Uncle Jam 100

1 Uncle Jam Quarterly Volume 38 100 Winter 2011



available online at wingedtigercom

COVER ARTCover art by Joseacute Quintero

copyright 2011 Joseacute Quinterohttpwwwplanetabubanet

Uncle Jam Quarterly Issue 100 Vol 38 Winter 2011Copyright copy 2011 by Eastwind Studios - All Rights

Reserved All images copyright 2011 by respective artistswriters and photographers to cover the entire issue

Burr Jerger Stu Weiner1917 - 1982 1915 - 1985

Uncle Jam Quarterly is published whenever we getenough people in one room to do it usually once every

quarter by Eastwind Studios

Any similarity to any other publication living or deadis purely the fault of the other publication Single issuesare available by mail for $10 postage paid in the USASubscriptions are $20 for 4 issues in the USA Orderthrough our website wingedtigercom or send a check

to Eastwind Studios P O Box 750 San BernardinoCalifornia 92402 USA For ad inquiries please contactLindaAdams35yahoocom or call (909) 867-5605

philyehmaccomPlease support our advertisers who

made this publication possible

Phil Yeh~PublisherLinda Adams Yeh~Co-Publisher amp Editor

Linda Puetz Art Director Tom Luth amp Lieve Jerger~Assistant Art Directors

Frank Mangione-Vice-President Woodrow Tom Thompson~Senior Editor

Peggy Corum Veronica Lopez Debra Bemben Leah Fallon Sandy Cvar Barbara Corum~Copy Editors

Edmond Gauthier~ArchivistLim Cheng Tju~Asian Bureau Chief

Sarah Carvaines MPH RD~ Health EditorPJ Grimes~Music amp Health EditorJerome Poynton~Letters Editor

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS amp WRITERSTodd S Jenkins Stella DonnaGregg Rickman

Lim Cheng Tju Ken L Jones Terri Elders Matt LorentzJohn Weeks Rory Murray Roberta Gregory Miel

Jerome Poynton David SandsGreg Escalante Nick Cataldo He Shuxin

Herlinde Spahr Phil OrtizMike Wolf Jon J MurakamiLinda White MB Roberts

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERSLim Cheng Tju Lieve Jerger Tom Luth

David Sands Linda Adams Melina HeideBruce Guthrie David Folkman

Quarterly Volume 38 100 Winter 2011 This issue is a milestone for us in so many ways When we started this publication on November 5 1973 I was a 19 year old college student at Cal State University Long Beach We came out more or less monthly There was a two year period when we changed our name to Cobblestone (1975-77) and included Uncle Jam as an insert devoted to science fiction fantasy and comics We published Uncle Jam until 1990 when our Cartoonists across America amp the World tour began to take up more and more of my time We are still on the road but supposedly not at the pace we used to be In a few days Linda and I will fly to Israel where I am the guest of honor at the 2nd annual Haifa Comics Festival A wonderful Israeli cartoonist named Lee Blum whom I met at the Frankfurt Book Fair when I was a guest there in 2009 arranged our trip and for this we thank him Lee wanted me as guest for their first convention last September but we were already booked for a bus painting event for the 25th anniversary of Literacy Volunteers of Santa Fe so I guess we are still on the road a lot Speaking of anniversaries and milestones this issue is only a month off our 38th birthday and is the long awaited 100th issue To celebrate this special event we asked our old friend Joseacute Quintero to design a special cover We are rerunning an interview with Quintero one of Mexicorsquos best artists that originally ran in my Winged Tiger comic book series a few years ago We are also rerunning the classic last interview from the 1980s with noted Science Fiction Master Philip K Dick conducted by

Jerry Robinson (left) shown here in Mexico City at the Conque Comic-Con in the 1990s with Phil Yeh Joe Jusko and Sergio Aragones Robinson credited with creating The Joker while still a teen was also a champion of artistrsquos rights He is also credited with creating Robin Batmanrsquos sidekick Robinson was a champion of artistrsquos rights most notably in the case of Supermanrsquos creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shus-ter I was the first journalist to break the story of what had happened to these men in 1975 After we published the interview with Siegel in Uncle Jam it quickly gained the attention of the world leading

Robinson and fellow artist Neal Adams to work out a deal with Supermanrsquos publishers I told this story to Robinson in Mexico City and we became friends When he left comic books he had a very successful career in newspaper comics Robinson passed away on December 7 2011 He was 89

Dave Thorne with his fellow Hawaiian cartoonists in September 2011 In November Thorne was hospitalized for heart trouble and is now on the mend Thorne was interviewed in Uncle Jam 99 and aside from cartooning he is considered to be the ldquoYoda of Hawaiian Cartoonistsrdquo hav-ing taught many of the island residents for over 40 years and inspiring artists worldwide with his positive energy and his Aloha Spirit

continued on page 39



Uncle Jam When did you start to draw and how did you develop BubaJoseacute Quintero My hobby for drawing goes back to my early years when doodling on a piece of paper was a complementary part of the games I used to play with other children my own age Since I was about 4 or 5 years old I believed that somehow I would continue drawing even as a grown up so I experienced this as something quite natural I started drawing the Buba comic at age 17 inspired by my younger sister Ceci Since then and until now Buba has been published in newspapers magazines dossiers fanzines and in its own book Buba Volume 1 in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries

UJ Who influenced your styleJQ Although I would draw Wrestling Fighters and Superheroes when I was a kid it was in my teens when I began to define my style My influences have changed with time When I was a child I loved everything by Jack Kirby In my youth I was influenced by the works of Will Eisner Moebius and Robert Crumb In fact I baptized my comics as Buba Comix in honor of the underground movement in the 60rsquos Afterwards I was interested in the graphic work of the Mexican engraving artist Jose Guadalupe Posada More recently Irsquove followed the works of Mike Mignola Dan Clowes Peter Bagge and Tsutomu Nihei

UJ What do you recommend for a young artist

An Introduction to Jose Quintero

Uncle Jam Cuando comenzaste a dibujar y como surgioacute BubaJoseacute Quintero Mi aficioacuten por el dibujo se remonta hasta mis primeros antildeos de vida en los que pintarrajear sobre una hoja de papel era una forma de juego complementario a los juegos con otros nintildeos de mi edad Desde los cuatro o cinco antildeos intuiacutea que-alguna manera-seguiriacutea dibujando auacuten en la edad adulta asiacute que siempre lo tomeacute como algo muy natural Empeceacute a dibujar las historietas de Buba a los 17 antildeos inspiraacutendome in Ceci mi hermana menor Desde entonces a esta fecha Buba ha aparecido publicada en diarios revistas suplementos fanzines y un libro (Buba volume 1) en Meacutexico y algunos paiacuteses de habla hispana

UJ Quienes han influencado tu estiloJQ Aunque de nintildeo me la pasaba dibujando luchadores y despueacutes superheroes fue en la adolescencia donde

commence a definer mi estilo Mis influencias han cambiando con el paso del tiempo cuando era nintildeo me encantaba todo lo de Jack Kirby en la juventud me influencioacute mucho el trabajo de Will Eisner Moebius y Robert Crumb (bauticeacute a mis cartones ldquoBuba Coacutemixrdquo en honor al movimiento Underground de la deacutecada de los sesenta) Depueacutes me interesoacute la graacutefica del grabador mexicano Joseacute Guadalupe Posada y maacutes recientemente el trabajo de Mike Mignola Dan Clowes Peter Bagge y Tsutomu Nihei

UJ Queacute le recomendas a un joven atista para (continued on page 22) (continuado en la paacutegina 22)



Sonny Liew Wants To Be A RobotINTERVIEW WITH SONNY LIEW BY Cheng Tju Lim


Sonny Liew is a Malaysian-born comic artistillustrator based in Singapore He is best known for his work on Vertigo Comicsrsquo My Faith in Frankie together with Mike Carey and Marc Hempel and Marvel Comicsrsquo ldquoSense and Sensibilityrdquo adaptation Born in Seremban Malaysia Liew attended school at Victoria School and Victoria Junior College in Singapore He went on to read philosophy at Clare College in Cambridge University in UK and studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2001 His first foray into comic illustration was with Singaporean tabloid paper The New Paper in 1995 contributing a comic strip titled Frankie and Poo A compilation of the strips was published by Times Publishing in 1996 Shortly after his graduation from Rhode Island Liew met The Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont who was impressed by his portfolio of work Claremont not only showed him around the convention he also gave Liew his first break into the comics industry by letting him illustrate Iron Man for Marvelrsquos Marvel Universe Millennial Visions title His work has appeared in the Flight Anthologies edited by Kazu Kibuishi and he has served as editor of the Southeast Asian comics anthology Liquid City Volumes 1 and 2 from Image Comics He was nominated for an Eisner award in the pencilinginking category for his work on Slave Labor Graphics and Disneyrsquos Wonderland written by Tommy Kovac He is also the creator of Malinky Robot a Xeric Award recipient and winner of the ldquoPrix de la Meilleure BDrdquo (Comic Album of the Year) at the Utopiales International SF Festival in Nantes He was a recipient of Singaporersquos Young Artist Award in 2010

Uncle Jam How has life changed for you since winning the Young Artists

Award given out by the Singapore Government

Sonny Liew Welltherersquos the Award money sitting around somewhere but I havenrsquot really had a chance to think of a project to use it on Generally I guess it has raised my profile locally a bit which means more invites to take part in various art projects It was mostly nice to have my parents and granddad come along for the ceremony and meet the then-president of Singapore Mr SR Nathan see the Istana (the official residence of the President) Theyrsquove been supportive of my career choices itrsquos just one small way of giving back I guess

UJ You contributed to Secret Identities which celebrated Asian-American Superheroes Do you consider yourself an American artist (since the bulk of your work is published in USA) a Singaporean artist or a Malaysian artistSL I usually say Irsquom a Malaysian-born artist based in Singapore which is a factual statement On an emotional level Irsquove always felt a bit in-between a Causeway Kid My parents and my fatherrsquos side of the family live in Malaysia but I donrsquot speak much Malay beyond soccer terms like pass or shoot the ball I spent most of my time here but I never did National Service Not American though that would be a strange stretch Even if you think of it in terms of stories therersquos Frankie and Poo Chang amp Eng Maybe using an English first name has something to do with people sometimes assuming Irsquom an American-based creator In these days of the Internet FedEx and relatively cheap jet travel itrsquos maybe become less important where you come from - everybody has access to comics from the world over so your influences are going to be myriad


A couple of years back I was hospitalized for quite a time with a semi-serious illness My time in the hospital was very sterile and I seemed to make little progress After I was transferred to a care facility things improved The building itself was alive with artwork and everyone there was encouraged to create their own artwork write poetry and short stories and if they knew how to do it make music for everyone who was there I was amazed at how this approach improved my health and general attitude about life When Uncle Jam told me that they knew of a healer who was also an accomplished artist I became intrigued I was not disappointed when I was able to interview Theresa Von Ornum Hers is a most unique and well reasoned approach and I think you will find her as thought provoking as I did Ken L Jones

Uncle Jam Tell us a little bit about your life and timesTheresa Van Ornum Irsquom originally from Upstate New York up on the St Lawrence River Irsquom a middle child of 6 and had the good fortune of living in a rural area-lots of time in nature My mother was a nurse for over 40 years so women taking care of others seemed to be the way of things She was a hard-working humanitarian My father worked in the auto industry and was a very fine woodworker as a hobby He dreamed of retiring someday and being able to do his creative work full time but he never made it He died of cancer at age 60 I learned to not put off creativity and what you love for the ldquosomedayrdquo that may never come We moved to New Mexico in my early teens My mother was a severe asthmatic and required a change of climate Irsquom certain that spending those important formative years steeped in the rich artistic and diverse cultural mix of New Mexico had a huge influence on my creative work even now

Although I live and work in Redlands California now I travel back to Albuquerque and Santa Fe several times a year to recharge my Creative Spirit I moved to California in my mid-twenties I developed an interest in health practices like yoga and nutrition but did not pursue medicine until my fatherrsquos death It was then that I realized there was a need for people to be educated about how to live in a healthy manner that disease was something to be prevented not treated after the fact I decided that I wanted to go to medical school and began my premed studies knowing that I would be the kind of doctor that would help patients realize the full range of options that were available for health and well being My fatherrsquos only choices had been

WOMEN HEALING THE PLANET

Theresa Van Ornum


Theresa Van Ornum

Printmaker Photographer Mixed Media Artist

Redlands California and Albuquerque New Mexico

wwwvanornumworkscom

ldquoConsciousness Through Creative Processrdquo


Author Tim Powers is one of the most unique voices in American writing deftly weaving disparate elements of fantasy science and historical fiction into tales of suspense tension and dark humor One of the originators of ldquoSteampunkrdquo ndash a term created to describe the early Industrial Revolution-fantasy works of Powers KW Jeter and James Blaylock ndash he has evolved into a highly distinctive writer and gradually built a solid following since his emergence in the 1970s The recent success of Disneyrsquos fourth ldquoPirates of the Caribbeanrdquo film built loosely around some elements of Powersrsquo 1988 novel On Stranger Tides has catapulted the author further into the public spotlight Unlike many of his contemporaries who while away their hours in cramped apartments on big-city blocks Powers and his wife Serena are content with life on their little horse property in the dusty suburb of Muscoy California Itrsquos one of many aspects of Powersrsquo life that might come as a surprise to his fans ldquoThe virtue of Muscoy when we moved in the 1990s was that it was really cheap It probably is again now We were living in Orange County and when the landlady decided to take our apartment for herself we discovered that there was just nothing in Orange County that we could consistently afford Irsquom glad that we did move up here Now I just want to die of old age here I never want to move againhellip I like all the typical Muscoy stuff Everybodyrsquos got a whole acre you canrsquot really see much of anyonersquos yard If you have a non-working vehicle in your yard no one cares Things like thatrdquo Few of Powersrsquo works have taken place in that kind of bucolic setting only Earthquake Weather (1997) approaches a desert scenario that isnrsquot set in the long-distant past He prefers to dabble in urban or distant bygone settings usually with a keen eye to deep historical accuracy Powers loves to run continual threads through his stories recalling an element or two from past works in his current material to give a sense of universality and fabric to his fiction A Powers hallmark is his intense historical research which often recalls the accuracy and detail of George MacDonald Fraser The key difference is that having crafted a sturdy historically plausible background Powers will then up the ante a thousand percent by introducing elements of the occult and parapsychology into his tales He says ldquoFraser didnrsquot add the supernatural to his fiction Still Irsquod love to see what he would do with it if he did I love the Flashman books especially Flashman and the Great Game (1975) I think he crossed over into actual literature with that onerdquo Powersrsquo entry into the realm of historical fiction came as a sort of fluke ldquoBack in about 1975 or rsquo76 Roger Elwood who was running Laser Books at the time told me Jeter and Ray Nelson that he had a deal with Corgi Books in England to give them ten books about King Arthur being reincarnated throughout history He asked the three of us if wersquod be interested in writing some of them Jeter and I at least were young and inexperienced so we said lsquoSurersquo The project eventually fell apart and I think all ten books would have had one pseudonym for the author But before it fell apart each of us wrote a couple of books I wrote one set in 1529 in Vienna about the big siege when the Turks were attacking Europe Of course I had to do research for it and I discovered that research provides you with all kinds of free ready-made good stuff cuisine currency customs wonderful locales colorful

TIM POWERSSteampunk Psy-Fi and the Mechanics of Fantasy

By Todd S Jenkinscharacters just all kinds of great things that you therefore donrsquot have to make up So I thought lsquoWell letrsquos do this againrsquo ldquoAnother book I had written for the King Arthur series I busted up and

it became The Anubis Gates (1983 winner of the Philip K Dick Award) Again I used all the cool stuff that historical research could provide and Irsquove been doing it ever since Even in the more contemporary books like Last Call (1992) which took place in the here-and-now I still thought lsquoWell where does it take place Las Vegas Irsquoll research Las Vegasrsquo history It works so well with historical books Irsquoll try it with a contemporary storyrsquo And Vegasrsquo history turned out to be full of clues and neat stuff the directions for a plot ldquoGenerally whatever I do Irsquoll read up on the history of the place and the biographies of the people involved Irsquom looking for that kind of clue that little thing thatrsquos too cool not to use It depends on how much research yoursquore willing to do but I always find ten or twenty such things Then

when yoursquove found those the challenge is just to connect the dots Irsquove found it to be a real substitute for innate imaginationrdquo As mentioned Powers loves to recycle places people and things in his fiction Lord Byron the mythical Fisher King and a deck of tarot cards all figure into more than one of Powersrsquo tales He says ldquoTheyrsquore all the kinds of things I guess I didnrsquot use up along the way Espionage too it figured into Three Days to Never (2006) and therersquos still more that you can do with thatrdquo Powersrsquo upcoming 2012 novel Hide Me Among the Graves reflects his interest in the Romantic poets and how they might have lived in an alternate universe ldquoIt largely involves Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his sister Christina of course she wrote that great poem ldquoGoblin Marketrdquo I had been reading for entertainment about Dante Gabriel and I learned that when his wife committed suicide in his grief and guilt he laid his whole poetry manuscript notebook in the coffin with her and she was buried with it Then some years later a publisher told him lsquoIf you had a collection of poetry we could publish a bookrsquo So he said lsquoWell give me a couple of daysrsquo And he dug her up and retrieved his poems My idea for the story was what did he really dig her up for The poems were the excuse He either wanted to get something else or he wanted to put something else in ldquoI started reading widely about them their associates and London of the time (roughly 1862 to 1880) It turns out that the Rossettisrsquo uncle their motherrsquos brother was John Polidori who had figured in my book The Stress of Her Regard (1989) He was Byronrsquos physician who wrote an early book called The Vampyre (1819) The Rossettis also knew a guy named Edward John Trelawny who had also been a character in The Stress of Her Regard Of course he was very old when the Rossettis knew him So Hide Me Among the Graves turned out to be a fairly successful hopefully stand-alone sequel to Stressrdquo Another trademark of Powersrsquo fictional style is the heavy use of internal dialogue and psychological drama which doesnrsquot always translate well to film when the chance arises Many of Powersrsquo fans wondered how the supernatural pirate drama On Stranger Tides could be transformed to suit the world of Captain Jack Sparrow but Powers wasnrsquot all that concerned ldquoI figure itrsquos the job of the screenwriter to take a book and simply use it as raw material take out the bits that look good and glue them together with new

