At some point in 1995 Dylan and I were completely geeking out on 1930's and 1940's pop culture, so we decided to make a minicomic/zine together in which everything was of or from that era. This became Jambalaya #1. Dylan's contributions to this were the front cover, his Hank Williams bio-comic (the first time it was published), and a charming article on the work of Garrett Price. On the inside front cover he wrote " If you want to talk about old comic strip/book artists, then just write me," which I love because, as you know, he absolutely meant it. We planned a second issue, and I still have the cover art I drew for it. But we broke up before it came together, and that was that.
Click here to download a pdf file of Dylan's work from Jambalaya.
i always wanted to see the hank williams story.
ReplyDeleteand man that's a great cover drawing he did!
Wow! This is great. Sez here Hank was born December 22, 1891. That's 120 years ago today...
ReplyDeleteWoops, I am wrong--that was his dad. Hank was a Virgo, like Dylan.
ReplyDeletewow! this is fantastic! thank you!
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ReplyDeleteGabby, I'm not positive, but I think the first five pages of the Hank Williams biography strip were actually first published in my anthology, The Hanging Tree (which also had comics by Chuck Sperry, Eric Searleman and me & a first printing of 1,000 copies(!!!)). I could be wrong, but the issue I have here is dated November 1994.
ReplyDeleteDylan must have written his intro blurb himself, so I'll quote it here, as it's typical...
"Dylan Williams has been a life long fan on the great C.H.i.P.s television program. He has worked at comic stores for almost one quarter of his life... sigh. He realizes that Hank Williams has his own stamp, but you should buy his records anyhow. He thinks that comics are a dead medium and if he doesn't do them then nobody else will. He does a "mini-comic" called "Horse" ($2.00) and edits the Puppy Toss catalog (free) which has books by everyone in The Hanging Tree... available from Puppy Toss - P.O. Box 9849, Berkeley, CA 94704. His work has appeared in Filth, Don't Shoot it's Only Comics, Skim Lizard, Harpoon, and some other places. He will soon have his own "real comic" from Slave Labor (The Crime Clinic) and Aeon (Horse V2). Look for more stuff by him in Jab, Destroy All Comics, Ain't Nothing Like Moonshine, Crime Comics, Crossbred and Underfed, and (he's prayin') Pulse (as well as some other places)."
Jeff, I just got out my copy of the Hanging Tree and saw that you are indeed correct about chapter 1. So chapter 2 (the last 5 pages) appears to have been new with Jambalaya. Do you know if he published chapter 2 anywhere else? Did he continue it?
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the cover is a drawing of a Walker Evans photograph. "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" was in heavy rotation.
ReplyDelete"Dylan Williams has been a life long fan on the great C.H.i.P.s television program..."
ReplyDeleteahhhh man! he's the only other person i've ever known with as much love for CHiPs as me. dammit.
Haha, I forgot about his C.H.I.P.s fandom. At first I thought it was ironic, but I quickly discovered it was real.
ReplyDeleteGabby, I can't say for sure about further chapters, I don't remember exactly. My feeling is that nothing else was published or finished with the Hank Williams project, but possibly a few more pages were drawn or started?
ReplyDeleteOh it's for real. I love that show so much I used to schedule my college classes around CHiPs reruns. Dylan and I disagree on the later seasons. He doesn't like the post Larry Wilcox era when Ponch was partnered with Bruce and Bobby. He's also the only Dragnet nut I've ever known... probably way more of a Dragnet nut than me. I learned a lot about Jack Webb from Dylan. A couple of years ago he showed me the Dragnet movie from 1954 and we had several epic conversations about that film. Dylan also got me into Adam 12, which I think CHiPs is definitely a descendent of.
ReplyDeleteDylan was also a huge fan of the Hulk tv show from the 70s.
ReplyDeleteI think he thought it was the perfect comic book to screen adaptation.
We watched whole runs of the Ernie Kovacs Show, the Prisoner, and the Avengers together, but I could never get into Dragnet or C.H.I.P.s. Stereotypical gender differences, I guess. Every time Dylan would put on Two-Lane blacktop (which was often back then), I would be asleep within 5 minutes. My husband is always vexed at my complete inability to distinguish makes and models of muscle cars.
ReplyDeleteC.H.I.P.s, the hulk tv show, and warner bros. cartoons were my favorite tv shows as a kid. never talked with dylan about C.H.I.P.s - damn
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