OHO! (prequel to "The Reunion of the Super Pets")

After the last few weeks, I had to do something to lighten up this blog. And this is it, fellow babies!

The Genesis of OHO

Roughly a thousand years ago -- or, to put it another way, in the early 1970s -- I was a high school student who contributed occasional stories, articles, and a comic strip called "Doodles Dumbluck" to a strange publication which Massachusett's Oxford High School inexplicably called "The Ledger." I say "inexplicably" because when I think of a ledger, I think of bookkeeping, accounting, etc., and The Ledger was called our high school's newspaper... albeit a newspaper which was -- at least until well after I'd joined the staff -- printed in the form of a stapled booklet rather than a "proper" newspaper.

(In all fairness to the concept of using The Ledger as the title of a newspaper, the very first entry when doing a Google search for "ledger" is a newspaper called The Ledger in Lakeland, Florida. But I digress.)

Anyway, due to the fact that there were several weeks -- or even months -- between issues, The Ledger wasn't much of a newspaper, but it tried. Or rather, its staff did. But there were a lot of filler pieces, like the stories and comic strips I mentioned, and a lot of bad poetry.

Somewhere about this time, the thought occurred to yours truly that what Oxford High School really needed was a newspaper that was a little more.... subversive? An underground newspaper, something that wouldn't be controlled by the Powers-That-Be.

Umm... Did I mention, this was the early 1970s?

Anyway, I decided that I would gather a handful of like-minded upstarts and anonymously publish an underground newspaper called the Oxford High Oracle. (Notice, if you will, that the word "the" is not officially part of the title.)

As I was planning this radical little scandal sheet, I decided that I should have an editorial pseudonym. I created a David'Z RantZ-ish mascot of sorts, a disgruntled entity whose name -- OHO (all caps!) -- came from the initials of the proposed publication itself. OHO would be a little-seen, cartoony figure. Then, as now, I wasn't much of an artist, so I gave OHO a visual design which even I could handle.

The following one-page origin sequence was neither written nor drawn during my high school years. It was done circa 1986-1987. I'll explain why later in this post. (Right-click on the illustration to open a larger version in a new tab or window, please!)

And I did not chicken out! Little bastard. OHO also added a "the" to Oxford High Oracle's title. Jerk.

For once, I can rightfully blame others for the fact that the newspaper never saw the light of day. If my memory serves me correctly, the only one of my friends & friendly acquaintances who had the time and/or inclination and/or guts to contribute was my best friend, Kevin.

And I sure as hell wasn't going to attempt such a monumental undertaking with so few kindred spirits.

So, Oxford High Oracle lay stillborn. And the above origin story implies that I was "stuck" using the OHO character over the years, but that's not exactly true, either. I not only didn't use him until 1986, but I really didn't even think of him again during the intervening years!

The Return of OHO

In the mid-to-late to 1980s -- that's right, during my stint at the Eisner-Award-winning collectibles shop That's Entertainment -- I was briefly involved with a cresting fad called "small press comic books," a/k/a "mini-comics." These were tiny, self-published, photocopied comics -- not exactly fanzines -- written, drawn, and sold (mostly by mail) by people who just plain loved comics and had neither desire nor hope whatsoever of making any real money from their efforts. It was something one would do for fun, and in most cases, camaraderie with other mini-comic creators. (I actually attended a comic convention in Boston, where about a dozen of us small press "publishers" chipped in and rented a space to sell and promote our "wares.")

Some of them were brilliant. A guy named Eric Mayer -- pronounced like "mayor" and not like "myer" -- produced a title called "Pictures of Matchstick Men." His characters were stick figures. One issue showed one of these figures playing the opening riffs of the 1960s Status Quo song "Pictures of Matchstick Men" on a guitar.

If you know that song and its classic beginning, I defy you to read the first page of Mayer's magnificent mini -- or my reproduction of the opening sound effects, which follow -- and not hear the tune in your subconscious while his stick figure character plunks out:

Ning ning ning ning, ning ning ning ning,
Ning ning ning ning, ning ning ning ning,
Ning na ning, ning ning ning ning ning ning,
Ning na ning, ning ning ning ning ning ning!

Twisted and brilliant.

Mayer also described the time when, as workers in a grocery store, he and a friend or two each grabbed large canisters of Instant Quaker Oatmeal from the shelf and formed a conga line, playing the "Quaker Oatmeal Conga" on their makeshift drums!

