What follows is the first issue of Jazz Scarecrow, a self-published mini-comic from 1986, which was drawn in sketchbooks, photocopied and distributed to my fellow employees at National Record Mart, a music store in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Each issue featured the lead story, a continuing serial adventure, plus a back-up story starring The Man From Country X, which was drawn in a sketchy, line-based style, as opposed to the more graphic black and white Jazz Scarecrow, a tale of Ronald Reagan-inspired paranoia and Orwellian conceit, plus a one-page cartoon, usually in yet another style/approach. All stories were drawn and written panel-to-panel, page-to-page, without any pre-planning. No pencils were involved, just technical pen ink on the paper, even solid blacks were filled-in with the same technical pen, as I’d yet to attempt using a brush and ink or pen. The title lettering was created with the inimitable Letraset Brand Prestype. Spelling mistakes were not unusual.
For those of you who like to curl up with a pillow and watch your cartoons, click HERE for a handy slideshow of all twenty-three pages, soundtrack not included. But might I suggest any early record by The James Taylor Quartet, or perhaps The Legendary Pink Dots. Maybe even a more recent recording by The Residents or Stan Ridgway’s The Drywall Project?
Either way – any way – I hope you enjoy!
And, for those of you who were there – “Rock against Reagan!”
