GUNK'L'DUNK e-mail newsletter for fans of _Tales_of_the_Beanworld_ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue 09 4 August, 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 (soon to be jeremy@stat.cmu.washington.edu) Submissions, and comments on content and/or format gladly accepted! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION AND ADMINISTRIVIA Well, folks, I've successfully added three letters to the end of my name now; I don't really like the sound of "Dr" or "PhD", so I've decided that my formal title will be a phonetic PhD : "Jeremy York, fud." Anyway, I'm moving to Pittsburgh in a week and a half, so don't look for anything from me for at least a month. Mail sent to jeremy@stat.washington.edu should still get to me for a month or two, but by the end of August you should definitely use jeremy@stat.cmu.edu (I don't have my account there yet, though). I will definitely continue to do Gunk'l'dunk from Carnegie Mellon, and I may be able to set up a gate-wayed mailing list as well. Well, there's exciting news in this issue -- T-shirts, silver charms, and the second Trade Paperback are on the way; plus appearances by Larry. 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 The trade paperback really should be out anytime now -- Larry was expecting to receive his copy today. Depending on what distributor your store deals with, copies should be on the shelf either very soon or in October. The paperback collects TOTB #5-7, plus the full 2-part backup "Proffy the Snoopy Anthropologist" from #'s 3 and 6; intro by cat yronwode. *****gunk'l'dunk***** Larry's got well over 60 pages of new Bean stories written and drawn (but not completely inked); the format it'll be released will be decided next week when Larry meets cat and Dean at the San Diego convention. Sounds like two regular length TOTB's, within a month of each other, is most likely. Best guess is late fall for a release date. *****gunk'l'dunk***** Rob Liefeld, of _Youngblood_, has invited Larry to draw a one-shot appearance of Mr. Spook and the Beans in that comic. Details to be announced at the San Diego convention. Larry sez that it won't be part of the TOTB continuity, but that he is thinking of having some future characters and concepts make their first appearances in this cross-over... *****gunk'l'dunk***** In the new TOTB stories, Larry says that Beanish is making dolls for the Pod'l'Pool Cuties to play with -- they're called "Beanworld Action Effigies"!! *****gunk'l'dunk***** Ten new rubberstamps have been done; they'll be available at the San Diego convention; or write to Ready-Made Rubber, P.O. Box 563, Dept BW, Downieville, CA 95936, USA. The stamps include the Big Fish, the Boom'r Band, Dreamishness, a couple of Hoi Polloi, a Cutie... *****gunk'l'dunk***** T-SHIRTS! T-SHIRTS ARE OUT! There's one design so far, it sounds fantastically colorful. The artist at Planet Studios is a big TOTB fan, and she bought a piece of Larry's art at last year's San Diego convention; the T-shirt is a silk-screened copy of that piece. It has a dancing bean, balancing a Cutie on his/her foot; the bean has orange "shorts" and shoes, and there are purple spirals and blue dashes in the background. Really colorful! The design is silkscreened on an unbleached cotton T-shirt. Most of the distributors will be getting these out real soon now; Diamond, unfortunately, won't get them to their stores until October. If you just can't wait, though, you can order them directly from Planet Studios, P.O. Box 284, Chimayo, NM 87522, USA. Sizes M, L, and XL are $14.95 each; size XXL is $18.95. If ordering from the US, add $1 for shipping to your order. They take Mastercard and Visa, check, or money order (US funds only). Outside the US, add $2.25 per shirt for the first three shirts to have them shipped surface mail (no extra charge for > 3 shirts); to ship by air, use a credit card and they'll charge you for whatever the airmail cost is. More shirts are planned; in particular, a design like Kenny Hobbs suggested in the last Gunk'l'dunk (with the beans dancing in a ring all the way around the shirt) is a definite possibility. Seems the folks at Planet had been thinking of something along those lines themselves... No more before next spring, though. *****gunk'l'dunk***** Silver Bean action figures are a reality!! Planet Studios will have some for sale at San Diego next week. There was one charm that came out exactly right; a few others didn't have quite the right facial expressions, so the wax originals are being taken to San Diego so Larry can draw the faces himself. They're solid silver, bean-sized, flat on the back, with hooks at the top and the bottom so they could be used in bracelets, charms, earrings, whathaveyou. Prices were not certain yet, so contact Planet at the address above or watch this space for more info. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TALES FROM THE MARDERWORLD Larry will be at the San Diego Comicon next week. He is also making an appearance at the Forbidden Planet comic store in London on September 5th; he'll be signing books etc. Comics Scene did an interview with Larry recently, it could run in the November issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION Here's a few snippets from the comics list; send e-mail to comix-request@world.std.com to subscribe. From: Marty Ward [new e-mail address : 860099w@dragon.acadiau.ca; welcome back to North America, Marty!] Date: Thu, 28 May 92 22:51:57 BST Subject: Marder mentioned MARS I remember that in Larry Marder's interview, he mentioned the MARS comic. Well, I remember that I saw this in the back-issue bins at my local comic store here in Dundee. The earliest issue I could get was #3. It's from First, done by Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel. (Hempel does the GREGORY from Piranha I think.) Not sure what it's about, but there's these people (furry-type creature, human woman, and a robot in the issue) who seem to be stranded on Mars. Mars has plants and a mysterious city. The art, however, is very, very cartoony. I mean it almost looks like an ARCHIE comic. So, the comic is basically a sci-fi adventure done in a cartoony style. For me, it is one of the stranger comics I've read and it has perked my interest, so that I'll hunt down some more issues to get a good feel for it. Just thought you guys might like to know. Have you read it yourselves? Marty Date: Thu, 28 May 92 15:47:53 PDT From: jrd@lynx.frame.com (James Drew) Subject: Re: Marder mentioned MARS Strange, yes. I've picked up a few issues because of the Dynamo Joe backups, and a few other issues beyond that, from the 25 cent bins. Frankly, there are very few art teams I like *less* than Hempel and Wheatley -- I'm not a fan of either alone, either. I ignored their work on Jonny Quest, reading it for the story alone; same with Blood of Dracula. I skipped Breathtaker entirely, and refuse to give Tarzan even a cursory glance. The only recent thing by either that looked interesting was Gregory, and I have *yet* to see a copy, now years after the fact. Return-Path: Date: 29 May 92 07:49:03 EDT From: Subject: Re: Marder mentioned MARS Well, personally, MARS was one of my all-time favorite comix. I really think it stacked up well against a lot of the imported japanese manga that I've read (but to give you an idea of what I like there, Mai the psychic girl was about the only series besides LUM that I really liked a whole lot, even Crying Freeman got tiring after a while... all the dumb sci-fi manga are so...Amerikanish, they just don't have any japanese charm like Mai and LUM had...but that's another story) Hempel & Wheatley had a very unique style on MARS as an art team which I enjoyed a lot. Interesting drawing styles are not encouraged very much it seems. They reminded me a bit of Harvey Kurtzman. There was also a series, that I can't think of the name right now, something like "Mysterious Invaders" or "Strange Invaders" about 1950's paranoia concerning aliens from space that had a real similar drawing style, quite cartooney, lots of thick black lines, etc. I wish I could remember the title because I liked it so much (duh!). I only bought it in its collected graphic novel form, but only ever found the first three of four volumes...does anyone know if the fourth one ever came out? Date: Fri, 29 May 1992 10:31 -0500 From: "Her lips spoke tender words... `Hey Joe, you got gum?'" Subject: Mars, The Silent Invasion I remember liking Mars for the *art*, but not so much the story; I always wanted to reread it again in one sitting, though. I really like H&W, too, and while some of the early issues of JQ had better art, H&W were great for JQ when it got a steady team. The comic you are thinking of is _The Silent Invasion_. Again, the art drew me to this, and I liked the story, but it became difficult to find the later issues. So recently I bought all four of the collections from Bud Plant, where they are on sale: $19.95 for the set. I don't know whether you can get just the 4th volume from BP or not. The set is listed in BP's Winter Incredible Catalog. The product code is SILENTSET. BP's number is 800-242-6642. Ask for a catalog. He puts out a Winter and Summer big catalog, then two updates between them (which are pretty big themselves). I don't know which one(s) he would send you. His sale stuff is great, sometimes fantastic (I got four volumes of EC Segar Popeye Hardcovers for $8.95 each, and one of them was the last they had left). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End, Gunk'l'dunk #09