The underground and alternative comix scene inspired many cartoonists to create their own comix. Many of these projects were done as speculative works hoping to be picked by one of the new publishers. This comix was one of them.
Before long there were considerably more pages being created by emerging cartoonists than the new publishers could possibly support. At about the same time, inexpensive short-run printing was also becoming available. These trends combined to give rise to the newave comix movement in the mid to late '70s.
I'm a big fan of Vaughn Bode's work. From The Man in Graphic Story Magazine to his Cheech Wizard and Junkwaffle comix, Vaughn was like no one else in comix. His cartoons were the inspiration for the Frizard creatures that populate this Farlie Fan comix. Although Vaughn died in 1975, his son Mark carries on the tradition in cartoons and tattoo art.
It may not be immediately obvious but the main character in this comix is Fritz Frizard. Fritz was like an actor playing the role of Farlie Fan. At the time he was created, I planned to use Fritz in other stories playing different roles, perhaps other movie-inspired adventures.
In the mid 70s, the local TV station where I lived, started showing the Charlie Chan movie series. I quickly got hooked and began watching them every week. My favorite Chan actor was Warner Oland, who starred in the first five movies. One of the best ones was Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo. Besides Oland as Chan, and Keye Luke as Number One Son, the movie features a wonderful performance by Harold Huber. In fact, I enjoyed his performance so much I modeled the Inspector in this comix after him.
There are two references to old friends in the panel where Number One Son bursts into the Chief's office. I went to high school with Steven Grant. We hung out and talked a lot about comics. He was a great storyteller even as a lad, and one of his pet phrases was, "Ah, the plot sickens..." It was a natural line for this story.
The name on the door to the Chief's office is not his own. H. White stands for Haran White, a great friend and fellow comics creator in my formative years as a struggling cartoonist. Haran was a big fan of Charlie Chan movies too, so no wonder I slipped his name into this adventure.
The Farlie Fan story was done on spec for Bijou Comix in Chicago, but it was never published. Bijou was
one of the first underground comix and featured work by two of my favorite cartoonists: Jay Lynch and Skip Williamson. After Bijou turned me down, I moved on to other projects and never pursued publishing this story again. It appears here for the first time anywhere.
I used a crow quill pen to ink my early comix like this Farlie Fan strip. Not too much later I discovered the joys of rapidograph pens and never went back. My cartoons are usually very crisp and tight, so the consistent line of a rapidograph seems to complement my drawing style.
This was one of the first comix in which I used zipatone screens. Zipatone was an adhesive-backed, transparent sheet with halftone screen patterns printed on it. I loved the look of adding tones to the artwork. The application of zipatone screens in this early work was pretty rough, but I continued to use this technique for several years. By the time I published the first issue of Midnight Fiction, my skills in using the screens had improved considerably.
