Comic Series
Sundry Comix
Da Boids
Nora Talbot
Larry Lagoon's
Fanzine Blues
Larry Lagoon's
Comic Dreams
Larry Lagoon's
Funny Pages
Suzy
by Richard O'Brien &
Bob Vojtko
Low Budget Funnies
by Bob Vojtko
Samurai Nun
by Bob Vojtko
Bandemar
by Joe Wehrle, Jr.
Stovepipe
by Joe Wehrle, Jr.
Bandemar by Joe Wehrle, Jr.
The Clarion Writers' Workshop for fantasy and science fiction, began at Clarion State College in Pennsylvania by Robin Scott Wilson. The staff of visiting lecturers during its first year included Judith Merril, Fritz Leiber, Harlan Ellison, Kate Wilhelm, and Damon Knight. Joe Wehrle, Jr. was one of the many students lucky enough to attend.
"When I was in the Clarion SF workshop," Joe recalls, "I wrote a story called Kromaflies, which Robin Scott Wilson liked, Fritz Leiber felt showed that I had put a lot of thought into the development of the society I wrote about, and Harlan Ellison pretty much hated, although he did agree I was a 'plotter,' which was high praise from Harlan, who had no patience with anyone who wrote off the top of their head with no object in mind. The kromafly story was later worked into the Fawn series I created for Menomonee Falls Gazette.
"Robin thought I should keep writing stories about the Narbek Forest, so when I dropped in on his workshop the following year, just to see and talk to the repeat members (I myself couldn't take the intensity of on-the-spot literary criticism a second time!) I took this little story about a creature Fawn encountered and showed it to Robin. 'I want it for the anthology,' he said, and I made my first fiction sale.
Joe's prose story, The Bandemar, was published in the first Clarion collection of stories by the workshop's lecturers and alumni by Signet in 1971. He also created a four-page, wordless comic version of the story that appeared in 1972 in Bill Schelly's Sense of Wonder #12.
"When I did those pages for Sense Of Wonder, I hadn't received the copyright reassignment in my name yet from Signet Books, so the pages were run as a sort of pantomime strip," Joe explains. The strip included this introductory explanation:
(Bandemars) are small, secretive and fleetingly-seen denizens of the Narbek Forest, about whom little is known. Bandemars are reputedly thieves, and may even have some degree of intelligence, for at any rate, they evince a most uncanny cleverness. They are decidedly not amiable creatures, yet on the other hand no evidence exists that they have ever done serious harm to anyone or anything. Most probably, they are better left alone.
Joe created a painting based on one of the panels that appears in the strip. He's since sold the original, but was able to provide a copy to share with MF.com readers. He also recalls making a clay image of the bandemar's head, but was unable to locate it
The pantomime strip was a sort of trial run for the Fawn comic strip that ran in the Menomonee Falls Gazette in 1971. The Bandemar, with prose and artwork presented together for the first time, follows. "There are very minor discrepancies between the text and the comic pages, and I didn't illustrate every possible description either, as I was trying to get the essence of the story visually into just four pages," advises Joe.
The Bandemar by Joe Wehrle, Jr. Page 1
The lightning flashed intermittently, piercing the daricness that cloaked the thick Narbek Forest. The wind drove bold curtains of leaves across the tangled paths, warning of the deluge to come.
Fawn the Dark-Eyed ran, clutching the sack of kluroot to her, strong wind pressing the brief skirt against her thighs. The girl was still a long distance from the tree-community, but there was ao hope of reaching it now; the only safety—and the only protection for her precious burden—lay in finding a quick refuge here. The distance from the Owlstree to her own community was an uncrossable one when it meant transporting dry kluroot through a storm.
This particular garnering was desperately needed, for the wandering sickness approached, and the scarce contents of her sack, kept dry, represented immunity for everyoae in the tree-carved dwellings. If the root, once dry, became saturated except under the righc conditions, a destroying rnold almost always set in. Fawn wrapped the bag in her cloak as a temporary protection.
The rain fell heavily and the wind continued to rise. Fawn searched ever more anxiously, ignoring the fact that she was losing track of her direction.
It was increasingly difficult to see, due to the storm's fury, so she nearly ran past the hollow thafa trunk. It was huge and the opening was away from the wind's direction. Fawn stumbied inside, throwing herself down against 'the inner wall gratefully.
There the girl remained, contentedly enough, watching the violence outside. She had removed her outer clothing, using her small, jeweled ear ornaments to tack them to the fibrous wall above ber. The kluroot sack reposed safely in a small cleft in the inner wall.
The Bandemar by Joe Wehrle, Jr. Page 2
From time to time the wind changed direction, blowing a little rain and a few leaves into the hollow trunk, but not disturbing her much.
On one of these occasions, a very large, dried seed pod came sailing in. Fawn noticed with some surprise that a thin vine was looped through the top, as if the pod had been tied to a branch. She leaned forward to study it.
