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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Hippy
(Note: These frames can be resized for optimal viewing or reading
width)
This is a variation of the "3R Timeline" put together for Sirius
Entertainment, published in Volume One of the Armageddonquest
trilogy. This being more a personal artistic history than an autobiography, the background to AQ, as well as listing most of my other creative works.
6 Dec 41---I get born in Seattle, Washington. Pearl Harbor gets
bombed next day. Probably unrelated events, but who knows?
---Growing up on Captain Marvel, Superman, Batman, EC Comics,
Uncle Scrooge. Moving often: Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Bay
Area.
---Age 10, become an Edgar Rice Burroughs freak, he had some snappy story-telling techniques, which I like to "borrow" sometimes (I also liked the original illustrations by J. Allen St. John).
---Age 11, living in Oakland, California, my father becomes
extremely religious, affecting entire family, we move back to
Seattle.
---Age 14, Dad gets a Texaco gas station, I work there as a member
of the family business, learn about cars.
---And here's 3R age 15.
56---High School, interested in Gustave Doré's Biblical
illustrations.
---Write/draw my first comic "stories", a series of 2-page "to be
continued" jokes concerning the Man With No Face.
58---Made an 8-mm movie that summer, Superboy and the Killer Kids
--since it was MY camera I got to be Superboy.
59---Graduate from Shoreline High in Seattle, if anyone cares.
Junior College in Everett, etc.
61---Begin at Western Washington State College in Bellingham,
majoring in English Literature. Become interested in the Book of
Revelations. Educational overload--split for California in my
Junior year.
62---Draw first "Son of Satan" pictures while living in Berkeley, first incarnations of a young hero strolling around in Hell, although I didn't yet know that he would become Tazio.
June 64---drafted into the Army, 2 years as a G.I. stationed in Fulda, Germany, assigned to PIO,
produced the base newspaper for the 14th Armored Cavalry.
-----More important: learned to play the guitar.
June 66---overseas discharge from Army, went on the road:
European cities (first came to Copenhagen, my kind of place, stayed a
while in Denmark), then 7
months in Africa.
67---came back and got a summer job in Copenhagen, met that beautiful
Danish Girl Marianne (who,
40 years later, is now my wife), then travelled on to India.
68---Katmandu, Ceylon, Student Revolution in Europe, hippies, me
writing songs & playing music for a little money. Stayed at
a Sikh Temple in
Calcutta, hitched back through Europe to Denmark, lived in a student
dorm in Nærum, studied
Danish Culture.
69---broke, return to USA, get a job, earn just enough, off to
Mexico & Central America for half a year. Loved Oaxaca, stayed a
while.
70---return to USA, friends & a commune in Seattle (you know, the
60's), then back to college at WWSC in Bellingham,
hippy days.
71---Write a series of Son of Satan Tazio stories for
creative writing classes, including one 12-page
comic book drawn
directly on mimeograph paper.
72---Send a copy of the Son of Satan comic book to Marvel
Comics (don't remember why), 6 months later Marvel begins publishing a
series also called The Son of Satan, based on similar
characters and situations. Probably unrelated events, but who
knows?
72---Made several mimeo comics for creative writing classes,
since they were so well received: a funny series,
Captain Psychic
Phenomena; and a continuation of Burgess' A Clockwork
Orange, Alex Comix.
72---My first published comic story, Space Bum, appears in
SPACED OUT Comics,
published by Print Mint (the now-colored version of that story is in the Comix Section of this website).
73---my 2nd Space Bum story was a more professional
production, but Print Mint never produced a 2nd Spaced Out comic,
so they sent it back to my father's address--who opened it, was
offended by my hippy humor, and burnt it. No copies remain.
(Although the WWSC campus newspaper printed an article about their local comic book artiste, along with a rather cool photo, and the first page of Space Bum 2 just happens to be in my hand.)
74---Graduation from WWSC with bachelor's degree in English &
Art.
74-75---on the road again, 9 months from Mexico to South America,
stayed a while in Ecuador, return to USA with no money but at
least I had a pretty good case of hepatitus.
76---Return to WWSC and get a Secondary Teaching Certificate. Student
teaching at a high school in Bellevue, Wash. Meet Helen, whom I marry
later on.