Serena and Tim Powers with Johnny Depp


glue If I was a screenwriter looking at Three Days to Never I would take say four things from the book scrap the rest and build a film around these four items ldquoI never figure a movie has much duty to resemble the book itrsquos based on That just seems so unrealistic to me Of course itrsquos different Of course it has a different theme Itrsquos a movie I can only think of a couple of movies that really reflect the books they were based on Maybe ldquoSilence of the Lambsrdquo and ldquoTo Kill a Mockingbirdrdquo If somebody were to tell me lsquoPowers I want to make a movie out of one of your books and itrsquos going to be an animated musical with singing chipmunksrsquo Irsquod say lsquoCool Fine tear it uprsquo ldquoIn the case of On Stranger Tides it was obvious that they couldnrsquot follow my book too much They had already established the Jack Sparrow character Barbosa and so forth so by definition they couldnrsquot use very much of my book But I was very pleased that they used the title and my name in the credits If people want to buy my book thinking itrsquos reflective of the movie thatrsquos fine by me By the time they find itrsquos not they will have already paid for it If I was to hear that someone was to make a movie from a favorite book of mine I might decide to rent it one day but I really wouldnrsquot expect to see the book in a different form now I would expect to see a movie that would have some similaritiesrdquo Early in Powersrsquo literary life he came into contact with one of Americarsquos most unique and influential science fiction writers Philip K Dick The two became associates while Powers was still in college at Cal State Fullerton and remained in contact for a decade until Dickrsquos death in 1982 Powers recalls ldquoI met him in 1972 when he flew down to Orange County from Canada That was toward the end of a very tumultuous dangerous period of his life He had abandoned his house in San Rafael in 1971 because his wife had left him and he opened his house to anyone who wanted to live there Those proved to largely be under-aged runaways who stole all his stuff and did drugs at his house The police were anxious for him to go away He was the guest of honor at a convention in Vancouver and when the convention was over he asked if he could stay lsquoIrsquove got nowhere to go Can you put me uprsquo That must have been disconcerting to the Con committee Eventually he attempted suicide up there then checked into a heroin rehab place ndash not that he was a heroin addict but he wanted close monitoring Then he wrote to a college professor at Fullerton and said he had nowhere to go The professor read the letter to his class and a couple of girls in the class said lsquoHey we just lost a roommatersquo Phil was so desperate and at ropersquos end that he agreed to it So he flew down I knew the girls and they asked if I wanted to go pick up Phil Dick at the airport I knew the name but hadnrsquot really read him at that point I thought lsquoYeah famous science fiction writer Irsquoll go alongrsquo ldquoHe only stayed with them for a few months because they only had a couch for him to sleep on and they expected him to buy all the groceries He eventually moved out with another guy roommate so he had his own room I really got to know him from then which was early 1972 until his death I knew him all through his last marriage the beginning and the end of it and when he was living in Santa Ana where KW Jeter and I were also living and Jim Blaylock wasnrsquot far awayrdquo Powers and several friends were the thinly veiled bases for characters in Dickrsquos 1981 spiritual-technological opus VALIS Powers says ldquoThe book is pretty autobiographical and accurate I was like many college students of the day keeping a journal When I look through the journal and look through VALIS I see a lot of accuracy He must have been keeping a journal himself if Phil says it was raining on a particular day I can pick up my journal and see that yes it really did rain on that dayrdquo In VALIS Powers becomes David the protagonistrsquos Roman Catholic friend who works in a tobacco shop ldquoMost of the discussions they have in the book we really did have At one point when the Redeemer is born again as a little girl he says something like lsquoDavid sort of zoned out and became

catatonic The Church had taught him how to do this how to dissociate himself when confronted with evidence that ran against orthodoxyrsquo After I read that I went to Phil and said lsquoPhil what the heck is that I never do thatrsquo And he just kind of giggled Then at one point one of the characters says to David lsquoWill you please not tell us what CS Lewis would say about this Just do us that one favorrsquo But I didnrsquot quote Lewis all that much But Jeter did have a cat that got run over by a car and he did consider it evidence against the existence of Godhelliprdquo Powers still holds Dick in high esteem and likes to dispel the long-standing rumors about his old friend ldquoAltogether as I think you can conclude from what he wrote in that time he was humorous skeptical not crazy The caricature is that he was this drug-addled madman who couldnrsquot leave his shabby apartment because thatrsquos where God talked to him In fact no he was in sound contact with all the people associated with Ridley Scott and the ldquoBlade Runnerrdquo film (based upon Dickrsquos famous tale Do Androids Dream

of Electric Sheep) He moved a lot he was going out with girls meeting lots of people and going to movies He wasnrsquot the sort of crazy hermit the caricature gives yourdquo The 1970s was an incredibly inspirational era for Powers and his friends ldquoIt was a very lively period Every Thursday my wife and I hosted a gathering of miscellaneous friends in our apartment in Santa Ana I would come home about 900 from the tobacco shop and bring a bunch of cigars Other people would bring Scotch and beer and wersquod just chat until about midnight when Irsquod throw everybody out Phil never drank any alcohol because he had three blocks to drive so hersquod drink Orange Crush all nightrdquo While Dick was a definite inspiration the young writers didnrsquot really approach him as a mentor figure Powers remembers ldquoJeter Blaylock and I were all frantically trying to get stuff published and we seldom asked Phil directly for advice or showed him what wersquod written But wersquod say lsquoOh Ballantine rejected my book I donrsquot know where to send it nextrsquo and Phil would say lsquoItrsquos just as well There are too many books in the world alreadyrsquo Actually he was very supportive Hersquod loan money at the drop of a hat We used to say you could call him up and say lsquoPhil Irsquove

been evicted I need $400 and someone to help me move my couchrsquo And Phil would say lsquoAll right Irsquoll be right over Who is thisrsquo He was actually very generous and kindrdquo Dick might have inspired some of Powersrsquo fascination with time travel which he has regularly explored in different dimensions within his books An especially unusual device in Three Days to Never manages to tie both Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein into the process and mechanics of time travel Powers says ldquoIt was all sort of indicated by the research Graumanrsquos Chinese Theatre really has apparently lost the Chaplin footprint slab He did it the same day that Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks did their prints but somehow they have misplaced Chaplinrsquos So I thought lsquoCool Irsquoll take itrsquo I kind of write fantasy by misunderstanding physics so Irsquoll refer to some physics effect or principle but since I donrsquot really understand it having been an English Lit major I just sort of torque it into the mechanics of fantasy ldquoThe difference between The Anubis Gates and Three Days to Never in terms of time travel was that in the first book you can travel back in time and do whatever you want but it will still turn out to have been what happened in the history of whatever world you left Yoursquore not going to be able to change history But in Three Days I said you could go to the past and essentially change it so that if you returned to your original present you would find it altered I deliberately wanted to do one book one way and the other book the other wayrdquo The psychological impact of time travel and parapsychological phenomena also plays a recurring role in Powersrsquo fiction although as with physics his imagination is more of a catalyst than any formal study ldquoI sort of bluff that I can bluff it plausibly but I havenrsquot really studied psychology and



Gregg Rickmanrsquos first interview with the late science fiction master Philip K Dick ran in the July 1981 issue of Uncle Jam We ran this second interview with PKD in Uncle Jam 57 May 1982 just before the opening of Blade Runner based on Philrsquos book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Phil passed away just two weeks after this interview was taped and never lived to see Ridley Scottrsquos film Our company at that time was called Fragments WestThe Valentine Press and we agreed to publish a series of books based on Rickmanrsquos interviews and his extensive research The books have long since been out of print but we have found a few copies that we have put up on our website wingedtigercom Rickman asked Roger Zelazny to write the foreword to the first book in the series Philip K Dick In His Own Words which was published in 1984 PKD in a letter to Rickman said ldquoOne day Irsquoll be gone and yoursquoll be there writing away and how Irsquom remembered and thought of will (I am convinced) depend to a great deal on how you specifically see merdquo For Rickmanrsquos second book Philip K Dick The Last Testament he got Robert Silverberg to pen the foreword and for his third book (the first part of his biography) To The High Castle Philip K Dick A Life 1928-1962 he asked Philrsquos friend Tim Powers to write the foreword We have an interview with Tim Powers in this issue of Uncle Jam talking about his own career and his friendship with PKD Philip K Dick never knew how much his writing would be celebrated long after his passing As we entered the 21st century some critics were saying he was the best writer of the 20th century Not just for science fiction but ALL WRITING period The well known cartoonist Robert Crumb wrote to us asking for permission to use some of Rickmanrsquos 2nd book Philip K Dick The Last Testament for his illustrated 8 page comic in Weirdo magazine

Philip K Dickrsquos Last Interviewby Gregg Rickman

(page 1 and 8 reproduced here) Hollywood continues to make films based on his work (The Adjustment Bureau Next Total Recall A Scanner Darkly Minority Report to name a few) These films are based on his novels for which he got paid very little and have grossed over a billion dollars Here then for this 100th issue of Uncle Jam is Philip K Dickrsquos Last Interview by Gregg Rickman The late Phil Dick was a friend of mine a friend I first made through his works and then in life Author of forty books best known for his science fiction universes of love pain and paradox Phil was also a reader and thinker of more than common perception and a human being deeply concerned with the fate of his planet It was the empathy he felt for the sufferings of the world that killed him finally He was a martyr to his love I spent eight hours with Phil last February 17th (1982) on the 18th he suffered a stroke He died painlessly two weeks later In the months I had known Phil I had seen him dwindle in strength but not of will --- though at our last interview he had made an apparent physical recovery from his exhaustion of November and December (1981) He had spent most of the day elaborating his fears and hopes for the future --- not his own career which was thriving as never before but the worldrsquos ldquoIt is the convulsions of (our) dying institutions that are plunging the world into war and famine and in their death throes they will pull the world down with themrdquo His final hope was an elaborate fantasy of Christrsquos imminent return where he propounded quite seriously for two hours and then turned around and argued against just as vehemently (This was Philrsquos normal creative method the sincere advocacy of several conflicting realities) In the last two months of his life he had become very interested in a small British-

Excerpts from Weirdo Magazine by Robert Crumb copy2011 Robert Crumb


based group which put out pamphlets supposedly dictated by ldquoMaitraya the Christrdquo inveighing against the disease and famine we watch comfortably on television ldquoThis crime fills me with shamerdquo The group believes that ldquothe Maitrayardquo is on earth and will soon make Himself known taking over from our incompetent rulers Said Phil in his advocate mood ldquoWhy single me out to speak to For a very interesting reason No one will believe me It is absolutely vital that two things be accomplished at the same time that appear to be contradictory That as many people as possible be told Maitraya the Christ has returned but that they be told by someone that has no authority whatsoever In no way can he back up prove or verify his claimsrdquo Phil saw the Maitraya as a realization of his lifelong struggle for hope against hope that children will be fed that the sick will be cared for In his own way he had done what he could donating much of his earnings to charities and (as I heard from his ex-wife Tessa after his death) sponsoring two poor childrenrsquos education and livelihood one in Mexico and one in Appalachia Philrsquos last days on earth were consumed with desire ldquoto render aid to those in needrdquo And he had a fantasy about one of our rulers meeting with justice ldquoMost of all I relish the thought of Ronald Reagan sitting down to sign some ghastly giant arms budget As our Glorious Leader sits down to sign some bill adding even more ghastly dinosaurs to our arsenal of evil and defunct weapons all of a sudden a voice says lsquoHi This is Yahweh and your ass is grassrdquo Thatrsquos my fantasy number ldquoAnd Reagan all of a sudden realizes that instead of signing this bill lsquoRonald Reaganrsquo he has signed lsquoDaisy Duckrsquo And after that he talks like Daisy Duck My fantasy number is that when the Fuhrer goes on television to alert us to the dangers of the Maitraya all we hear is Daisy Duck lsquoCause thatrsquos whorsquos really running this country now anyway a looned out version of Daisy Duck Itrsquos a rabid duck who runs this country And the Maitraya is going to come out on all frequencies and say lsquoHi Daisy Your quacking days are overrsquordquo Phil was fully aware how much his ldquoeager desire to see the entire world military establishment chopped up into dog kibblerdquo could be seen as taking off into dreamland But then fantasy had always been his province as a writer dreams nightmares terrors and wish fulfillment In a way he told me he was forced into writing science fiction back in the 1950s as no one would publish his straight literary novels and a decade before Tolkienrsquos mass audience success there was no market for literary fantasy (He did publish one fantasy the excellent and long out of print The Cosmic Puppets in 1957

One of his literary novels Confessions of a Crap Artist was published in his lifetime his last book coming out this June is a novel based on his friendship with the late Bishop James Pike The Transmigration of Timothy Archer Last October I asked Phil why he wrote science fiction ldquoBecause it gives me a chance to be crazy and get paid for it I can write real weird stuff about real weird people doing real weird things where people walk through walls and stuff Like Christ did at the end of the Gospels And give some pseudo-scientific explanation for it like theyrsquore all dead You canrsquot do that in a mainstream novel I can play with the universe like itrsquos silly putty That perfectly sums it up I love to play games with time-space causality Itrsquos my old interest in epistemology ldquoFor one thing I donrsquot really believe that the universe is real I donrsquot believe wersquore really sitting here I think wersquore brains yoked in tandem and wersquore being fed sensory-sight stimulations directly to the brain Theyrsquore writing down how we respond to various problems that ariserdquo ldquoWho are theyrdquo I asked ldquoWell I guess theyrsquore gods Theyrsquore good theyrsquore benign If they werenrsquot benign they would have executed us a long time ago as (Abraham) Maslow says But wersquore being tested And wersquore being tested in small matters Itrsquos not the big decisions that wersquore being tested on because there we know it We sense moral elements Itrsquos situations that are so small that we donrsquot even sense therersquos a moral element involved which is the real test I really believe this firmly Irsquom convinced of itrdquo He was which he wasnrsquot convinced about the ldquosensory-light stimulationrdquo notion an example of the typical Philip K Dick plot ideas hersquod toss off in conversations (a variant of which he used in Ubik) At this point he went on to tell of someone hersquod once known whorsquod driven an unwanted cat miles away from home and who when the cat turned up home a week later ldquowith the pads worn off its feetrdquo from walking--- ldquoI said lsquowhere is the cat nowrsquo lsquoOh we had it killedrsquo she said The fact that shersquod done something terrible didnrsquot even occur to herrdquo ldquoI feel wersquore being tested now all of us Where we donrsquot see any moral element is where the test comes Thatrsquos what we are going to find scored Theyrsquore going to shoot replays of those scenes on the screen What Irsquom really saying is that all life is a moral issue which is a very Jewish idea The Hebrew idea about God is that God is found in morality not in epistemology


As beloved as ldquoBlade Runnerrdquo has become in the science fiction community since its release in 1982 purists have long complained that Ridley Scottrsquos film was but a weak reflection of its original source material Philip K Dickrsquos 1968 magnum opus Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Die-hard fans of Dickrsquos fiction pointed out that too much of the storyrsquos meat and substance was hacked away in order to provide context for the wild disturbing relentless imagery of the film Others embraced it acknowledging that at least someone in Hollywood had recognized Dickrsquos genius and made an attempt to reflect his visionary style of fiction onscreen Now both Dickrsquos fan base and those who value visual elements in contemporary fiction have cause to rejoice Comic book artist Tony Parker a resident of Phoenix with a gift for gripping sci-fi and fantasy realizations has crafted a brilliant graphic-novel interpretation of Electric Sheep that is fully faithful to Dickrsquos original text but offers boldly original visual interpretations of the scenes First released as

ldquoDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep The Graphic Novelrdquo reviewby Todd S Jenkins

a set of twenty-four comic-book issues the whole project has now been published by Boom Comics as a six-volume set of quality graphic novels Parkerrsquos attention to detail and creative eye have resulted in a phenomenal reflection of Dickrsquos dystopic vision mirroring all the violence the tension the expansive scope of the story and its setting The way he balances the humanness and mechanicality of the androids is nothing short of brilliant and his interpretation of characters like Rick Deckard and Buster Friendly is revelatory drawing us deep into their personalities (or in Friendlyrsquos case the lack thereof) The artwork is unfailingly modern and unsentimental a perfect style to match the spirit and tone of the book Each volume of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep includes an insightful essay specially written by one of Dickrsquos associates including Tim Powers Gabriel McKee and James Blaylock As the authors offer their own reminiscences of Dick and interpretations of the story and its history the universe of PKD becomes a little more palpable to the reader This series is a must-have for fans of Dickrsquos work and for science fiction enthusiasts everywhere f