A small form squeezed out the torn side of the pod with no warning, alarming the girl a little. It was light-green and stood on two spindly legs. The creature had a round head, distinguished most by its one gleaming transparent orange eye. The closed, sunken lid on the other side suggested that some misfortune had befallen its other eye. A wide, fanged and slitted mouth gave it somewhat the appearance of a water-hopper, but no mere water-hopper ever wore an expression so impish. It rubbed its small web-fingered hands together, staring curiously at the girl.
Fawn recognized it as a bandemar, though she had never seen one. Few could claim the distinction, since bandmars transacted their affairs far from the eyes of men. There was some question as to just what manner of life they might be. It was often hinted by the superstitious that they possessed abilities beyond the normal. There were also those who gave testimony to the effect that bandmars were not adverse to collecting the foresters' possessions while they slept. Indeed, Fawn thought she had seen small baubles strung inside the seed pod when the little beast emerged.
The bandemar squatted down on its haunches and watched the storm. Fawn, in turn, behaved as though its presence were a matter of indifference to her and went on humming to herself.
At last the storm abated and a few bright rays filtered down through the Narbekian gloom. The bandemar stood peering out the opening, webbed hands on hips, looking very much like a small, petulant old man.
The Bandemar by Joe Wehrle, Jr. Page 3
Fawn dressed, leaving the jeweled ornaments sticking in the wall until she was done. When she pulled them out, one dropped to the floor.
The bandemar pounced on it eagerly. The creature examined the small blue stone in the metal setting, turning it round and round. Fawn hesitated momentarily, then reached down and snatched the ornament from its grasp.
The bandemar turned and scuffed casually away to stand at the opening again. If it heard the girl's light laughter, it chose to ignore it.
Fawn stood near the thafa shelter and looked around uncertainly. One section of forest here looked much like another. She might find the right path in minutes or wander in circles for days.
The bandemar, which had followed her out, was seated on a small brown fungus mound that had sprouted during the storm. It stood up and walked away from the girl for a short distance, stopping to glance back at her over its small, bony shoulder with that lone piercing eye. Fawn hesitated only a moment, then shrugged and followed the little being.
The path was ever-winding, and as she continued on without spotting a familiar sign, Fawn's apprehension grew. She pictured herself attacked by lurking hordes of the little demons here, where no one would ever know what had happened to her or to the kluroot.
After a while, however, the girl began to notice several gnarled trees and roots that she thought she had seen before, and she felt slight reassurance. The reservation she still maintained was due to the fact that no one had ever heard of a bandemar helping anyone, and she didn't feel that any form of kinship had been brought about from their brief stay together in the thafa tree.
The Bandemar by Joe Wehrle, Jr. Page 4
Several times the bandemar found it necessary to skirt small areas in order to avoid certain dangerous fauna. These were, for the most part, small carnivores of which Fawn had no fear, but on more than one occasion, they narrowly missed confrontation—or more likely, simple disregard—for the supremacy of man.
At long last, Fawn stepped onto the well-known trail to her own village. Relieved now to feel herself again on equal footing with her environment, she no longer felt the need for haste. The bandemar had ensured her reaching home with the kluroot before night came with its slinking dangers, its crawling entrapments, its winging death. She wondered how one explained one's gratitude to a bandemar.
Finding some ripe greatberries, she broke one off and cut the meat into chunks with her small dagger. As she are she proffered some to the bandemar and it approached slowly, but only stared at her grimly with that one glistening orange eye.
Fawn suddenly felt drowsy, and although she knew well the perils of sleeping alone and unguarded in the Narbek Forest, she was powerless to resist. Her mind seemed to be drifting off through the trees, losing its grasp on reality.
She awoke moments later to find the bandemar moving away from her in its swaggering stride. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs, brushed a hand through her hair. Then she stopped, abruptly.
Puzzled, she removed the ornament she had felt and looked at it. The blue gem was gone from its setting, although, strangely, the thick bezel was undisturbed. She shrugged, amused at the prospect of her blue stone dangling from a seed pod somewhere in the depths of the forest. But that was not to be its fate.
The bandemar had reached the thicker foliage. It turned, striking an insolent pose and flaunted the gem between two webbed fingers. Then, thrusting out a small green forked tongue, it popped the gem into its empty eye socket.
Thanks to Joe Wehrle, Jr. for permission to present Bandemar with the original story and comic pages together for the first time.
Bandemar and Fawn the Dark Eyed are copyright Joe Wehrle, Jr.
Pencil Portraits Gallery
Beautifully drawn original portraits by Joe Wehrle, Jr.
What A Find-Antiques-Collectibles
The Wehrle's eBay store full of unexpected treasures like vintage toys, books, carpentry tools, eye glasses, miner's carbide lamps, tin signs, vintage cameras, and much more.