77---Schools in recession, no teaching jobs, I work as a carpenter,
living with Helen in the woods outside Monroe, Washington.
78---Several months in Mexico; touring with Helen in an old Chevy
pickup w/camper to Oaxaca, go on alone to visit Ron & Kippie in San
Christobal. Stay there to write my Son of Satan novel, but it
becomes a prodigious songwriting period instead, no novel.
79---Back in woods in Washington, write "the great Sasquatch novel"
Adam out of Eden, finish 1st draft, but not the rewriting.
80---Instead I write/draw a
Sasquatch comic series
, 5 stories over 200 pages.
Sept 80-Jan 81---Write/draw the
Phæria
stories, 200 pages of erotic fairy tale.
March 81---Write/draw Heroes
of Elveland, a 75-page continuation of Phæia
chronicle, while staying with Ron & Kippie in Mexico City.
May-Dec 81---Write/draw
Agents of The
Chalice, the relationship between the angel Æthyr and
the devil Malignan.
81---Carpentry in recession, no jobs, I become a prison guard at
Washington State Reformatory (everybody in Monroe ends up working
there).
Jan 82---Write/draw a series of Prison Comix, starting
with Slammer Comics,
a tie-in to the Armageddonquest saga, introducing Immanuel, the
17th incarnation of Christ.
Nov-Dec 82---Write/draw
Guard Comics,
introducing the superhuman prison guard Officer Gargantua and the
shamanistic Tattoo Master, 133 pages.
---Discover Japanese Barefoot Gen, the classic eye-witness
history of Hiroshima in comic form.
---In real life, break up with Helen. Big changes.
83--Write/draw a series of shorts: some Captain Psychic
Phenomena funny stuff,
Cosmikids,
the 3 Snail Tales.
83-84---Write/draw The Prison
and the Planet, a 200-page graphic novel tied directly into
the AQ saga, with Gargantua, Immanuel, and the 1st appearence
of Tazio as he was meant to be.
March 84---Begin writing/drawing
Armageddonquest.
Sept 84---on the road again--quit prison job to travel around the
world. Get to Denmark, visit old girlfriend Marianne & her
5-year-old son Mads. Oops, never make it to Japan, end up
living in Copenhagen. But I
continue to draw AQ.
85---travel to SE Asia to visit my brother Owen, then return to
Copenhagen. Marianne, Mads & I hitchhike Europe for several
months, Spain, Portugal, and home to Denmark again.
Here we are in Nerja,
Spain
(Later, Marianne and I made a children's book about that trip, entitled Mads på Stop.)
86---money gone, lucky to get a job as a moving man. Marianne & I get
married, so I can stay & work in Denmark. Okay, okay, also because we love each other. Continue drawing AQ in our little apartment, after work, but it ain't easy.
86-89---work, work, work--ok,
some fun too, but almost
nothing to do with AQ, until I build a "drawing studio" up in a
tiny attic room over our apartment. I get a better job, driving for
Roland music instruments.
---I also take time out from AQ to record some of my own songs
on a 4-track I'd picked up in Singapore, and produce a demo tape with
a comix-like
song book
89-92---AQ insists upon being written: I work 6 months,
take 2 months off to draw, fortunately Marianne backs me up, when
broke I work another 6 months, take 2 months off...
9 Dec 92---"Finish" AQ.
Feb 94---Starhead Comix publishes Armageddonqest #1. But
production halts at #2.
---Sirius publisher Robb Horan first reads the Starhead
editions of AQ, contacts 3R.
95---Long process of cleaning up all the earlier pages of AQ
for publication. (Whew! let's take a break here for
3R & family also having a
life (Paris)
Aug 96---We move from our humble little 2-room on the outskirts of town into our new great big luxurious apartment in the center of Copenhagen. A major improvement in lifestyle, see the Lords of the Manor. Complete with cat, of course.
June-August 97---Sirius publishes ARMAGEDDONQUEST Trilogy.
Yaayy! Wheee!
Feb 98---3R Home Page goes online
---Almost all my creative work since the launch of this web site is to
be found here: stories, articles, travel notes, drawings, photos,
whatever; this is where I dump it all. Each new entry is chronicled on my
Updates Page, albeit in
backwards order, since the lastest Updates get put at the top of the list.