The lower middle class is full of artists We are rappers selling mix tapes to buy California burritos and weed We are writers and poets buying refills of coffee and lingering in cafes for hours We are graphic designers and painters We are also students parents and blue-collared workers mdash although many of us donrsquot have typical jobs so we wander around San Diego on busses and trolleys looking for cheap and better yet free thrills We are the reason thrift store shopping is cool We are the new lost g e n e r a t i o n barely a step above the transients On any given night there are between 4 and 6 people sleeping on the couches beds and air mattress in my apartment These are artists passing through poor but making the most of nearly nothing As an only child I had a hard time adjusting to the constant barrage of people But as an artist I enjoy the gregariousness of lonerdom When Irsquom overwhelmed with people I retreat to my bedroom and eavesdrop on my neighbors sometimes drawing inspiration Either that or Irsquoll grab my headphones and walk for hours sometimes acknowledging society sometimes carefully ignoring it As I strut up and down hills along the beaches and through parks and parking lots I mostly fantasize about traveling the world making music and finding the brilliant minds of our generation Itrsquos actually an obsession which can be a healthy thing when channeled properly At least I hope so I prefer not to think of the consequences for my actions just yet I also think about my band and what wersquore working with The formula is simple very different from the electro-organic sound of my upcoming EP ldquoThe Ravenrdquo Itrsquos bass electric guitar and drums maybe a keyboardist in the near future Wersquore currently working on material for our first album My idea is to create a primitive raw sound with underlying sophistication so that you canrsquot help but pay attention to the blues and soul that sway with my split ends Swagger is what it is Some songs are tales and bits of personal experiences Others are fictional stories blending what Irsquove observed with what I made up ldquoMama Wants Revengerdquo the first song the band recorded together is exactly about what the title alludes to I donrsquot have any kids but nothingrsquos better than a good olrsquo tale of revenge so I had to write it Plus itrsquos fun as hell to play Back to the band JT plays guitar Hersquos an animeacute junkie with whom I used to scour open mic nights I met Andy the bassist through a mutual friend Hersquos always smiling Wes AKA ldquoMonrdquo plays the drums We met him recently through Craigslist He said he once saw JT and I perform at Rebeccarsquos a coffee shop in South Park and was all about it Whatrsquos cool is that wersquore all so different but ended up spending hours together in a tiny room making all kinds of ruckus As for the EP Irsquove been working on that sucker for more than a year with some

S T E L L A D O N N AS t r u g g l e s o f a 2 1st C e n t u r y A r t i s t

by Stella Donnagreasy cats I met here in San Diego at Classified Recording Studios Pacific Beach We must have recorded around fifty songs whittling it down to seven tracks that define my obsessions for the past several years The music is inspired by ldquoghetto-tivityrdquo like a child playing with makeshift toys utilizing the full

potential of them It was also a learning process an e x p e r i m e n t with melodies rhythms and b a - b a - b a -bass T h e hardest part of finishing the EP is finding a day where I love all the songs For the most part Irsquove teetered back and forth between love and hate with each of them

Sometimes Irsquom embarrassed that a certain song sounds too ldquopoppyrdquo or a melody is too repetitive But there are a million things I can say to negatively dissect each of them Sometimes itrsquos like ldquodid I make thatrdquo I listen to the songs and get chills because I decided to create art and there it is Itrsquos probably like that for a lot of artists Wersquore extremely confident cocky even but everyone at some point second guesses himherself Itrsquos part of what helps us grow Progression is dynamic Who would want to be static The question helps us decide whether or not wersquore cut out to continue pursuing this incredibly uncertain field or if wersquove got the guts to keep dusting our shoulders off To be me in this generation is to dwell among those who donrsquot make a standard ldquoliving wagerdquo We are only comfortable because we donrsquot need much and we arenrsquot jaded yet We are a sub-category of the working class except we lean towards work that isnrsquot immediately rewarding Wersquove been fortunate enough to know a community of artists who often help each other for free but getting paid would be great too Irsquom not gonna lie Many of us have bits of education here and there Combined we make a masterrsquos degree Separate wersquore a whole bunch of trade certifications For most of us itrsquos only a matter of time before our dreams shrivel up and we succumb to the reality of life But for now we create art therefore we are Letrsquos hold on to that for as long as we can For the ones who make it whatever that means yoursquore my favorite kind of underdog ldquoThe Ravenrdquo should be fully mixed and mastered by early 2012 You can find the songs on my Website wwwstelladonnacom where there are links for purchase I also plan to release the EP on CD Baby which is where you can order a hard copy A tour is in loose discussion and we hope to be on the road by next summer Palabra For questions email questionsstelladonnacom

Songs on ldquoThe Ravenrdquo Freeze Frame Nerd Party Road Trippinrsquo Stella Donna Simple Things Time The Art of Being Lonely f


That is where the Almighty exists in the moral area It just isnrsquot that the Hebrew monotheism ethics developed directly from God ---thatrsquos not it God and ethics are so interwoven where you have one you have the otherrdquo ldquoI will not be scored you will not be scored on being smart We will not be scored on any thing that works towards our survival Smart ultimately means doing the thing for survival Itrsquos going to be some moment that we donrsquot even rememberrdquo Phil went on to tell of a time when he ran over or thought he ran over a cat on the way home from a supermarket ldquoI knew in a moment that Irsquod been judged A judgment flag had gone down in heavenrdquo He held himself responsible for the presumed death of the cat even though it was the cat that had run under his car and that hersquod only had a split second to swerve into some parked cars to possibly avoid it He went back ldquoin shockrdquo and searched for it ldquoAll I could do was somehow erase a number of the bad karmic points I had acquiredrdquo It was very characteristic of Phil to take blame and troubles on himself that way he had a real identification with the suffering Christ on the cross a painting of which he kept on his wall (He also had a great love for cats which could be seen in the great weight of his two cats and the care he took brushing them) It was this assumption of anguish that burned him out even while he was able to use his extraordinary mind ---his wit his depth of knowledge and penetrating intelligence---to light fires to hold back the darkness The above transcription of Philrsquos conversation also gives some idea of the way Phil turned every topic to his consuming interests in religion and philosophy Phil said he had no religious training as a child at all but did have an extraordinary experience when he was eight years old that qualifies as his first ldquovisionrdquo---the first of several key visions in his life ldquoI had a religious experience about a beetle I was tormenting once when I was in the third grade that I suffered as I do and felt as I do and wished to live as I do Whereupon I ceased tormenting not just beetles but all creaturesrdquo Phil had felt complete empathy with the beetle that he was in its place The theme of caritas empathy caring became very important in Philrsquos work to the point where several of his most important books (like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep being released as the film Blade Runner this summer) are very largely concerned with this subject One of his last short stories concerns a man on an inner-stellar voyage who kills the shipboard cat in a fit of pique and is condemned by the aliens he trades with to spend the next several light years on the return voyage wide awake with nothing but cat kibble to eat One flavor In our first interview in April 1981 Phil talked about how he first became interested in philosophy ldquoI remember the incident Itrsquos a stupid one But it shows you what life is built of---the Great Design hinges on these sorts of things I was working at this radio repair shop during World War IIhellipthis right after the war in 1946 or 7 I was going to high school One of the salesmen and I were in the truck We were bringing back somebodyrsquos giant radio-phonograph which we had fixed We were stopped at a stoplight And this salesman turns to me he says lsquoSee that light What color is itrsquo I says lsquoredrsquo He says lsquoNow I say itrsquos red too but what you see that you call red may be something different from what I see and call redrsquo I said lsquoBut we both call it redrsquo He says lsquoYes but you may see as green what I call red and vice versarsquo I thought Jesus hersquos right Therersquos no way you can prove it ldquoHe said lsquoHow would you prove we both see the same colorrsquo I said lsquoI have no idearsquo Most amazing idea I ever thought of Fantastic I was just in high school toordquo From such incidents are careers made Phil spent his life questioning reality and searching for the elusive proof of cosmic justice and mercy Given the pain that he saw (and it must be said sought out) his efforts to assert reality of a just and merciful God can stand as heroic Even as it culminated in the phantasmagoria of the Maitrayarsquos imminent arrival Phil kept the core of his sanity intact behind the armor of his love (generalized and specific) for mankind Quite frankly rather worried about the depth of Philrsquos commitment to

Dick continued from page 12



the paranormal much The idea of meeting oneself at a different age the idea that the two would be very different because of changes that the older one had undergone I got from Robert Heinlein specifically his short stories Bootstraps and All You Zombies in which he just tied characters into pretzels with time travel I think that was everybodyrsquos inspiration every time travel story after Heinlein had to acknowledge the odd possibilities he pointed outrdquo If Tim Powers could travel through time once he says ldquoI think I would go to 1946 that is right after World War II I like the late 1940s and 50s Irsquod buy up a bunch of Arkham House books and Irsquod have a tremendous science fictionfantasy collection And Irsquod love the advantage of being able to just enjoy the period without worrying about the threat of atomic bombs and nuclear war the way they all were then It would be comfortable enough They had decent record players although they didnrsquot have stereo yet Dentistry was acceptable It wouldnrsquot be too primitive And you could smoke anywhererdquo Multiple personality disorder another deep treasure trove of plot interest and character development took center stage in Powersrsquo Earthquake Weather ldquoThat was fun I really loved dealing with that Janice Cordelia Plumtree character For that one I did read heaps of books on multiple personality disorder or whatever they call it now That was such an intrinsically fascinating situation that I would probably use it again sometime You can actually read about cases where this person gets falling-down drunk with slurred speech and all then a fresh personality emerges thatrsquos sober But you think lsquoWhat the hell Yoursquove got the same bloodstreamrsquo It was full of wonderful effects for me to take and use for my own purposesrdquo ldquoPirates of the Caribbeanrdquo wasnrsquot Powersrsquo first chance at seeing one of his works made into film though it was the first one to be fully realized and released ldquoA guy has been optioning Last Call for years but they just jumped to a new stage of it Irsquom optimistic The guys in charge both seem to know what theyrsquore doing Itrsquos a huge gamble People say lsquoWow yoursquove had a book optioned for the movies Whenrsquos it going to come outrsquo And yoursquore

Powers continued from page 10 like lsquoWhoa slow down Optioned doesnrsquot by any stretch mean a movie But Irsquod like to see them scorehellip Until the movie actually starts filming which is when they actually purchase it itrsquos best not to think about it Spend the option money but donrsquot anticipate anything further Yoursquod go crazy if you

tried to pin your hopes on those thingsrdquo Powers is still giving thought to his next project and offered some teasers ldquoThe next one looks like it will be in the 20th century possibly with some hooks in the 21st century It might be based in the 1950s Irsquom reading a bunch of things associated with that period and looking for the little bits to put a plot together And right now it looks like it might involve time travel again I donrsquot know why I keep coming back to that There are so many interesting potential situations You can have a guy confront his older or younger self and get in a disagreement you could have a guy go back to the same event but be standing in a different place and get a different interpretation of it Time travel lets you put characters through a bunch of different stresses that the mainstream just doesnrsquot have the mechanics for You can make it sound scientific make it sound magical itrsquos a very wide open areardquo One thing readers wonrsquot find in Powersrsquo writings at least not intentionally is any timely sociopolitical references He says ldquoI was just at WorldCon and mentioned that I never have lsquosomething to sayrsquo in my fiction I never consciously try to comment on any current political or social issues I always find it very jarring when Irsquom reading a book about characters in a particular situation then I realize lsquoWait this is a commentary on the Iraq war or Obamarsquos health care planrsquo If you want to write

about these things then write about them But donrsquot give me a science fiction or fantasy story thatrsquos covertly about these things ldquoIf people ask me what something is lsquoreally aboutrsquo I just tell them itrsquos a supernatural adventure with no commentary beyond that If you find something like that then I would be interested in seeing it but it wonrsquot be something intentional There are lessons sure ndash honesty is nicer than dishonesty things like that ndash but if I want to change the world in print I write letters to the editor for that Itrsquos terrible to be timely Irsquod rather be timelessrdquof

Winged Tiger and Patrick Rabbit T-ShirtsDrawn by Phil Yeh

Hand silk-screened by SCULLIN IMAGESWinged Tiger Black ink on orange Patrick Rabbit Master of Origami

black and red ink on beige Available in menrsquos womenrsquos ampchildrenrsquos sizes

Specify size and styleChildrenrsquos medium ~large

Womenrsquos small~medium~ largeMenrsquos medium~large~extra large

Send check or money order to Eastwind Studios bull PO Box 750 bull San Bernardino California 92402Or order online at wwwwingedtigercom

T-shirts $20 each postage paid


Uncle Jam Your new series Farmers amp Mercenaries-book one of the Genesis of Oblivion Saga- was a 2009 Moonbeam Young Adult Fantasy Award Winner for Excellence in Literature and was also named Dragon Roots Magazinersquos best new fantasy series in the same year How important are these awards to a writerDrake Awards are a wonderful form of validation It is an independent group of people reading a large selection of books from a specific genre and then choosing what they feel are the best of the group In the case of a larger award

like the Moonbeam Awards you have my book going up against a hundred or so other fantasy books To have them say that my book is one of the best they have read helps me in several ways Yes it is a wonderful boost to my ego ndash there is no doubt about that but more important to me it helps my potential readers I have noticed that readers no longer trust authors And I get that There are a bunch of books out on the market that probably should not be there With as busy a world as we live in nobody has time to waste reading a bad book When you take the great fan reviews this series gets and the wonderful professional critique reviews then add in a few national awards for good measure it all helps to build the confidence of a potential new reader that reading my stuff will be enjoyable for them They do not have to take my motherrsquos word that her son is a good writer

UJ The second novel in this series Mortals amp Deities was also highly reviewed What feedback are you getting from readers and do you consider their ideas as you writeDrake Yes the second book Mortals amp Deities is doing really well In fact it just won a 2011 Moonbeam Young Adult Fantasy Award for Excellence in Literature My favorite thing about Mortals amp Deities is that it showcases how much I have learned and grown as an author since the release of Farmers amp Mercenaries Farmers amp Mercenaries was good and it has won several awards and received great reviews ndash but it was my first major publication I made some mistakes Nothing major but to me nothing I want to repeat It is amazing how much you learn about the craft of writing going through the nearly year-long process of editing a manuscript for professional release The publisher has an AMAZING editing staff that taught me SO much while working on Farmers amp Mercenaries Mortals amp Deities benefited from all that gained writing knowledge With the release of book three Dreams amp Nightmares I feel I have finally arrived I am really proud of how much I have grown as a writer over these past five years As to listening to the fans I am amazed at the amount of fan mail and fan comments that I receive I cannot tell you how many times I was blown away while reading a fan email where a fan told me they had figured me out and they knew where the story was heading I have received some amazingly great ideas ndash all of which have been wrong ndash but still some amazing ideas The problem with trying to figure out where this story is heading is that until you get to the end of Mortals amp Deities the reader is missing one key element The first two books are lies Now not lies as in ldquoLet me tell you a story then change everything without reasonrdquo The first two books are 100 true to the best knowledge of the main characters It is just that the main characters are clueless of how deep the rabbit hole actually goes That is how I like to tell stories I hate reading a book that opens with the villain ranting about their plans and what they are going to do to the world Then switch to the heroes and the reader passively follows them to an end they have already seen because the villain told them in the opening chapter I like to tell a story where the readers know only what the characters know When the main characters

Maxwell Alexander DrakeUncle Jam profiles by Phil Yeh---

discover that everything they believed was wrong the readers learn this at the same time To me that is great storytelling In fact the first time I ever write in the villainrsquos perspective is in the opening chapter of book three Dreams amp Nightmares

UJ Genesis of Oblivion is a six novel series with as we understand it the third book coming out this December How much time does it take you to create this whole saga Drake It is an ambitious project for a first-time author and I am grateful to the publisher Imagined Interprises Inc for taking the chance with me When it is all said and done with the six novels and at least a dozen short stories this series will top out at over 1000000 words And that is before I write the planned three-novel prequel that takes place 4000 years before this series All of that is a ton of work I am lucky in the fact that this series has been successful enough for me to be a full-time writer So five days a week I can peck away at the future volumes and still have time to promote and do conventions on the weekends Still the process of creating a novel is longer than most people realize When I first broke into this industry I had both large and small publishers interested in this series The large ones said ldquoWe will sign you and have this to market in four to five yearsrdquo One of the main reasons I went with the small house of Imagined Interprises Inc is that they said they would get the book to market in about two years Both of these seemed ridiculous to me Two to five years to get a book that is fully written out to market That seemed like crazy talk Now I sing a different tune Now I am like ldquoYou think we can get this to market in just two years Are you nutsrdquoThere is a TON of stuff that must happen after the book is written And for those of my fans who have been following this series they know the pain Farmers amp Mercenaries was released a few months



Liew continued from page 7

UJ Are you a Singapore citizen yetSL Ha-ha not yet but Irsquove thought about it especially after the last General Election in Singapore (May 2011) Just a feeling of wanting to be more involved

UJ Who has helped you the most to break into the comics industrySL I would have to say David Mazzuchelli who taught a class at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) when I was there Growing up in Singapore it was never clear how you went about becoming involved in comics No artists or studios to join as an apprentice no comics publishers to send your work to no conventions to show your portfolio at Well there was Mr Kiasu and the Comix Factory but they never expanded beyond that one title David was the first person I met who knew the ins and outs of things - both in the mainstream and alternative comics fields The classes were theory laden - panels structure text-image interaction but he was also full of practical advice It was on his advice that I went to my first San Diego Comic-Con and he put a good word in for me with Karen Berger at Vertigo as well

UJ Which comicrsquos companywritercharacter would you like to work onwith nextSL Well my wish list of writers is mostly based on stuff I grew up reading a lot of the British creators who worked with 2000 AD Grant Morrison Alan Grant Garth Ennis For the same reasons Irsquove always wanted to do a story for 2000 AD just a Future Shock perhaps But theyrsquove always ignored by emails for the most part Irsquove no idea what I need to do to get work there Getting to do something Batman related would be great he and Spidey are probably my favorite superheroes as they are for most

