When I was a kid of 11 I lived in a trailer court.
Some of you did too and know what thats like. It's very similar to living in a housing edition but where everything is a little less well made. There is a phenomenon attached to living in these sorts of areas socially for the kids that as far as I know has no latin term but which I refer to as companions of convenience. If your real friends are busy or are in trouble then it was never too compliocated to find some random association of others lingering about to entertain yourself with. It was always a diverse cast when this occurred. Maybe that one kid who always harasses you at school might be in it and act as though nothing was amiss to being at least civil to you. Enough nuetral parties or parties friendly to you present in the huddle seemed to allow unnegotiated detentes.
So when I invoke this sort of odd social dynamic you should understand the awkward social atmosphere when just such a gathering occurrs at your best friends birthday party in this same trailer court. Do I know any of these heathens? Are there hitters in here? What does that look mean?
I still felt like I had a good position in the room being the best friend, sort of management status in the Kane household as i spent a lot of time there and with the parents rated at least as important as the furniture to them. But I was suspicious of the blonde 14 year old that occupied the good lawn chair on the patio. With blonde boys it seemed like even if you ended up as friends always at least started out as dicks. How many times did i see those invisible eyebrows cutting through playground waters like apale dorsal fins with bad intentions?
But this slightly older thus likely aggressive blonde kid did not act the fool as so many had previously. He talked about drawing...I liked drawing. He talked about comics...I liked comics! He had even invented some of his own characters and put them in his own comics...I had also done that very thing! Then I saw some of that art work and it was orders of magnitude better than mine. I wanted to be that good. I had to watch him and see how he did the amazing things that he did.
Thus began my childhood pestering of Charles Coleman Finlay. Three years was a big gap at that age and so even though I was brighter than most kids my age there was the wall of hormones seperating our perceptions so I could never really be one of this crowd. They were all comics guys and did projects together which enthused me no end. It was Jeff Yoakum, Bob Martino and Charlie in some combination most times. Bob and Jeff were like older brothers meaning when alone and bored they brutalized me to some degree. Jeff ran a strip in the OSU lantern called "The Neighbors" for literally years which included me as a character. Well, a carricature of me really although I was a wild man in college the events in that strip were about 80% hyperbole with some actual events being thrown in there. He then went on to do afew years of editorial cartoons at the Marysville Journal-Tribune until his responsibilities with his mates Law Firm and recently fatherhood have redirected his time. Jeff lived about 3 blocks from me, Bob lived across the street and Charlie liked a block over.
The last I heard of Bob he was a physicist and working at Columbus COSI. Charlie is, as many of you know, a novelist living in Columbus these days. When I see him today I am pleased to see where this 14 year old renissance man who taught me so much through example has ended up.
Now, I tell you all that to tell you this. Charlie had a friend who was an upperclassman that blew even Charlie Finlay away with his artistic skills. He was an even more distant figure to me than Charlie as he lived all the way across town like three miles. This artistic prodigy was called, at the time, Scot Ulrich. Since those halcyon days of childhood it has become Scot Zellman and it might have always been I was always confused about that.
But Scots work was like eating really good candy. He had these interesting positions and his inked work had such bold defined strokes it was always a pleasure to riffle through stacks of typing paper seing the poses of "The Artful Dodger" "Ricochet" "Powerhawk" "Kingman" and many more whose names I would recognize but do not now recall.
I was sure he was going to the show.
In college, Scot some years before Jeff , had an extremely popular comic strip in "The Lantern" called Pot Shots. I was excited when I saw his name on it the first time. it was hilarious consistently and even though it was done in a cartoonish style it still had those inevitable and bold lines like it could not have been drawn any other way. These days, Scot is working on an ongoing online webcomic called "Mordant Ghoulash" which is dark and awkwardly hilarious on www.zellhound/wordpress.com . It's free, it's hilarious. Check it out.
Today Scot releases a cartoon collection from his webcomic "Buster Wilde Weerwolf" (Yes, that's Weerwolf on purpose, not my typo) through createspace. He describes it as Bloom County only more gay. It has the same powerful, bold lines and all the wit seen in both older and newer projects. See the banner for purchasing information. Do Scot and yourself a favor and buy an underground classic to fool people into thinking you're way hipper than you even aspire to be.
