the message excites the influence, causing it to create the influence -- simply turning it upside down at some random time won't work. On another subject: how long will the current system of chowraids last? Both groups (Beans and Hoi Polloi) have something the other wants. Both have been in contact for a long time and know that they will continue in contact for a long time. This is good conditions for cooperation to evolve. You'd think that eventually some bright Hoi Polloi would say to the chow raiders, "Look. I got lotsa chow. I don't wanna get stuck by your spears. Why don't I just let you take my chow and get your sprout-butt all to myself?" In the new, more cooperative environment, spear-flingin' flankers would still be needed. Not to break up rings, but to guard the sprout-butt against theft. The beans would be in less danger of injury, and so would the Hoi Polloi. The system would be better all around. Think it'll ever happen, or will the beans' innate conservatism prevent it? *****gunk'l'dunk***** From: Jeremy York About the beans and the Hoi Polloi co-operating, it's been proposed before. In one of the early issues, one of the beans (Proffy, I think) asked the Hoi Polloi about this. The reason it wouldn't work seemed to be this -- it's the pain of the Hoi Polloi that ignites the passion between them and the sprout-butt. In the pre-Fork days, the non-skewered sprout butts weren't very amiable, and no real magic happened between them and the Hoi Polloi -- the sprout-butt bawled, and the Hoi Polloi pummeled it into chow. Kinda gory. I'm not sure if we've ever seen unwounded Hoi Polloi receive a sprout butt, but I would think that there wouldn't be anything special about it then, either. Actually, that's not entirely true -- at the end of the "Too Much Chow" story, the Beans brought a sprout butt to the Hoi Polloi without fighting them -- but the Hoi Polloi were in mental, not physical anguish, out of boredom and mourning for their slain companions. But that's just it, really; if things are normal for the Hoi Polloi, the sprout butt isn't worth anything to them -- no pain, no pleasure. It takes the pain to ignite the passion, and they won't volunteer to be poked. Kinda kinky, really. Now, if the Hoi Polloi could learn to appreciate a sprout-butt without having been injured, that would be something. Then they could bargain with the beans for a non-violent exchange. It could even cause a class structure to emerge among the Hoi Polloi -- those that were spiritually evolved enough to love a sprout-butt any ol' time, and would bargain with the beans for chow; and the cruder ones who would still fear the beans. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End, Gunk'l'dunk #08