UJ Ray Bradbury just turned 91 on 22 August Malinky Robot won the Best Science Fiction Comic Album at the Utopiales International SF Festival What is the future offor science fictionSL Itrsquos always going to be around I guess - human beings canrsquot stop imagining their futures I canrsquot say Irsquom the biggest sci-fi fanreader Despite watching Star Wars Star Trek The Next Generation Blade Runner and Doctor Who many times over Irsquove only read a small splattering of classic or contemporary sci-fi with just a vague awareness of different movements within the genre So any Big Thoughts on sci-firsquos future would escape me I donrsquot think wersquoll ever run out of or lose interest in stories about robots time travel and alien invasions theyrsquore all just ways of reflecting ourselves after all and wersquore such a self-involved lot

UJ Malinky has been translated into French and Italian When is the Malay and Chinese versions coming outSL Ha-ha no idea Saya Tak Tau (Malay for lsquoI donrsquot knowrsquo) UJ How has studying Philosophy at Cambridge University helped you in your thinkingwritingdrawingSL I had a lot of adolescent questions about everything in the world when I went to college Religion Meaning Political Organization All big woolly issues hard to get a handle on Philosophy I guess helped clarify them a little - if not providing actual answers at least helping frame the questions better Standing on the shoulders of all those geniuses and all that But I donrsquot think the philosophical ideas I read at Cambridge ever directly made their way into any of the comics Irsquove done Though maybe in a looser sense when I was drawing the Frankie and Poo comic strips I did for The New Paper I

needed new ideas all the time so just about everything I read or saw seeped into the comics at some level Academic philosophy is its own rarefied world though and any comic derived from it would be very different from the kind that I do The Malinky Robot comics for example are much more slice-of-life stories and if anything from my Cambridge days did have an impact on them it would probably have been more about the texture of experiences

there Maybe if I did Kramerrsquos Ergot style art comics it would be a different story but thatrsquos not quite happened yet

UJ Is there a story which you would want to write but would like to get another artist to draw Which artistSL Hmm never really thought about it Irsquove always seen myself on the art end of things at the very least Just writing a script That seems odd somehow An evasive sort of answer would be Seth Fisher just because that would mean that he was still with us and drawing his incredible comics

UJ What is the obsession with robotsSL Everybody loves robots Ha-ha well on one level itrsquos a visual thing - robot shapes proportion and anatomy give you more freedom than most

things you draw Therersquos also the whole reflection of humanity aspect Or the idea that objects could acquire sentience Maybe at the end of the day itrsquos mostly about the fantasy of interacting with things that are like us yet not-us Robots zombies aliens vampires - therersquos an otherliness to all of them yet with a human spark that makes them fascinating

UJ What is with the move into the fine arts Does it pay better make you more famous among the high societySL Paintings Irsquove always been interested in them Thatrsquos one of the reasons why I went to art school in the first place I did a lot of them in school and when I graduated from RISD the hope was always to balance the comics and the paintings Itrsquos tilted much more to the comicsrsquo side I guess but I still try to paint whenever I get the chance I used to say that the comics tend to be more commercially driven and the paintings more personal but that seems to misstate the point All art has to communicate in some way otherwise itrsquod be too solipsistic and indulgent Maybe better to say that paintings communicate differently Though I like to include comic tropes and symbols in the paintings itrsquos a different medium and I think moving from one to the other and back gives me room to explore different possibilities Irsquom happy if people do want to buy the paintings hopefully for the right reasons since it means I get more opportunities to paint and get the works seen But the art market has its own idiosyncrasies with muddier waters than comics perhaps so that aspect Irsquom not always comfortable with

UJ Are you richSL Itrsquos all relative

UJ Tell us more about your next project on the 1st Chinese superheroSL Gene Yang discovered this Chinese-American superhero character from way back when and decided to continue his exploration of Chinese-American identity by telling his version of the characterrsquos origins Wersquod worked on a short story for Secret Identities before as mentioned so for various reasons thought itrsquod be fun to collaborate together again Aside from


that I guess Irsquod never thought about my own Asian identity much when I was in Singapore I think when yoursquore part of the ruling majority race you just tend to take everything for granted The times in the US and UK though made me more aware of how things could be very different Drunken college kids shouting ldquoChinky Chongrdquo when they drove past you a general sense of being variously more invisible or more noticeable due to skin colour So I did explore some of those identity issues in artworks in RISD and even made Jeriven in My Faith in Frankie into an Asian god It never really became an obvious part of the story because that was never really one of Mikersquos concerns but I guess Irsquom just saying there is some natural progression from all that to me working on this project with Gene

UJ For years you have been trying to build a community of comicrsquos artists in Singapore How successful have you been Were you a founding member of ACAS (Association of Comic Artists Singapore)

SL Hmm Itrsquos been a long road and still a ways to go yet I remember in the early days putting up posters at comic and book stores inviting artists to submit works for a comicrsquos anthology That never got beyond the wishful thinking stage but I guess Liquid City years later was the same sort of project - an attempt to create a platform for artists to work together and know each other better to have material more readily available for readers Over time I guess wersquove slowly built up some sort of loose community here Ties with book stores like Kinokuniya and Planerds working with the STGCC (Singapore Toy Game and Comic Convention) organizers to make

sure therersquos a local presence at the convention meeting once in a while with fellow creators to talk about how to make things better Measuring success is tricky though you could argue that strictly in financial terms therersquos not yet been anything on the local scene thatrsquos really been Big Still again itrsquos all relative and I think we are further down the road than we were say ten years ago Panels at the Singapore Writerrsquos Festival books on display at stores National Arts Council of Singapore recognition even Small but cumulative steps I hope I was an ACAS member when it was first founded I think it was a bit of a premature entity at the time though - there needed to be a more substantial body of local work and creators before something like ACAS would make sense Are we closer to that today I think so though a looser collective is probably still easier to handle at this stage than something as official as a Singapore Association ACAS under Jerry Hinds is forging its own path different from the one others are taking perhaps but at the end of the day we are all trying to help the industry here get better

UJ You have done adaptations Which novelnon-fictionphilosophy book would you like to turn into a comic bookSL John Gardnerrsquos Grendel UJ Complete these sentences Comics are important becauseSL Everything is important Diversity becomes us and we all try to make a space for our own particular loves and likes

UJ The future of comics lies inwithSL Good Storytelling Or possibly China

UJ If I were not a comicrsquos artist Irsquod beSL Painting more possibly f

wwwsonnyliewcom

Malinky Robot Bicycle (cover)


surgery and chemotherapy and no one ever spoke of any other therapies or practices I wanted to do it differently Then one day I was invited to an open house at an Acupuncture school in Los Angeles I thought it would be an interesting way to spend an afternoon but when I entered the building I was completely overcome by a knowing that I belonged exactly in that place I had no choice in the matter When people ask me why I chose Acupuncture I say ldquoI did not choose it it chose merdquo Irsquove been in private practice in Redlands now for 25 years and it continues to be interesting and exciting to me even after all these years

UJ Which came first your interest in art or your interest in healing and do you think there is an intimate connection between art and healingTVO Art and healing are not really two separate things therefore I cannot say which I was interested in first Irsquove always been one to freely indulge in creative expression Dance gardening arrangement of environments writing storytelling creativity is a way of life for me it is our most natural way of being When we are deprived of full creative expression we become ill over time Instead of saying art and healing letrsquos instead use the words creativity and wholeness We can only be whole and well through expression of our creative impulses and ideas Creativity and wholeness are our birthright When we are not creative we lose our connection to Self and Soul I believe that is the basic source of illness We lose touch with our creativity and indulge in overworking overeating We dull ourselves with continuous entertainment engage in superficial relationships our entire way of life becomes a grasping for things in our external world to fill the emptiness that we feel to sooth the illness that has resulted from the disconnection This is most prevalent in Western culture By the way the United States leads the world in instances of cancer heart disease diabetes and many other degenerative diseases The crisis in our present state of health is really a crisis resulting from disconnection from our creative expressive nature Irsquod like to quote one of my most influential teachers Deepak Chopra who says ldquoHealing is the return of the memory of wholenessrdquo When we become more and more ill over time if we become so disconnected from ourselves that we cannot remember what it was like to be well how can we possibly get back there How can we be whole again Drug therapy and surgery have their place but they only address symptoms (often not very effectively) My job as I see it is to help my patients remember who they are to find the spark the life force that theyrsquove lost along the way I help them to find joy through rediscovering what they love about themselves and their lives To rediscover onersquos creativity is to learn to live again and to live fully Is there a connection between healing and art Absolutely Healing is an art and creative expression leads to healing

UJ Do you think that most women are better at providing medical care to people who require it than men areTVO Not at all Providing care of any sort requires compassion and a sense of caring about others Healing arts are practiced effectively by both sexes I have known many men over the years who are very good acupuncturists chiropractors massage therapists psychotherapists Two of the practitioners working in my office are men Now that I think about it over the years I have personally seen more men than women for my own personal therapy A desire to serve can be present regardless of gender I would never make such a generalization anyway about who is better men or women

UJ Do you think that giving therapy and healing is an art form in itself and requires an imaginative approach to do it correctlyTVO Absolutely We all regardless of the field in which we are trained receive the basic information required by the overseeing agencies The curriculum is set and we all get the training necessary whether we are medical doctors practitioners of Chinese medicine or whatever our chosen field Once we receive the licenses and documents needed to begin

practicing the real challenge of doing the work and finding our way begins One might even say that this is the point at which our real education begins Our patients then become our teachers Each case is different each visit different Outcome is seldom what is anticipated there are always surprises

What we must learn most of all is to be completely present to each person in each moment Letting go of expectations detaching from outcome listening with open hearts and being in the process of what is actually happening We do not ldquodordquo the healing We become the instrument of the healing process It requires intuition and willingness to be open We cannot make healing happen We must allow it Self importance has no place here The patient and I are a team and together we do the work This is why I never call myself a healer The healing comes from something much greater The real art is in the letting go and allowing while I choose the correct acupuncture points and share whatever wisdom I have to offer Healing is a process a conversation something we move toward

UJ Do you think that both creating art and being a good healer require a certain mental attitude and a certain spiritual mentality

TVO I donrsquot think that engaging in art-making or healing work requires a spiritual mindset I believe that they both rather lead you to a spiritual mindset It becomes clear to an effective practitioner or artist that something greater than ourselves is working through us We may begin from ego and intention but very quickly something else takes over This is why I feel that healing work and creative work are so intimately related and that one can certainly lead to the other

UJ Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with our audience You have given us much to think about TVO Yoursquore welcome f

Van Ornum continued from page 8

Night Wanderer by Theresa Van Ornum


late No one noticed because it was the first book and no one had ever heard of me Mortals amp Deities was also released a few months late much to the chagrin of the thousands of fans who pre-ordered it And unfortunately the third book Dreams amp Nightmares is not going to make the December 2011 release date either III just announced that Dreams amp Nightmares will now be released in April of 2012 It is just a few extra months and I hate that it has happened but there is just so much that can go astray with a project of this size and cause it to be delayed And with Dreams amp Nightmares I think everything that could have delayed the project DID delay the project Luckily for me my fans are very loyal So even with all the thousands of copies pre-sold we have not received one single cancelation A few emails containing some low growls and moans but everyone is so excited to get into book three no one is willing to jump ship which I am immensely proud of

UJ We heard that you had a very good crowd for your workshop at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con Can you give our readers a brief idea of what you talk about especially to new writersDrake One of the things I started doing while writing book two Mortals amp Deities was to take all the knowledge I had gained about the craft and create some writing classes It was a way for me to give back to the industry for the opportunities I had received I had been giving the classes all over the country for about a year when Comic-Con (the largest convention of any type in the US) called me up and asked me to do one for them I was both honored and completely terrified They put me in a room that held 506 chairs Now while this is one of their smaller rooms I am not that well known as an author So I was thinking I could fill at least six of those chairs But I knew the room was going to feel AWFUL empty And that is what terrified me An empty room staring back at me would simply validate that I was not well-known enough to have my own session at Comic-Con On my way to the room on the morning of the class my fears were stoked to a new high as I passed other sessions already in progress that had perhaps 50 attendees I thought to myself that if I could have at least 50 I would be fine I walked into what I ldquothoughtrdquo was my room but there were about 200 people already waiting So I kicked myself for being a nervous fool walked back out of that room (it was obviously not the room I was teaching in) and asked the nice attendant to direct me to the correct room He just looked at me kind of funny and pointed me back to the room I had just vacated That is when I looked at the sign out front and saw my name A little impressed as well as stunned I returned to the room I looked at the 200+ faces and said ldquoYou all do realize that Bruce Campbell is speaking at the same time as me right Hersquos not speaking in this room but one down the hallrdquo (I am a huge Bruce Campbell fan and he really was speaking right down the hall at the same time as me)Everyone laughed No one left Before the class started it was standing room only with about 520 in attendance The Comic-Con staff had to shut the doors so that no one else could enter It was a really nice feeling Even better was the call I received the week after Comic-con letting me know that my session was one of the highest-rated they had that year They now have me scheduled to do eight sessions (two per day) at Comic-Con 2012 For readers who want more information about my classes or my creative writing book that will be out in the first part of next year they can check out my ldquoMAD writing lessonrdquo section of my website at maxwellalexanderdrakecom or they can check out wwwmeetupcomLas-Vegas-Creative-Writing-Class and read a few hundred reviews from people who have taken my classes

UJ Can you tell us a bit of your backgroundDrake Yeshellipbackground Usually that is a subject I avoid like the plague I look at the background of other authors in my genre who are doing well and who I admire Secretly I covet their background They have such great pedigrees it is no wonder they are successful I would love to tell your readers that all my great reviews all my awards my wonderful fan base that is now literally growing every single day ndash I

would love to tell them that it is all justified due to my amazing background Unfortunately I would be lying For if there has ever been an author who should not succeed it would be me I am dyslexic and I graduated high school at a remedial 9th grade English level I have never spent one day in ldquohigher educationrdquo The fact that I am not only an authormdashmaking a living off the written wordmdashbut a teacher of the craft is preposterous to me It is an oxymoron like ldquojumbo shrimprdquo Yet here I stand making a living in an industry that I should have no business being in And truth be told that is probably the reason I am successful Because I know I do not belong I try harder than others Because I know I do not have the background I spend more time learning my craft Because this is not easy for me I throw myself at my work with a vengeance and I think my fans reap the rewards of that extra effort

UJ Itrsquos always exciting when any writer can capture the imagination of young people What do you think of the current state of literacy especially in this countryDRAKE I have two young boys of my own (seven amp nine) and my wife is a teacher (Not a dysfunctional sci-fi fantasy author playing at teaching like me but a real ldquogo to a school and teach a group of kidsrdquo teacher) So literacy in the US is something that is close to my heart And not just because I need readers so I can pay my mortgage The statistics are frightening Our country is behind in not only reading but also math science etc The one contribution I think I add is that my stuff is not Moby Dick Donrsquot get me wrong Moby Dick is a classic and a tale worth reading But there is nothing fun about reading it Yes it is English but it is so different from how we talk today it might as well be a different language To entice kids to read you cannot shove a book down their throat that is no fun to read You need to build their love of the written word with enjoyable stories Let them read things that are well written sure but let them read things that are fun in middle and high school Save books like Moby Dick for college For me personally I was in my 30rsquos before I could finish Moby Dick I was lucky however to gain my love of reading at a young age with books like the Chronicles of Narnia the Dragonlance Saga and Conan Now that being said the Genesis of Oblivion Saga while it has now won multiple young adult awards is not written as a young adult novel It is fine

Drake continued from page 16



Frank Mangione is the vice-president of Uncle Jam but also is

semi-retired in the beautiful Central Coast where he lives with his brother Tony near Pismo Beach My wife Linda and I made a drive up to Pismo staying three nights in the charming Tides Motel overlooking the Pacific Ocean during an on-and-off-again rainy weekend in November 2011 Frank recently showed us photos of what he has been up to since moving to the beach These incredible pictures show Frank rescuing pelicans on the Pismo Beach Pier They were taken by Mike Savine I agreed to help Frank gather them up into a book that would help the non-profit animal rescue group called Pacific Wildlife Care in Morro Bay We started off this adventure to the Central Coast with a visit to The Monarch Butterfly Grove where Linda captured some

amazing images of these butterflies hanging from the trees and on some milkweed plants These butterflies fly all the way from Canada to this grove in Pismo and then lay their eggs in California We will have more coverage

of the artists and the scene of the California Central Coast next spring in the 101st edition of Uncle Jam including my old friends Pam and Joel Sansone who create their unique enamel-on-copper art in Los Olivos


to develop his or her own unique styleJQ Style is a consequence of your personality Just as you develop as an individual your style will also keep evolving In this sense it is convenient to walk through life with a sense of permanent search and learning avoiding ldquoproven formulasrdquo and any other kinds of commercial commodities I donrsquot believe in Style as in a formula just as I donrsquot believe itrsquos something you ldquofindrdquo and that remains static either but rather something that grows and changes at the same pace as the person For me Style becomes unique and unrepeatable at the moment we realize that as individuals we are unique and unrepeatable At that point Style stops being a mere mannerism and becomes something deeper I could shorten it like this ldquoStyle is yourdquo

UJ How do you see the future for your work and for comics in generalJQ In this regard I am pessimistic I believe that the future of the comic industry is somber at best I think that its historical peak is over and now itrsquos the turn for other media more closely related with technology--such as movies videogames language multimedia and by default any number of combinations of all-- to take over Nevertheless comics as a language as a medium to express ideas and emotions will continue to exist as long as there is someone who values and enjoys the pleasure of living page after page inside a story that they like The future of my own works is still unknown but it depends on my own ability to complete and conclude the projects I have in mind

UJ How much time do you devote to your artwork each dayJQ I devote almost my whole day to commercial drawing which is what gives me the income I need to live on a daily basis Sadly therersquos very little time left to spend on my personal projects which are what I enjoy doing most Itrsquos like spending the whole day doing homework just to be able to go out and play for a few minutes

UJ How did you break into art professionally and what do you suggest for other young artistsJQ I began publishing at age 17 in ldquoLa Jornadardquo a very important Mexican newspaper in their comic strip supplement Then I founded ldquoEl Gallito Inglesrdquo magazine with some other artists of my generation Later I collaborated in different publications and fanzines including MAD Magazine Mexico Edition I currently publish BUBA as a monthly comic in the Pop amp Culture magazine ldquoLa Moscardquo and I also spend my free time in personal projects (basically BUBA books and music)

UJ Please tell us your plans for the futureJQ I have three BUBA books ready for the printers My only problem is that I have yet to find an editor interested in publishing them One of my goals is to find a way to publish them Also I am interested in experimenting with different media other than comics I really want to create animation music and in my wildest dreams even videogames all related to Buba and the universe Irsquove created for her but at the moment all of this is still in the early planning stages I hope that the God of Comics will take pity on me and that I can complete at least half of all the projects I have in mind f

que desarolle su propio estiloJQ El estilo es una consecuencia de la personalidad de manera que se iraacute desarrollando en la misma medida que cada cual se desarrolle como individuo En ese sentido lo conveniente es ir por la vida con una actitud permanente de buacutesqueda y aprendizaje huyendo de las formulas probadas y todo tipo de comodidades comerciales No creo en el estilo como una foacutermula tampoco creo que sea algo que ldquose encuentrardquo y permanece estaacutetico sino que crece y va cambiando paralelamente a la persona Para miacute el estilo se vuelve uacutenico e irrepetible en el momento en que entendemos que como individuos somos uacutenicos e irrepetibles es ahiacute donde el estilo deacutejagrave de ser un simple amaneramiento para convertirse en algo maacutes profundo Podriacutea resumirlo de la siguiente manera ldquoel estilo eres tuacuterdquo

UJ Como vislumbras el future de tu obra y los comics en generalJQ A este respect soy un poco pesimista Creo que el future de las industria del comic es bastante sombriacuteo me parece que su momento historic ya pasoacute y ahora toca el turno a otros medios relacionados de manera maacutes estrecha con la tecnologiacutea (como el cine los videojuegos los lenguajes multimedia y-por extension-una combinacioacuten de todos ellos) Sin embargo el comic como lenguaje como medio para expresar ideas y emociones seguiraacute existiendo mientras haya quien lo valore y disfrute del placer de pasar una paacutegina tras otra de la historia de nuestros afectos El future de mi obra es una incognita pero dependeraacute sin duda alguna de mi capacidad para consolidar y concreter los proyectos que tengo en mente

UJ Cuanto tiempo didicas a tu arte al diaJQ Dedico casi todo el diacutea al dibujo commercial que es lo que me permite obtener el dinero que necesito Es como tener que hacer todo el diacutea la tarea para poder salir a jugar unos pocos minutes

UJ Coacutemo te iniciaste en el medio professional y cual es tu recomendacioacuten para otros joacutevenes autoresJQ Comenceacute a publicar a los 17 antildeos en el suplemento de historietas de La Jornada un importante

diario mexicano Luego fundeacute junto con otros dibujantes de mi generacioacuten la revista Gallito Coacutemicrsquos y despueacutes colaboreacute en distintas revistas y fanzines entre ellos la edicioacuten Mexicana de MAD Actualmente publico mensualmente el comic de Buba en la revista de cultura y rock La Mosca ademaacutes de trabajar en mi tiempo libre en proyectos personales (baacutesicamente libros y muacutesica de Buba)

UJ Por favor comentanos tus planes a futuroJQ Tengo tres libros de Buba listos para entrar a imprenta el problema es que no he conseguido un editor que se interese en ellos Asiacute que u na de mis tareas mas apremiantes es encontrar la manera de publicarlos Tambieacuten me interesa experimentar otros soportes distintos a la historieta tengo muchas ganas de hacer animacioacuten muacutesica y ndashen mis mayors delirious- hasta videojuegos todos relacionados con Buba y el universe que he creado en torno a ellahellippero hasta el momento todo se ha quedado en simples planes Espero que el Dios de los comiqueros se apiade un poco de miacute y pueda concreter al menos la mitad de los que tengo en mente f

(continued from page 5) (continuado de la paacutegina 5)


Linda and I attended Tiki Oasis in San Diego last summer It was the first time we had ever attended any Tiki event We found out about the event in a wonderful magazine called Tiki and it brought back fond memories for me of building a little tiki hut in the 1960s in my neighborsrsquo backyard These neighbors were from the small island of Lanai and I think this is why I have such a fondness for Hawaii My fondness for Hawaii and tikis also probably has something to do with escape and the TV show Gilliganrsquos Island I lived in a neighborhood near the Watts towers and escaping to a tropical island

often seemed like a very nice idea In the 1970s I moved to Seal Beach and made friends with the surfer crowd although I didnrsquot surf until I was 40 on a beach in Waikiki My friend Roy Vierra used to give the tourists surf lessons and now owns his

own store I surfed just this one time I first saw the artwork of Rick Griffin in 1970 He blew me away with his fantastic renderings of waves combined with strange cosmic lettering I immediately knew that I would devote my life to creating art Shortly thereafter a good friend of mine named Don Yasuda introduced me to the work of Hal Robinson an artist for Easyriders magazine I took up riding motorcycles because of Robinsonrsquos fantastic line

work Years later when we met he told me he didnrsquot ride We shared a good laugh over this and he ended up drawing me into an issue of Easyriders He also did a fantastic cover for Uncle Jam in the 1980s We wanted to work together on a project but he found out that he had cancer and sadly he passed away before we could do it I first met Griffin in the mid-1970s We featured an interview that Greg Escalante Tom Luth and I first conducted in 1976 and reran it in Uncle Jam 97 Griffinrsquos art truly took you to another place and for this reason alone I believe in the incredible power that art has to heal and inspire us A few years ago The Laguna Beach Museum of Art had a fantastic retrospective of this unique Californian artist who tragically died in a motorcycle accident in 1991 Yasuda passed away earlier this year and now more than ever I try to take time off to really enjoy life Itrsquos way too expensive these days to zip off to Hawaii like I used to but in-between trips to paradise you can always go to a Tiki bar or one of these Tiki events Tiki Oasis 11 subtitled South of the Border A Retro Tijuana Style Tiki Party was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Diegorsquos Hotel Circle August 18-21 2011 It did not disappoint We met our friend Matt Lorentz there on the last day of the event The first thing we noticed was that it wasnrsquot too crowded to enjoy which sadly is now the case for San Diegorsquos Comic-Con Tiki Oasis has the ambiance of a good party The merchants selling their wares and the artists who show their art reflect this feeling Lorentz who has done t-shirt designs for Tony Medusirena and Phil Yeh

Medusirena and Friend

TikiOasis by Phil Yeh


Hawk Quicksilver and No Fear was soaking up the energy as was I Artists need stimulation to get new ideas and it didnrsquot hurt to have such a pleasant environment of tropical drinks and nice people We took a few pictures for this issue and talked with some of the artists We ran into Jason Lee a talented young guitarist who is brilliantly reinventing surf music with his band the RIPtides His massive blonde coif is as distinctive as his fluid blistering guitar tone Based in the San Diego area Jasonrsquos brand of ldquopsychobillyrdquo instrumental music fuses the traditional surf-rock sounds of Dick Dale and the Ventures with horror-soundtrack darkness and a good dose of black humor The RIPtides are made up of bassist Tony Hayse and drummer Josh Olmos along with backup dancers Crystal Vanilla Cake Ilse and Michele Del Rey who round out the bandrsquos visual spectacle Jason and the RIPtides have headlined the Rockabilly Fest in Ramona California and the South Bay Surf Stomp opened for artists like Stan Ridgway Hayseed Surfers and English Beat and toured all around the country spreading the surf gospel Their debut album Blood on the Beach is available from the band via their Facebook page (Search Jason Lee and the RIPtides) Their addictive always danceable music is a uniquely retro sound that always satisfies In Uncle Jam 99 I conducted an interview with a real life mermaid and she actually traveled from Florida to attend Tiki Oasis She bills herself MeduSirena Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid and she is as nice in person as she is on Facebook She had performed earlier that weekend and was a big hit We hope to see her perform sometime in the future maybe even in Florida Next year I hope to attend Tiki Oasis for the entire weekend The 2012 event will be from August 16-19 and the theme for TO12 is SPY You can find out more in Tiki magazine or at tikioasiscom f

for the younger reader (I do not write any sex or cussing) and I do have fans as young as nine But my target audience for this series is sixteen and up The majority of my fans fall between the ages of fifteen and fifty though I do have fans in their eighties

UJ You also write graphic novels can you please tell us about this area of your workDrake Like much of my career I accidentally fell into the graphic novel industry I had a story that I intended to write as a novel Dead Ned ndash A Wild Undead West Adventure I was at a conference sharing a booth with an amazing artist named Cyril van der Hagen and I told him about the story He was already a fan of mine and pitched me on the idea of doing it as a graphic novel instead The rest is as they say ldquohistoryrdquo None of these projects will be out to market until later in 2012 or beginning of 2013 but I now have four different graphic novel projects I am working on Weirder still I have a sci-fi comedy musical that just got picked up and funded that will be showing in Las Vegas at the end of 2012 It is called KABOOM The end of life on Earthhellip a comedy Again something I tripped into but a project I think is really fun and enjoyable After opening night you can ask me if I feel the same way

UJ With the great success of the Harry Potter films are there plans to turn this Saga into films And what thoughts do you have on books made into filmsDrake Hollywood has knocked upon my door a few times Not for the Genesis of Oblivion Saga but for other projects I have in the works I do not mind admitting this Hollywood scares me just a bit So far I have not taken up any offers I have seven projects coming to market in the next two years And it seems that every few months something else comes my way As long as I continue to write things that readers want to read I am happy It is not that I am unwilling to spread out ndash I am doing novels graphic novels and a frigginrsquo musical after all So eventually I am sure a project will come along that will pull me in the film industry But for now like for most of the world working in Hollywood is just a dream for me As to adaptation that is not really a fair question A book is always going to be better than a movie That is not a bad thing nor a negative on the movie industry There is just so much more you can do with a book A film is limited to what can be shown CG has come a long way in making things like Dragons seem more real But CG no matter how good it gets will never be as good as the human imagination And that is what I as an author get to use I get to paint my ldquomovierdquo on the canvas of your imagination A canvas that is limitless Movies have a limited canvas They are great ndash I am a huge movie fan Still a book can take you places a movie never will And I am not talking about physical places In a book you can go deeper inside the head and emotions of a character That is just not possible in film f


Jason Lee and Michele Del Rey

generosity Itrsquos an honor to know them What does the future hold for the recently married () Phil amp Linda A trip to Israel as honored guests Then hopefully another hundred issues And hundreds of beautiful murals And if they are painted in Southern California you just might see me there Irsquoll be the guy at the top of the ladder OK Rory MurraySomewhere in the ldquoInland Empirerdquo

Letters continued from page 39


I have gone back to the city where I was born at least once a year for the past 27 years Sometimes I return to the Chicagoland area two or three times each year depending on the number of speaking and mural events I have in the area This past August my wife Linda and my friend Phil Ortiz (one of the original artists on The Simpsons) again visited the area Phil and I attended the Wizard Comic Con and also did some sightseeing in the area My longtime partner in the area Geoff Bevington joined us for a day at the convention and my old friend Jim Siergey also came out for a day Geoff is the creator of Steve the Dog and we did two books together in 2010 Steve the Dog amp the Winged Tiger was set in my birth city and the sequel The Winged Tiger in Singapore was set

ChicagolandBy Phil Yeh

in that island country with guest artist He Shuxin Both books were colored by Lieve Jerger and encourage people of all ages to balance their lives a bit and do other things outside of electronic entertainment Chicagoland is the name given to the overall area and I can state from many trips to this area that you will never run out of things to see and do here Downtown Chicago is one of the best cities in the United States and as an architecture fan there is so much to see in just the buildings alone We spent a couple of days sightseeing in Chicago but also got out to the suburbs of Oak Park where the architect Frank Lloyd Wright had a home and studio now a museum There are also a lot of the homes that he designed in the neighborhood and we took a nice walk enjoying his unique architecture before going to his studio and home I recommend this to anyone who enjoys good design If nothing else you must see the outstanding Millennium Park which features the wonderful Jay Pritzker Pavilion designed by the innovative

Christopher Lloyd signed our guitar at Wizard Comic Con

Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumkins) at Wizard


architect Frank Gehry His unique style of folded metal is perfect for the outdoor bandstand The park also hosts two giant sculptures by Catalan conceptual artist Jaume Plensa These two rectangles face each other and show a thousand Chicagoland faces on giant screens When the weather is

nice they also shoot water from the peoplesrsquo mouths and itrsquos always fun to watch people playing in the area below during the summer The other big attraction of this park is called ldquoCloud Gaterdquo by the sculptor Anish Kapoor Most folks call it ldquoThe Beanrdquo and it is amazing to see everyone taking photos by this giant metal bean We spent one day walking the streets of suburban town of Naperville and came across two artists busy working on a huge mural there Dodie


Mondero and Marianne Lisson Kuhn spoke to us about their mural and Marianne also gave us an amazing hardcover book called Century Walk Art Imitating History by Jini Leeds Clare which talks about this incredible public art project that has been in Naperville since 1995 Their work is featured in this book along with several other sculptors and muralists It is quite an impressive feat to have so much public artwork actually catalogued in a high quality book I have traveled throughout the world and rarely have I seen such a presentation from a city the size of Naperville Sculptor Leo Rijn who was born in Fontana California and studied sculpture at Cal State University Long Beach He created wonderful sculptures based on the works of Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) for the Dr Seuss Tribute Collection at both the downtown library in Naperville and 95th Street Library The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham will delight all ages We were pleasantly surprised that our old friend cartoonist Dick Locher created a huge sculpture of Dick Tracy along the river Dick actually drew the comic strip for many years after creator Chester Gould It was written by Max Allan Collins at one time In January of 2011 Locher retired and turned over the strip to artist Joe Stanton and writer Mike Curtis Itrsquos nice to see that the strip is still running after first being created in 1931 Dick was kind enough to come out to an early event in downtown Chicago on our Cartoonists across America amp the World Tour in 1986 It turns out that Dick is

a resident of Naperville Phil and I naturally had to get a picture with Dick Tracy

ldquoHorse Market Daysrdquo is a collection of bronze sculptures by different artists ldquoThe Auction Horserdquo is by Robert Buono a Viet Nam vet who was inspired by the renowned Egyptian sculptor Mustafa Naguib ldquoThe Auction Runnerrdquo depicts a boy leading the horse and is by Pamela S Carpenter The third piece is a sculpture of a little dog by Torsten Muehl There is so much public art in this city that it would take you a whole day to just see it all Naperville is also filled with great restaurants and shops and I would suggest that you give this town at least two days to really relax and enjoy it d


rdquoProprietor please can you furnish me with your wine listrdquoTranslation ldquoZider I up lanlordrdquo---A Dictionary of Bristle the language of Bristolians

In the Uncle Jam June Clam Issue 1980 I wrote about my first trip to England ldquoPosies Pubs and Poetsrdquo My piece bristled with commentary about Westminster Abbey Mayfair London Bridge the West End and Dr Samuel Johnsonrsquos house In fact I concluded my article with Johnsonrsquos words ldquoWhen a man is tired of London he is tired of life for there is in London all that life can affordrdquo The dozen or so times Irsquove returned to England Irsquove always stayed for several days in my absolutely favorite city But this summer I wonderedhellipis it possible to hit England and bypass London Is there more to ldquothis scepterrsquod islehellipthis other Edenhellipthis blessed plot this earth this realm this Englandrdquo than its capital In early August after two weeks studying history at the University of Cambridge Irsquod wearied of the ways of men This yearrsquos history track carried an overarching theme of ldquowar and peacerdquo so Irsquod been immersed in the wrongdoings of historic warlords Henry VIII Napoleon and General Franco After the farewell dinner at Clare College I expected it was time to appreciate more sensible creatures such as cattle and sheep So I hopped on a National Express bus and headed south to Somerset known as the jewel of the West Country a destination of dramatic coastline seaside resorts epic English countrysidehellipand the widest variety of cider in the world Irsquove never had a sophisticated palate for wine Sure I can distinguish between Two Buck Chuck and Chateau Margaux but anything in between really is wasted on me But after decades of sipping cider on tap at pubs throughout Great Britain Irsquove become a bit of a cider connoisseur I can tell the difference between dry sweet and medium and recognize scrumpy at first slurp Somerset is one of the few English countries where real farmhouse cider known as scrumpy named after a small or withered scrump apple is still made using traditional methods At Richrsquos Cider Farm at Watchfield my English host Heather Bird and I wandered through the cider museum and learned that in the 1870s the production of cider in Britain neared 15 million gallons The daily allowance per laborer was half a gallon a day Of course those men did very strenuous work which would work up a good thirst Local legend suggests that perhaps some unsavory additives such as iron nails were added to give strength Richrsquos features a vat that holds 10000 gallons of cider A placard announces that this equals 80000 pints If a person drank four pints a day

Zider i Up LanLorda ScrambLe throUgh SomerSet cider capitaL of the WorLd

By Terri Eldersit would take 54 years 9 months and 20 days to empty that particular vat The United Kingdom still has the highest per capita consumption of cider as well as the largest cider-producing companies in the world including H P Bulmer the largest The UK currently produces 600 million liters of cider each year Fittingly one of Somersetrsquos most popular performing groups is the Wurzles This local band with a history stretching over 40 years had two hits in the lsquo70s ldquoCombine Harvesterrdquo and ldquoI Am a Cider Drinkerrdquo The

latterrsquos chorus illustrates the celebrated status of cider in good old Somerset

ldquoI am a Cider Drinker I drinks it all of the day I am a Cider Drinker

it soothes all me troubles away

Ooh arrh ooh arrh ay Ooh arrh ooh arrh ayrdquo

After leaving Richrsquos one of over three dozen small-scale cider makers in South West England I returned to Weston-super-Mare with Heather We dropped by Sainsburyrsquos to pick up some groceries and I stood in such awe at the cider shelves that I whipped out my camera to photograph the varieties on offer The clerk who was restocking the shelves watched me

curiously I mentioned that Irsquod counted at least two dozen brands ranging from the familiar mass-produced Stella Artois Blackthorn and Strongbox to the intriguing small-scale Rough Old Wife and Orchard Pig ldquoItrsquos Somerset luvrdquo the clerk told me with a wink ldquoCiderrsquos our winerdquoTherersquos more to Somerset than just cider mills of course though Irsquod settle for just those There are also other sights to see and over the years Irsquove seen several

bull Weston-super-Marersquos Grand Pier the best pier in the world with its bonfire nights afternoon tea dances Go-Kart racing Crystal Maze 4-D cinema (air blasts shaking seats water sprays to enhance the movie-going experience)

bull Cheddar Gorge with limestone cliffs towering 450 feet above a gorge three miles long 300 million years in the making and home of cheddar cheese

bull Seaside towns of Burnham-in-Sea Berrow and Brean which feature one of the longest stretches of golden sand in Europe seven miles long

bull Willow and Wetlands Visitor Center near Taunton with a unique basket museum

bull Hestercombe Gardens with fifty acres of landscape and formal


gardens Bakelite Museum with the worldrsquos largest collection of Bakelight and vintage plastics in the world

bull Exmoor Owl amp Hawk Center near Porlock

As my stay in Somerset drew to a close Heather and I decided to take the 30-minute train ride from Weston-super-Mare to Bristol the most populous city in South West England We wanted to help the Zoological Gardens celebrate its 175th birthday Zoos like clowns arenrsquot to everyonersquos taste This one though seems to have universal appeal Its mission is ldquoto maintain and defend biodiversity through breeding endangered species conserving threatened species and habitats and promoting a wider understanding of the natural worldrdquo No elephants or camels at this well-maintained and beautifully landscaped zoohellipbut plenty of fruit bats meerkats penguins prairie dogs butterflies and Bristolrsquos smallest cinema an eight-seater where patrons can watch a video that details the early days of the place In conclusion did I suffer any ill effects from bypassing London this year No In fact luck was on my side On the morning of August 6 I traveled through Tottenham North London on my way to Victoria Station to change buses to head south to Somerset All was tranquil Then that night in quiet Weston-super-Mare my friend Heather and I poured ourselves a pint of cider and flipped on the telly only to see rioters flood Tottenhamrsquos streets looting and burning Last year Irsquod spent several days in London following my Cambridge courses This year Irsquod chosen to bypass Londonhellipand it was a wise choice But am I put off London for good Certainly not This upcoming year is the Dickens bicentennial and Irsquove just enrolled in ldquoThe Best of Times Dickens at 200rdquo through Road Scholar (formerly Elderhostel) Next June Irsquoll be back pub crawling and cider swilling at Londonrsquos The George and The Prospect of Whitby Maybe theyrsquoll have some Rough Old Wife or Orchard Pig Cheers f


D Gallery is the realization of the vision of Daniel Gerken Daniel has been creating his cross and heart sculptures for over 9 years and is represented in many fine galleries in the western United States His dream was to collabo-rate with artists whose works inspire thought works that evoke emotion works that entertain or bring a smile With his latest endeavor of creating a gallery in Lake Arrowhead California where he has resided for the past 11 years he is able to indulge in his passion for producing and showing his own art while providing an attractive gallery venue for other talented artists

Uncle Jam What is your back-groundDaniel Gerken Growing up in South Dakota I had very limit-ed exposure to culture The art I appreciated was that of the Wild West and Native American The latter had the most affect on me with its primitive simplistic beauty and its prolific use of iconsAfter completing my college

education with a year spent at the University of Uppsala in Sweden I toured Europe Both

the Scandinavian countries and the countries of Europe opened my eyes to a new world of culture architecture and art and planted a seed to be later expressed in my art

UJ How did you get started making crossesDG You would assume I am a religious person since the focus of my art is crosses but I am not Itrsquos not that Irsquom closed to embracing a spiritual belief and I admire those who have such faith in their lives but it just hasnrsquot hap-pened for me Choosing crosses for the basis of my sculpture is perhaps an

accident perhaps a calling Around 9 years ago my sister was building a new home which had many large structural beams in its design I was standing in the front yard with her looking at a pile of materials from the builder that was to be discarded In it was a beautiful imperfect huge wooden beam It seemed such a shame that this wonderful gift of nature would simply be thrown away As I studied it it came to me to build a cross from it So I did I cut shaped and welded rusted metals to the basic cross shape and was quite stunned when I viewed the simplistic power and emotion of the finished piece A gallery owner in Malibu was equally impressed with the piece and asked me to make more for a show A year later I had 20 pieces we had a successful show and it went from there I love making crosses There are so many different directions I can take it From an old world rustic looking piece to a modern high gloss slick piece My ideas for the crosses are endless

UJ Your monthly artist showcases not only feature a visual artist but also performing artists as well Can you tell us about those eventsDG D Gallery hosts an ongoing FREE music and art event the second Saturday of every month from 3-6 pm in the beautiful gallery setting The gallery offers complimentary wine appetizers and gourmet cof-fees and teas to complete this special afternoon which features some very dynamic live music performances In addition several of the galleryrsquos artists are present during the events to greet you and to offer insights to their creative works

UJ Lake Arrowhead is a little bit out of the way for most Californians What can be done to let people know how close it is to most of South-ern CaliforniaDG Lake Arrowhead is so close to the vari-ous counties in Southern California It has such a different m o u n t a i n alpine en-vironment that it is a shame more people donrsquot visit Lake Arrowhead as a destination It is a beautiful place a place of nature and serenity so different than the urban environment in the cit-ies Regarding what can be done to promote the area I just donrsquot know The Lake Arrowhead Village management does a good job consider-ing their resources to advertise in many different venues Hopefully the presence of D Gallery will help raise the level of interest in the area by providing a more polished venue for local and Southern California artists and the viewers who appreciate the striking works of these tal-ented visionaries

UJ People spend quite a bit going to a film or to dinner but seem to hesitate when it comes to buying art for a few hundred dollars The film and dinner is for a very short time and the artwork can be en-joyed forever What can be said for regular folks collecting art in this economyDG This last question I have no answer for Irsquom going to leave that one for Phil Yeh to answer Hersquos much more in tune and passionate about the subject

D Gallery bull Lake Arrowhead Village bull 28200 Hwy 189 Ste T210wwwdanielgallerynet bull danielgalleryverizonnet bull 909-336-0067

f

left to right Laura Janes Allyce SilvaDaniel Gerken and Deborah Lewis


ldquothe Maitrayardquo and his return in June I asked him to imagine the impossible ldquoI do that all the time Irsquove been doing it for the past half hourrdquo I asked him to imagine the impossible that the Maitraya does not take over from Ronald Reagan Daisy Duck and other world leaders who would rather build bombs than feed the starving I got a very eloquent reply ldquoThen I will personally overthrow the American and Russian governments and you can put that in the interview You can put Brezhnev and Reagan on notice that I am going to personally overthrow both of them in this respect---I will do anything I can to bring down the fascist military regimes in the Warsaw Pact countries and in the west I will do my damnedest with or without the Maitraya ldquoBecause the ideals that the Maitraya expresses are my ideals and if there is no Maitraya that doesnrsquot change the fact that they are my ideals and goals I will pursue my goals of feeding the hungry anywayhellipIf this is all I have if nothing happens in May I will go on working with the American Friends Service Committee with other organizations like that I will go on doing it I will be very sad very disappointed and very angry but I will take my anger out on the regimes that hold power now not the Maitraya It will be directed at Brezhnev and Reagan and their ilk I know who the enemy is ldquoAll that I will have to face was faced by the early Christians when Christ did not return as they expected him to They had to face it then and this did not kill off Christ and this will not kill off our ideals Our ideals are the ideals of the Spanish Civil War on the Loyalist side the ideas of Charles Steinmetz the ideals of the Berrigan Brothers the highest most noble people in the Catholic Church the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Church Wersquoll go on anyway ldquoThe messages from the Maitraya exist 120 messages that I know of They exist Somebody wrote themhellipThat somebody in those messages articulates the highest ideals not just of me but of man So those ideals are realhellipI utilize the term lsquoMaitrayarsquo to that person or those persons who wrote those messages If the Maitraya turns out to be the Maitraya Irsquom satisfied If there is no Maitraya these messages were concocted by someone and Irsquoll find him lsquocause Irsquom going to Europe in April looking for himrdquo The Maitraya (Message 81) How can you be content with the modes in which you now live when millions starve and die in squalor when the rich man parades his wealth

Dick continued from page 14 before the poor when each man is his neighborrsquos enemy when no man trusts his brother Must you live thus my friends For how long can you support this degradation Phil never got to Europe A promotional tour was scheduled for April and Phil was planning to take time out and visit the Maitrayarsquos followers in England and in Amsterdam (These Tara Centers apparently have a branch in Hollywood for those interested in seeking out his books of messages the Biblical cadences of which appealed to Philrsquos religious imagination) Should you read this in May or June and the Maitraya has not taken over the world on all frequencies you may follow the lead of Ursula LeGuin who after reading Valis worried that Phil was spiraling into madness in Santa Ana California However I still insist that Phil was the sanest man Irsquod ever known and that it is those people not obsessed with the destruction of the ecosphere and the proliferation of nuclear weapons that are crazy Some may question my publishing an account of Philrsquos final incarnation as an angry Old Testament prophet In the last two years of his life he had lost a great deal of weight having been burly in the early and mid-seventies he would sit in his squeaking arm chair petting his cat Mr Tubbs eating little but yogurt and quiche his eyes burning with creative and idealistic fire Phil specifically wanted an account of what turned out to be his last interview published ldquoIt is vital that the news be made public that Christ has returned but it is also vital that it be done in such a way that people in no way whatsoever are swayed or compelled or urged to accept on the basis of any authority either assumed or real by the person who says itrdquo Christ may not be here but Phil is gone Of the 16 hours of tapes Irsquove made with Phil and the pages of notes Irsquove collected on his writings published and unpublished I have the material for a book which I am writing If anyone reading this knew Phil or has any material relating to his life and work Irsquod appreciate them contacting me through this publication Future installments of my talks with Philip K Dick will appear in this paper In one tape he goes through and discusses each of his books in another he lucidly analyzes the roots of his empathetic visions of which the beetle was only the first and the Maitraya was only the last Phil was an artist and a martyr and he paid for the love that he gave us f

Makana continued from page 32

exactly what the White House had in mind Makana a popular Hawaiian troubadour was enlisted to sing and play his guitar in the background at a dinner Obama and other leaders attended Saturday night His song of choice a 45-minute montage of protest songs all while wearing a shirt that read ldquoOccupy with Alohardquo After the dinner Makana said the diners did not react in a negative way to his message mdash and may have been too busy sampling the Hawaiian food to notice Makanarsquos manager filmed the performance for the Yes Men the activist group that regularly stages pranks on the media and government Music has been a big part of the Occupy Wall Street protests with famous musicians dropping in on the encampments around the country But this is probably the first time the movement has brought its music to the president Makana is considered one of the masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar He has opened for Sting and Carlos Santana We hope to have a full length profile on this thoughtful musician in an upcoming issue of Uncle Jam To view the video go to YouTube and type in We are the many-Makana f

Uncle Jam Needs HelpWe are looking for motivated self-starting ad sales people

You can live anywhere in the worldAll you need is a computer and a phone

Call 9097257337 or email lindaadams35yahoocom


The first written reference to Ted Sturgeonrsquos great revelation appears in the March 1958 issue of Venture where Sturgeon wrote ldquoI repeat Sturgeonrsquos Revelation which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud Using the same standards that categorize 90 of science fiction as trash crud or crap it can be argued that 90 of film literature consumer goods etc are crap In other words the claim (or fact) that 90 of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other art formsrdquo As this issue was going to press another old friend Kika Kane turned me on to this amazing video on Facebook featuring a young Hawaiian musician called Makana I had never heard of him but my knowledge of music is basically stuck in the old days of The Beatles When someone is really good and original my friends generally know that they should alert me 90 of all music like most films TV shows and books (especially graphic novels) is really terrible in my humble opinion and just not worth my time But this means therersquos 10 of everything that is worth your time although I am tempted to revise Sturgeonrsquos law for the 21st century and make it 1 because of the sheer amount of bad stuff cranked out these days That still means that for every hack out there just turning out

mind-numbing soulless work there is one person who truly understands what it is to be an artist Real artists dare to speak the truth This is how I always judge work in the arts There are very few artists who do this in the 21st century We interviewed Sturgeon over thirty years ago and I had the pleasure of getting to know both him and one of his companions Wina As we try and make sense of the new ldquoOccupy everythingrdquo movements and the growing sense of unrest in this world between the 1 and the rest of us I believe that looking backwards into history can serve to guide us in the future So when Kika shared with me this powerful video on YouTube featuring Makana and his song We Are The Many I immediately thought back to Woody Guthrie and his honest protest songs When I learned that Makanarsquos very moving and very direct song was going to be played at a dinner with President Obama I could not believe

what I was hearing I knew that Makana had grown up in Hawaii but to sing this song in front of the President was really unbelievable Here is what The Washington Postrsquos Melissa Bell posted ldquoPresident Barack Obama is busy in his home state of Hawaii meeting with Pacific Rim leaders on matters of global security and world economy Even though Obama decided to skip the practice of goofy costumes at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation the leaders are still getting a healthy sampling of the Hawaiian culture One such display though may not be

Makana plays before Obama amp Friends---By Phil Yeh

ldquoNinety percent of everything is craprdquoTheodore Sturgeon

Science Fiction Writer



Uncle Jam Tell us about your books set in HawaiiAlan Brennert Well my love affair with Hawaii started when I was probably 8 years old I read a comic book called ldquoDennis the Menace goes to Hawaiirdquo which was one of those fat 25 cent holiday specials This was actually the first comic book where they actually sent the artist and the writer on location to do research I think Fred Toole and Al Wiseman were the writer and artist It had these beautiful illustrations around Hawaii during the time of statehood I am reading this in the back of my parentsrsquo car as wersquore tearing down the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey and Irsquom thinking ldquoBoy Irsquove gotta get to Hawaii one of these daysrdquo Ultimately I wound up moving to California in 1973 and got to Hawaii for the first time in 1980 I fell in love with it I walked off the plane in the old days when you just walked down onto the tarmac You could smell the scent of plumerias carried on the trade winds and I thought ldquoIrsquom homerdquo Irsquove been going back there at least once a year for the last 30 years but I didnrsquot actually start to think about writing anything set there until I did a pilot for NBC in 1997 which was supposed to be shot therehellipit didnrsquot get picked up It made me start thinking about writing a novel set there and that it became Molokarsquoi Molokarsquoi was a labor of love It took me about 3 years of reading researching and writing to finish the book Itrsquos become kind of a word of mouth best seller

UJ Molokarsquoi has become a best sellerAB A national best seller Itrsquos appeared on several national best seller lists It came out initially in 2003 in hardcover It was reprinted in paper in 2004 and thatrsquos when the book clubs discovered it It started to get picked up by book clubs and referred from one club to another We started out with a very modest first printing in paperback of 5000 copies and now 8 years later itrsquos in its 21st printing with 330000 copies in print All through word of mouthhellipall from one reader to another Previous to this I thought word of mouth was just a myth promulgated by authors with bigger publicity budgets than me But it really exists I followed it up with another book called Honolulu which follows a Korean picture bride Itrsquos about a young woman from Korea who agrees to marry a man sight unseen in Hawaii in order to escape the very oppressive conditions that existed at that time for women in Korea They were practically prisoners in their own homes They tended the inner rooms the men tended the outer rooms and the only time they ever left was to go to the stream to do the laundry A lot of women jumped at the chance for a life of adventure and more freedom than they could have in Korea They get to Hawaii and discover that the young affluent men they have been told they are going to be marrying are in fact plantation laborers and the photos they saw were 20 years old So these are young girls 18 19 20 years old who suddenly find themselves engaged to men in their 30rsquos 40rsquos 50rsquos and discover Hawaii is not the paradise that they were told

UJ How did you research thisAB I researched both books by going to Hawaii Therersquos a lot of primary research that you canrsquot get anywhere but Hawaii I went to The Hawaii State archives the Bishop Museum Library and Archives even just the Honolulu

A Conversation with Alan Brennert public library I found extraordinary amounts of usable material just sitting looking at microfilm of old newspapers from the 1920rsquos and 1930rsquos I found newspaper stories about Kalaupapa on microfilm that I hadnrsquot seen talked about in any book So I actually enjoyed doing this Irsquom kind of berserk when it comes to research For Honolulu my main character walks out of the train station and looks across King Street in Hawaii in 1917 I was thinking to myself ldquoWhat does she seerdquo and I couldnrsquot find any photo reference of

King Street in 1917 so I went to the library and I printed every single page of the Honolulu City Directory for 1917hellipall 700 pages of it I brought it back to Los Angeles and went through it I highlighted with a yellow marker every street every neighborhood every business that I knew was going to be involved in the story of the book And then I used that to construct a map so that when she walked out of that train station I knew that she was looking straight across the street and she saw a movie theater a Japanese language movie theater and next to that a Japanese bath and down the street a Chinese apothecary and farther up there was a Chinese restaurant So I knew exactly where everything was

I couldnrsquot make all that up but I kinda feel thatrsquos the difference between writing a period piece and writing a historical If yoursquore writing a historical novel you have an obligation to make it as accurate as you can

UJ So is Honolulu also a best sellerAB It has also done well Itrsquos sold about a third as many copies as Molokarsquoi but itrsquos only been out for a couple of years Itrsquos also been picked up by book clubs

UJ Any chance of these things being made into film or TVAB Probably none at all I knew that was going to be the case with Molokarsquoi going into it because itrsquos about leprosy Itrsquos a tough sell to Hollywood but the reality is that Molokairsquos protagonist is a young Hawaiian woman and Honolulursquos is a young Korean woman Neither of these books have protagonists who could be played by Kate Winslet or Sandra Bullock so it kind of limits things Plus Irsquom told that a lot of Hollywood isnrsquot that interested in historical stuff right now

UJ They want superheroesAB Superheroeshellipexactly You know I worked in Hollywood for over 25 years so Irsquom long past the point where Irsquom thrilled to see my name up on the screen and I know only too well how badly they can fmdashk up stories Irsquom just happy that I have people who are reading these books and communicating with me Thatrsquos the great thing about the Internet you can actually hear from readers

UJ Are you working on a new novel nowAB Irsquom working on a new novel that actually only has one chapter set in Hawaii during WWII The majority of it is set in my native New Jersey Itrsquos called Palisades Park Itrsquos about a working family of dreamers who own a food concession at the legendary Palisades Amusement Park which was the subject of the Freddy Cannon song from 1962 It follows them from the


Great Depression through WWII and the Korean War up to the closing of the park in 1971 Itrsquos a little lighter and funnier than the previous two books Itrsquos still got some historical weight to it but itrsquos tending to be a little bit of a funnier book

UJ So this could be something that could be adapted to the screenAB Yes it has a family of white persons so itrsquos much more commercial

UJ Can you also talk a little bit about the early part of your career and how you started writing for TVAB I sold my first short story to a science fiction anthology Infinity Five when I was eighteen fresh out of high school I sold two more before attending the Clarion Writers Workshop at Michigan State University the following year (1973) That was a tremendously beneficial experience for me as I think it has been for most Clarion alumni throughout the years I also forged several lifelong friendships there After Clarion I transferred from my college in New Jersey to CSULB in Long Beach I was an English major but the department (in the form of Eileen Lothmer a wonderful professor who was my advisor) allowed me to construct my own specialty major ldquoWriting for the Mediardquo I took courses in English Theater and Radio TV because I always knew I wanted to write for film and television someday Meanwhile I supported myself through college by writing short stories for science fiction magazines and anthologies like Analog Galaxy The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction et al as well as through the generosity of Richard Kyle who employed me at his bookstore for about two years (still the only honest job Irsquove held) After CSULB I attended UCLA Film School for a few quarters until I sold my first television scriptmdashone of four I would wind up writing for The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (Wersquove all got to start somewhere right) My breakout opportunity came in 1981 when I wrote a script (based on a short story by my Clarion classmate Carter Scholz) for a short-lived anthology series called Darkroomthe show vanished quickly but my script to my astonishment was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Teleplay of the Year alongside scripts for blue-chip shows like

Hill Street Blues I didnrsquot win but that led to my writing for Simon amp Simon which led to The Twilight Zone which led to China Beach and LA Law

UJ I have read Molokarsquoi and am part-way through Honolulu I couldnrsquot stop thinking about Molokarsquoi after finishing the book The history and setting was great but I think it is mostly the characters who are very unforgettable and touching The TV shows you wrote for such as LA Law China Beach and Simon amp Simon also had very distinct characters Can you speak a little bit about characterization and its part in your writing AB Irsquove always been attracted as a reader and as a writer to character first and foremost It was the characters that I loved in comic books in TV shows like Twilight Zone and Star Trek and in books like Flowers for Algernon and Silas Marner and The Great Gatsby As a hatchling writer being imprinted by these various sources I knew that I if I could write a character as memorable as Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon I could die happy Havenrsquot done it yet I think but Irsquom still trying

One review of Honolulu said something along the lines of ldquoCharacter trumps all in this bookrdquo and I loved that itrsquos absolutely true Molokarsquoi and Honolulu were plotted looselymdashI knew the beginning middle and end the general trajectory of the protagonistsrsquo lives and the history they would live throughmdashbut I also allowed the characters to diverge from the paths I had originally intended for them if their life choices began to seem out of character for them Few writers I think start a novel with a full-formed main character in mind you have to write them a while hear their voices see how they interact with others and really get to know them over time Therersquos a certain amount of improvisation that goes on when Irsquom writing a book and thatrsquos the great thing for me about writing themmdashIrsquom not restricted to telling a story in a 55 page teleplay I have room to explore character And obviously I love exploring character

UJ I met you at Richard Kylersquos wonderful book store in the mid 70rsquos It goes to show that sometimes everything comes together at once So many people were there Jan Burke of course Tom Luth and so many othershellip AB Greg Bear

UJ Itrsquos uncanny when you think about it Itrsquos one bookstore and all these peopleAB It was a good group of peoplehellipa good place to congregate and hang out and talk

UJ It was like a salon I think of it as a place where you were looking for a book and having somebody named Richard screaming or saying ldquoThis is craprdquo Hersquod be very forthcoming with his commentsAB Oh yeah (laughter) Richard as Gertrude SteinhellipI never thought of that

UJ The Richard Kyle years in Long Beach were a magical time f


In the last issue we spoke with two of Hawaiirsquos top cartoonists Dave Thorne who is the creator of Thorneyrsquos Zoo and Jon Murakami who created Calabash two comic strips that run in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin Dave is considered Hawaiirsquos Yoda among the cartooning community inspiring and educating many students and professionals over the years Jason S Yadao of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin posted this update on Daversquos condition on the newspaperrsquos blog ldquoMuch has happened since we last checked in with Dave Thorne the cartoonist who draws the Thorneyrsquos Zoo comic for our fair publication on Thanksgiving Day For those of you just joining us a quick recap Dave was hospitalized Nov 8 for emergency surgery for a torn aorta and has been recovering ever since also dealing with trouble breathing along the way Since then many notes of well-wishes from around the world have been posted at the Dave Thorne Get Well Page (note must be signed in to Facebook to view) Many cartoons of elephants have been posted Daversquos sons Mitchell and Randy flew in from California to see their dad They joined their sister Kelly and their mom Lorraine Here was his son Randyrsquos comment Update 12411 Today has been an incredible day Heard my fatherrsquos voice for the first time today First time he has spoken in 3 weeks And for a Thorne not to be able to talk man thatrsquos like torture There is a small valve that keeps the air from his vocal cords so most of the time he communicates by sign language however today they loosened it so he could talk His voice started out sounding like a frog then evolved into Minnie Mouse The doc says that he will eventually get his old voice back but it will take a little more time and effort and he has to build up his stamina also He was able to breathe unassisted also for about 3 hours and the PT had him sit up for the first time also however he quickly got dizzy and had to lay back downhellipbaby steps He looks great and last night he told us that after we had left the hospital although he couldnrsquot sleep he felt 100 better and was joking with the doctors and nurseshelliphmmm anyone surprised about that Again a huge Mahalo Nui Loa to all of you out there sharing your prayers and positive thoughts They are working WE are witnessing a miracle before our eyes Bliss bliss bliss Thank you spirit Alohardquo I wouldnrsquot normally print so much about an artistrsquos health but Dave really has a personal connection with so many artists professionals fans and friends around the world Along with Wally Amos I credit Dave Thorne being a positive influence in my own life In this issue we would like to talk about some other artists in Hawaii who are on the scene as well as some of the tourist attractions As the Godfather of the American Graphic Novel I was invited to speak at the 2nd annual Hawaii Entertainment Expo Experience (HEXXP) in

Honolulu in late September and early October I spoke on the history of graphic novels and the power of creativity My fianceacutee Linda Adams was with me for our second trip this year We combined this trip with a mural event at the Windward Mall in Kaneohe Our first few days were spent with

my old friend Kevin Muranaka and his girlfriend Esmeralda DeLuna The wonderful thing about having so many friends around the world is you never are at a loss for companions for a meal I donrsquot often find too many good

things to say about cell phones texting twitter etc but one good thing about Facebook is that it allows you to reach people around the world which has been really great for our Cartoonists across America amp the World tour But like all these electronic devices in our lives itrsquos really good to limit social networking and make time for old fashioned things like traveling gardening taking walks reading and talking face to face with a friend Linda and I were getting married after this trip to Hawaii in October (I am dyslexic

and tend to do things backwards) and it was really wonderful to see all our friends in Hawaii a second time this year for this ldquohoneymoonrdquo Kevin is an artist and writer and Esmeralda works for a bookstore We stayed with them for a few nights and it was great being surrounded by wonderful books We will profile Kevinrsquos work in a future issueWe had heard that Disney had opened up a new resort on Oahu so we took a drive to Ko Olina to see it The Disney Resort Aulani was in the opening week when we visited in September and I can see them building up this part of the island in years to come The place has the feel of a Disney attraction and is a bit pricey but I am sure that if you get a package deal it can be very affordable The architecture of the main building was very nice as well as

the landscaping outside We even saw a few Disney characters Next we drove around the island from Honolulu through Hanauma Bay

Hawaii Another Trip to ParadiseBy Phil Yeh

Aulani the Disney resort


one of the great tourist spots for snorkeling on Oahu I know from my own past adventures in Hawaii that the islands of Maui Kauai and the big island of Hawaii all have magnificent sites of their own and far less people than Oahu While I have painted murals on these other islands and also enjoyed the rich exotic beauty each had to offer the great majority of my friends all live on Oahu It should be said that although there obviously is a lot of development on this island there is also some very nice scenery too Our mural painting event at the Windward Mall on the other side of the island was a chance to really see the local people Dave Thorne lives on this side of the island and he came out as well as Gary Kato Michael Cannon Jared Matsushige Kevin Muranaka Amy Tokuda Roy Chang Jon J Murakami and Devin Oishi The event was wonderful as all our mural events in Hawaii have been for the last 20+ years There is so much natural talent on these islands Two of the artists who could not make it to the Windward Mall were my old friends Alan Low and Dennis Fujitake I decided to profile Alan Gary and Dennis in this piece For the record I have enjoyed verbally sparring with both Dennis and Alan over the years They do not fit into the stereotypes of either Japanese or Chinese men nor shy artists in general They both have quick wits and are never afraid to speak up at least where I am concerned

Uncle Jam Can you please provide us with a brief bio Alan Low I was born and raised in Hawaii I attended the same high school (Punahou) as President Barack Obama but obviously one of them made a wiser career choice (Irsquom not saying who)

I attended the University of Hawaii at Manoa where I received top honors as Design Student of the Year and in 1986 I achieved a BFA in Graphic Design Upon graduating I worked at the largest design firm in the state at the time In 1992 I founded Synergy Design an award-winning multi-disciplined graphic design studio with two other partners In 2002 I decided to finally branch out on my own as Alan Low Design I currently sit on the Board of Directors of the Honolulu Chapter of AIGA the professional association for design and regularly teach classes in design fundamentals at Pacific New Media the Outreach College at the University of Hawaii at Manoa My wife Gail and I have an eleven-year-old son Brandon

UJ When we spoke to Dave Thorne in the last issue the Yoda of Hawaiian cartoonists he mentioned that you were his student Is this another ldquobig fishrdquo story AL Oh yes I fondly remember taking Dave Thornersquos class at the University when I was still in middle school I remember how excited I was to learn

cartooning from a ldquoprofessionalrdquo cartoonist and marveled that someone could actually make a living in Hawaii as a cartoonist All of us local cartoonists who were lucky enough to learn from Dave really are indebted to him not only for what he taught us directly but also for how he represented Hawaii and cartooning to the community and the world Hersquos really the Goodwill Ambassador of Cartooning I also remember when I was growing up how fortunate I was to be around at the time to join the House of Cartoons (Hawaiirsquos own version of CAPS) with such greats as Dave Thorne Don Dougherty Dennis Fujitake Todd Kurosawa and Gary Kato to name a few That was a special time for cartooning in Hawaii

UJ You studied cartooning but obviously have a flair for design Whatrsquos your true passionAL Hmmmmmmmthatrsquos an interesting question Irsquove

always loved drawing I have many books filled with little drawings and cartoons but I guess at one point in my life I needed to make a decision where I was going to focus my efforts to try to make a living A quick back story In my senior year in high school I had signed up for a class called ldquoCareer Explorationsrdquo This was a special class that you had to actually apply for and not everyone was accepted It was a vocational type of class where they placed students into actual working situations in fields in which they had expressed interest Remember this was the school that President Obama also graduated from so you can imagine the

Artists L to R Roy Chang Michael Cannon Kevin Muranaka Carl Maeda Phil Yeh Jon J Murakami Amy Tokuda Jared Matsushige Gary Kato Sterling Kawahara Devon Oishi


Design or what used to be known as ldquoCommercial Artrdquo would be more viable than ldquoFine Artrdquo Having engineering in my blood (one of my brothers is an engineer and another is a computer programmer) I guess I also have a penchant for left brain reasoning Graphic Design seems to combine both left brain thinking and right brain creativity You might be surprised to know that many graphic designers canrsquot draw Thatrsquos why they employ illustrators Irsquom fortunate enough that I can draw fairly well and do my own illustrations (or well enough to communicate with other illustrators) I guess most of my cartooning these days would take the form of ldquohumorous illustrationrdquo Actually my son leans towards more left brain thinking Hersquos less interested in drawing cartoons and the fine arts and more interested in drawing conclusions to math problems or programming and the computer arts At my advanced age having the benefit of looking back Irsquod encourage him to pursue what interests him to discover where his passions lie Irsquove found that the most successful people are those that have really excelled at what theyrsquore passionate about The engineering blood in me says ldquoAnd make sure you can make a living at itrdquo UJ What are your future plansAL My future plans Well in the future Irsquod really like to find the time to take a nap Next I contacted my old friend Dennis Fujitake who has had quite a career in comics and illustration I went to the Internet to get some of his past credits Fujitake was a contributor to Star-Studded Comics of the Texas

Trio (1968-72) and several fanzines throughout the 1970s He contributed to Skywald horror titles In the 1980s he began working for Fantagraphics and drew Dalgoda Dinosaurs of Summer Children of the Night Tide Sea Dragon and Waddlewalk He is also known for his work on Keith Laumerrsquos Retief series at Mad Dog Publishing In the 1990s he worked on Elfquest among others for Warp Graphics

types of fields that most kids had requested corporate law heart surgery nuclear engineering governmental affairs finance and banking and then there was me ldquocartooningrdquo Luckily the school had a connection to a local film maker who also had ties to the only animation studio in Hawaii at the time Farmhouse Films They had just come into the islands and were trying to make a name for themselves doing animated films and shorts for Sesame Street Believe it or not they agreed to grant me an interview On the day of the interview I was surprised to see that another kid showed up apparently also interviewing for an intern position This kid had all these comic strips about fish that he had drawn and they were really good and really funny I thought ldquoOh no Therersquos goes my shotrdquo Well long story short and for some unknown reason they picked me AND the ldquoBig Fishrdquo moment of this story That other kid turned out to be renowned story artist

from Dreamworks fame Todd Kurosawa (And it appears that one of us made a wiser career choice but Irsquom not saying who) Years later Todd and I still laugh about this series of events It was also at Farmhouse Films where I met a nice Filipino artist who had come from the field of graphic design I thought that was interesting because I was almost opposite of my career path I was just starting my studies in graphics

and was obsessed with cartooning Big Fish moment number two That cartoonist turned out to be one of the greatest Disney animators of the next generation after the Nine Old Men Ruben Aquino (who as may you know animated such memorable characters as Maurice (Bellersquos father in Beauty and the Beast) Ursula (the sea witch in Little Mermaid) Shang (Mulan) and Adult Simba (The Lion King) I say ldquoas you may knowrdquo not because hersquos from Filipino descent and all Filipinos in the arts should know each other but because hersquos well known in his own right A couple of years later after we had animated a few Sesame Street shorts and had done some preliminary work on some feature film stuff Farmhouse Films decided that it was financially too hard to continue operations in Hawaii and decided to move back to Los Angeles They asked me to come with them Thatrsquos when I had to really make a decision I had to decide to take a chance with animation or continue my studies in Graphic Design Truth be told I never thought I could draw as well as others and thought Irsquod best continue my studies at the University

UJ I have known many cartoonists but few have the natural sense of humor that you share so easily with the world or maybe itrsquos just when I am around Most cartoonists tend to be very shy in public Have you considered a career in stand-up comedyAL Hahaha no although itrsquos widely known that stand-up comedians suffer from some form of mental disorder so I guess I might be qualified in that regard I must say though that over the years I guess I have taught numerous workshops and emceed my fair share of weddings and events

UJ I have a Chinese father from the old country and was never encouraged to go into the arts What was your upbringing like and would you encourage your son in this field Many parents find the arts to be very risky careersAL Yes you and I share some of the same upbringings although my parents are 3rd generation Chinese in Hawaii so our ldquoold countryrdquo might be a sugar plantation in the fields of Hawaii While my parents never discouraged me from going into the arts I guess that since my father and his father before him were successful engineers there was an inherent leaning towards the more ldquopracticalrdquo professions I guess thatrsquos why I figured that Graphic


I also know of his work on a number of childrenrsquos books and t-shirt designs but it was his excellent comic book work on Dalgoda written by Jan Strnad that stands out in my mind Here is what he told me when I asked him what he was up to these days

ldquoSorry but there is no website about me Right now Irsquom mostly doing local freelance art jobs like t-shirt designs for the Custom Co and Hawaiian Sun Products Irsquom also a regular artist for Hawaii Parent Magazine doing illustrations for their editorial articles Once in a while someone will email me about commissioning an illustration for some comic book charactercharacters theyrsquore interested in Irsquom supposed to do one on the Suicide Squad for a client soon Recent accomplishments outside of artwork I replaced all the capacitors on my 7-year-old iMacrsquos power supply and logic board The

power supply had gone bad for a second time and I found a website that recommended replacing the capacitors as a do-it-yourself remedy Six days of stressed-out labor and one burned calf (dropped a hot soldering iron on it) resulted in one successful repair of my iMac which is back to humming merrily along This is not a job for the faint of heartrdquo Since Gary Kato was one of the guest artists at the Windward Mall we actually had a chance to see some of his paintings upstairs in Gallery Haiku which handles art by local Hawaiian artists They are

really vibrant and show a clear command of the brush Kato started painting while at

the University of Hawaii until he graduated in 1971 He resumed painting about 1995 Kato grew up with his friend Fujitake and has illustrated many comic books over the years among them Mr Jigsaw written by Ron Fortier Fortier and Kato worked on a number of projects including a graphic novel sequel to Peter Pan and Days of the Dragon which will be reissued on a ldquoprint-on-demandrdquo basis next year Kato also wrote and illustrated a graphic novel called Memories of Paradise He was the assistant to my old friend Terry Beatty who along with writer Max Alan Collins created Ms Tree the longest running private eye series in American comic books Kato also worked on Destroyer Duck Thunder Bunny and collaborated with Terry Beatty and Wendy and Richard Pini on Elfquest Bedtime Stories which is an adaptation of classic fairy tales featuring the Elfquest characters as children A few days after our mural painting event we went to HEXXP at the

Blaisdell Center Galleria where a variety of musicians and artists including Steampunk artisans were displaying their work We will explore this new area of pop culture in the next issue of Uncle Jam as well as the Cartoon Jam at the Kahala Mall We will also give our readers a preview of Jon J Murakamirsquos and my new graphic novel featuring The Dragons of Hawaii Clearly there is a vibrant art scene on Oahu f

Gary Kato

Origami Master Won Park

Steampunk artist Friston Hookana


Gregg Rickman and a brand new interview by Todd Jenkins with author Tim Powers whose book On Stranger Tides had an influence on the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean films Tim and I have known each other for decades and he recently reminded me that we first met back in Richard Kylersquos legendary bookstore in Long Beach When I moved to the Inland Empire a few years ago I ran into Tim at a writerrsquos event in the Los Angeles area I was doing a lot of work with the San Bernardino City Library and asked him if he would ever consider doing an event there He smiled and said that he had moved to Muscoy (an area of the city) many years ago which again shows me how small this world is Tim was also a good friend of Phil Dick as yoursquoll see in Jenkinsrsquos piece Alan Brennert the author of Molokarsquoi and Honolulu actually worked at Richard Kylersquos store before his great career as a TV writer and novelist and we spoke to him for this issue as well as covering Hawaii for a second time When we cover a place we generally talk about the artists and writers in that place On a personal note we could not produce this magazine without our advertisers and loyal staff My wife Linda continues to sell the ads and we really could use some help Linda Puetz has taken over as the main art director and we are so grateful for her help and to all the writers and artists around the world I have always championed independent artists and local small businesses which make the world a more interesting place The recent protests all over the world against big corporations and corrupt governments has really made me think about the 1 and us the 99 If we the masses are serious about really doing something real and long-term to change the way things are then we have to take real responsibility about the companies we support with our money If a big company is honest and their practices are fair by all means support them but if they are not and many are not then why not spend your dollars with local businesses in your own community or from independent artists online And instead of buying all the mass-produced nonsense why not think about buying real artwork from an independent artist or supporting artists in any field from the performing arts to the visual arts Consider buying an original work of art that may cost what a new pair of tennis shoes at the mall costs but will give you decades of enjoyment and might even rise in value in time Instead of only buying mass-produced music consider the

music made by so many struggling artists who are not featured on some TV talent show or even worse a reality show Consider cutting down on TV period and you will find yourself with so much more time Years ago Rosa Parks refused a seat at the back of the bus in Montgomery Alabama and the Montgomery Bus Boycott was launched by the people who were sick and tired of Americarsquos racist policies This boycott didnrsquot cave in to the police and the authorities Led by a young Reverend Martin Luther King Jr Ralph Abernathy and others for over one year they organized their own car pools and other alternate forms of transportation until the official racist policy was overturned by the courts I should note that this was a non-violent protest which is so important to me Perhaps when all of us start to really think about where our money goes we will stop supporting some of these big businesses who ruin the lives of so many of us in order to save a few dollars As the Hawaiian musician Makana recently sang We Are The Many and they are the few---Phil Yeh f

Sergio Aragones creator of Groo the Wanderer and MAD magazine cartoonist presents a ldquoSergiordquo award to legendary Al Jaffee at the 2011 Comic Arts Professional Society banquet in Los Angeles Jaffee both wrote and illustrated for MAD He is the creator of the MAD fold-in

Editorial continued from page 3

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Hi guys Thanks for getting me the 36th anniversary issue Just finished reading the Griffin article which I read back in the day and rediscovered when we were mounting the Griffin show As I re-read itrsquos amazing how timeless and packed full of good information it is Very inspiring Sad as Rick talks about his ambitious future plans Love the new intro Phil wrote We should have reprinted the article in the catalogue Thanks Greg Escalante

f

Dear Uncle Jam I want to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge the staff at UNCLE JAM Magazine on the occasion of their 100th Issue What a milestone Did ldquoWinged Tigerrdquo creator Phil Yeh know back in 1973 what a high price the early tabloid versions of this literary gem would fetch today online Probably not But he did know quality And he knew he had a mission

Inspired by cookie king Wally ldquoFamousrdquo Amos to focus light on the growing problem of illiteracy he founded Cartoonists Across America in 1985 Irsquom not sure when he met Linda Adams but what a team they make Shersquos always been a champion of literacy in the ldquoInland Empirerdquo region of Southern California Together they now take their message around the world What message Reading Writing and Artistic CREATION is much better than Gang Violence and DESTRUCTION In their travels Phil amp Linda have made many friends along the way Famous friends like Charles Schulz Ray Bradbury Sergio Aragones Barbara Bush and not-so famous ones Like me I first met them about 6 years ago when I was invited to see Ray Bradbury speak at San Bernardinorsquos Feldheym Library Since then Irsquove had the pleasure of assisting Cartoonists Across America create several amazing murals And because Phil gets local kids involved the murals instill a sense of pride and accomplishment in them And these murals are NEVER ldquotaggedrdquo Irsquom so grateful to have interviewed the surviving cast members of the classic ldquoBATMANrdquo series for UNCLE JAM 97 A treat for this bat-fan I should also mention my other friends at UNCLE JAM and Cartoonists Across America Folks like Matt Lorentz Lieve Jerger David Brown RC Williams and Frank Mangione to name just a few Their immense talents are eclipsed only by their great



Uncle Jam What is your background in art Dean Yeagle Irsquove worked mostly in animation but Irsquove done something in most areas of cartooning - childrenrsquos books games CD ROMS the Internet comic books advertising magazine and book illustration and for the past ten years gag cartoons for Playboy magazine UJ Did you go into animation directly from a 2-D illustration background DY No just the opposite I started in animation by getting a summer job at a small animation studio in Philadelphia where I lived and was going to art school It was small enough that I was able to do a bit of everything - design

animation backgrounds ink and paint layout storyboardsit was like an apprenticeship and a very good place to start A great atmosphere too great people to work with So I quit art school after that first year and stayed to learn the business I stayed there until the economy (yes there were bad economic times in the 60rsquos too) forced layoffs and I went to another small company that was mostly live action film They needed an animator for a TV spot about smogand I basically did the entire thing myself from storyboards through animation Then I was about to be drafted (Vietnam era) so I joined the Navy and spent some time floating about the Mediterranean on a destroyer We didnrsquot actually have to destroy anything fortunately

UJ Do you have a background drawing the human figure And do you think this is important for young artistsDY Yes itrsquos very important Itrsquos the basis for any sort of illustration cartooning or animation even if you mostly draw animals But I didnrsquot have much of a background in it having left art school after just a year Most of the cartoon characters I designed and animated over the years were not people or at least not realistic ones The Cookie Crisp commercials that I produced with my own company for instancevery cartoony humans A lot of fun to animate but only the most basic connection to human anatomy So when I started drawing for Playboy I started going to figure drawing sessions again I now go once or twice a week and I find therersquos always something to learn UJ What do you think of todayrsquos artists and do you use the new technology in your workDY Well of course there are some wonderful artists out there Irsquove met a lot of them at comic conventions a good place to find artists you werenrsquot aware of before I do find that there are styles in comic books and TV animation that bury individuality though Many comic books are wonderfully drawn but you canrsquot tell who did them because the styles are so alike The ones who are different are naturally the ones who stand out and thatrsquos what Irsquod recommend to every aspiring artist Develop your own style As for technology itrsquos a tool like any other and I use Photoshop for my Playboy cartoons and most of my books I was never a painter but when I found Photoshop it opened up a new world of color and possibility to me For original pieces for gallery sales of course I donrsquot use digital UJ When did you start to draw for PlayboyDY I started with Playboy in 2000 when I received a poster from them that was sent to all the animation studios in the US soliciting entries for an animation contest You could win $25000 and your animation would be shown on the Playboy website But itrsquos very costly and time-consuming to do animation so I thought Irsquod just do a couple of gag cartoons like they have in the magazine Even though it wouldnrsquot be what they were looking for theyrsquod at least see my work Otherwise it was very hard to get your work seen by them I sent the cartoons to them and I got a call from the cartoon editor Michelle Urry who asked me ldquoWhere have you beenrdquo Irsquove worked for them ever since Very nice people to work for

DEAN YEAGLE

UJ I know that Playboy gives your work wide exposure but do you have other outlets as wellDY Yes but as far as exposure is concerned Playboy is where it started because after years in animation I finally got to SIGN something That got my name out there and very quickly too I now publish my own books and with the Internet my work is seen all over the world I canrsquot stress enough the importance of the Internet in that respect There are about 300000 hits when you Google my name and websites in China Israel France Italy and Russiaall overfeature my work Lots of customers are out there Irsquove had books published in France and there are three galleries in Paris that carry my work UJ Is Mandy run in all the editions that Playboy producesDY Actually Mandy is not in Playboy at all Because shersquos my own copyrighted character she canrsquot appear in the gag cartoons There was a proto-Mandy in one of those cartoons though - different eye and ribbon color slightly different hair but that was really the start of Mandy as she is today I pulled her out of that cartoon and changed her a bit for an online workshop and the rest as they say is HERstory UJ Can you tell us about how your work has been received in Europe and which countries seem to be the biggest fansDY Well as Irsquove said I have galleries in Paris that carry my work - Galerie Arludik gave my first one-man show there Irsquom working on new pieces for a show at Galerie Daniel Maghen and Bernard Maheacute featured my work in his Galerie 9 Art That first show was in conjunction with the publication of the first edition of a book of my work MEacuteLANGE by


Akileos Publishing in Paris Irsquove been invited to France and Belgium for book signings as well and to comic conventions such as Angouleme and St Malo there Comix BuroAttakus has put my work in one of their series of sketchbooks and theyrsquove produced two sculptures of my characters So France and Belgium are by far the countries that seem to like my work the most But I get orders for my books from everywhere so it may be safe to say that there are at least a couple of people in every country who know my work Australia England Germany Brazil Argentina Venezuela Spain Russia China Japan Mexico Canada Singapore Latvia Indonesia Dubai Saudi Arabia Italy South Africabut itrsquos France and Belgium that seem to be the biggest fans of cartoon art in general not just mine UJ I know your work has been made into sculptures in Europe any other licensing plansDY The first Mandy sculpture was done by Electric Tiki here in the US and they recently released another MANDYrsquoS BUST Attakus in France has done another of my characters lsquoSuzettersquo and they have a Mandy coming out in December another sculptor here in the US is working on one too I did have a licensing deal with a Russian company for a line of coffee to be called Mandy lsquoReally Blonde Coffeersquo believe it or not But that seems to have fallen through And Irsquove licensed several images of her to a company that produces lsquoskinsrsquo for guitars and X-box and IPhones and even motorcycles Irsquoll be doing a Mandy comic book story for a Dark Horse Anthology and plans are in the works for some animation that I canrsquot talk about yet Every so often someone comes up with an idea I turn some down and others fall though so wersquoll see what happens next UJ Can you tell us about your next trip to EuropeDY The Galerie Daniel Maghen show in Paris but that depends on when I get enough pieces done Irsquove been invited to Ghent Belgium for a comic convention next year and there may be a possibility of Amsterdam UJ Does your wife help you with the businessDY Yes indeed - Barbara is indispensable at the comic conventions Shersquos an artist herself - a painter and shersquos done childrenrsquos illustrations for books and magazines Shersquos able to talk to people while theyrsquore waiting in line and shersquos very popular with the fans Some come mainly to talk to her I think Itrsquos impossible to do those shows with just one person In fact at San Diego we have help from our daughters in-law who help us at our booth too And of course Barbara loves the trips to Europe UJ What are your plans for the future

DY I have a new book to get done for San Diego next year a new sketchbook

for Attakus the show at the Paris gallery a lot of commissions some possible TV animation the Dark Horse comic and of course more Playboy cartoons And I want to continue to carve out a lot of time for our granddaughter Lily (6 yrs old) as well She can draw Mickey Mouse like he could step off the pagef



Last issue we featured a notice in my editorial on the passing of Jeffrey Catherine Jones on May 18 2011 along with a photo of a tribute mural done by James OrsquoBarr and Mark Bode Bodersquos dad Vaughn was a good friend of JCJ She was probably most known to my generation for her work in the National Lampoon of the 1970s but to a whole group of us comic book artists and fans we knew her as part of The Studio with Bernie Wrightson Michael Kaluta and Barry Windsor-Smith Another audience knew her for being a great illustrative painter who captured nuance and feelings like few artists Frank Frazetta who is legendary as a fantasy artist called Jones ldquothe greatest living painterrdquo You will be hearing a lot more about this artistrsquos work when the documentary film by Maria Cabardo is completed Cabardo was at the San Diego Comic-Con last summer on a panel generating support for this worthy project along with artists Bill Sienkiewicz (Elektra Assassin) Mark Bode (Cobalt 60) Louise Simonson (Superman X-Factor) Rick Berry (Sparrow 6 Double Memory) Robert Wiener (Donald M Grant Publisher) George Pratt (Batman Harvest Breed) and Henry Mayo (Ghostbusters Dune) The documentary feature film is called Better Things The Life and Choices of Jeffrey Catherine Jones Using interviews with Jones and a wide range of family friends and colleagues the film explores the late artistrsquos fascinating challenging life and unique journey through the worlds of comics illustration and fine art Check out macabfilmswordpresscom for more information

Her daughter Julianna was kind enough to send me a few of her favorite images for this piece I regret that I never met Jones but have long admired her work f

Jeffrey Catherine JonesBy Phil Yeh


Never fear The Cliff Hanger is here

Hersquos a superhero with zero tolerance for badly made books

When you work with Thomson-Shore our team takes heroic measures to produce the best possible book for you We offer

bull A vast choice of quality materialsbull Full color and black amp white printingbull Short run digital or mid-size to large run offset printing capabilities

Call us at 734-426-3939 or visitwwwthomsonshorecom

Worried about printing your graphic novel on a modest budget

Artwork by Jeffrey Catherine Jones

Photo of Maria Cabardo (seated on the left)and Jeffrey Catherine Jones(seated on the right)




Cog

els-

Osy

lei -

Phi

l Yeh

Unframed 12rdquo x 16rdquo gicleacutee print Limited Edition of 200Signed amp numbered by the artist $200 each Shipped flat

Cogels-Osylei is an art nouveau section of Antwerp Belgium

Yehrsquos original watercolors are on display at The ldquoDrdquo Gallery in beautiful Lake Arrowhead Village 2800 Highway 189Suite T200 Lake Arrowhead CA 92352 bull (909) 336-0067Prints are available at the gallery or online at wingedtigercom

Photo Left Daniel Gerken ownerartist and Phil Yeh artist

























































Theresa Van Ornum


Theresa Van Ornum



wwwvanornumworkscom

















































































wwwsonnyliewcom




































































































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Gary Kato










f








DEAN YEAGLE























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Osy

lei -

Phi

l Yeh





















































































wwwsonnyliewcom




































































































f









































































Gary Kato










f








DEAN YEAGLE























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Osy

lei -

Phi

l Yeh








































































































f









































































Gary Kato










f








DEAN YEAGLE























Cog

els-

Osy

lei -

Phi

l Yeh













































































Gary Kato










f








DEAN YEAGLE























Cog

els-

Osy

lei -

Phi

l Yeh













f








DEAN YEAGLE























Cog

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Osy

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Phi

l Yeh










DEAN YEAGLE























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Osy

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Phi

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Uncle Jam 100

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Transcript of Uncle Jam 100