Picture it. Two or three stockboys, dancing while chanting:

In-stant Qua-ker OAT-meal!
In-stant Qua-ker OAT-meal!
In-stant Qua-ker OAT-meal! etc.

As I said above, twisted and brilliant.

I also sent away for a mini-comic -- I can't recall the name right now -- written by a guy named Chuck Bunker (who also wrote and drew a really cool title called Geriatricman) and drawn by a fellow named Ted Bolman. Assuming I was contacting the artist, I called him "Ted," and he sent me a letter along with the comic which began "I'm not Ted Bolman." This led to a short-lived series of lame jokes where, as in Silver Age DC Comics, I made remarks to the effect of "How do I know you and Ted Bolman aren't the same person? I've never seen both of you in the same room at the same time." (See, the idea was, I'd never actually met either of them, and... never mind.) And when they both attended the Boston convention which I mentioned earlier, I took the joke one step further and -- again, as in early 1960s DC Comics -- said "How do I know one of you isn't really Alfred the butler, in disguise?"

Look, you hadda be there, okay?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The convention came after I had produced my own mini-comic.

So, backtracking a bit... I wanted "in" on this phenomenon. True, I couldn't draw, but in this format, that wouldn't be an issue!

But what would my comic be about?

At this time (1986), I was already writing the Insect Man title for That's Entertainment -- a title which was arguably the oldest "small press" comic still being published at that time, albeit with quite a hiatus between its original incarnation and that of the 1980s -- and I was about to join the ranks of the professionals with the publication of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. #1 in January of the following year (1987, natch!).

I couldn't use the Insect Man character even if I'd wanted to try my hand at drawing him; he wasn't mine. Add to that the fact that I didn't want to do any serious concept(s) of my own which I may have had in my mind, in this virtually-unpaid format.

Then I remembered OHO, who was basically a throwaway charcter anyway... although one which I actually hadn't thrown away!

Obviously.

It's engraved in stone somewhere. Or at least, it should be:

"David M. Lynch's First Rule of Writing: Never throw anything away."

So here, without further ado...

(Wait a second! Screw that. This is Yours Truly we're dealing with here!)

So here, with further ado...

In other words, here are some random notes before you get stuck reading I serve up this little gem:

• In plotting my mini-comic, I decided to give OHO's inky form somewhat of a shape-shifting quality. And, as I mentioned, OHO #1 was done in 1986. Not only were the X-Men comics (and Wolverine, of course) extremely popular, but so was a TV show you may or may not be familiar with called Miami Vice, which co-starred the "Don Johnson" I reference on page six.
• That silverish look to my hair and beard -- although at that time, my hair was a solid brown and not the greyish-white "Silver Fox" look I sport today -- was achieved by filling in the appropriate areas with a heavy concentration of pencil, as opposed to the black ink which delineated the rest of the art. That was one of the few artistic tricks I used in OHO #1 as flashy diversions from the fact that as an artist, I'm a pretty good writer!
  
• Yes, I know. I draw the worst freakin' hands in the business! The drawings of my own (human) hands in OHO's origin story were the result of some actual effort on my part, which is why they're even as good as they are... which ain't too good!)
• That weird little badge I'm wearing on page seven, the one with the number 3 on it, is a reference to my being a fan of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a TV show I watched as a kid (and, as stated before as well as above, the first professional comic book I was ever involved with.) It may safely be assumed that I am wearing it throughout OHO #1; you, the reader, just don't see me from the right angle until the last page!

So, without further ado: OHO #1-and-only!








So. I was officially a small press publisher.

There never was an OHO #2. I never really intended for there to be a second issue, although I did submit a couple of illustrations of OHO here and there, as well as prepare that one-page "origin" story, which was supposed to appear in a small press anthology which never happened. As it turned out, for one reason or another, I soon lost interest in the whole "small press explosion," as the whole fad was referred to at the time.

The next time I used OHO, he was a mascot once more, in the early 1990s. I had left That's Entertainment on amicable terms in 1988, and not long after had started a new & used comic book business called Yesterday & Today at a flea market. The business briefly supported a store, although I ran the store and the Sunday flea market stand simultaneously. Several flyers and of course, the store sign itself, featured OHO.

Not long after the store closed, I eventually got out of the new comic side of things, and by the early years of this century, I'd pretty much gotten the "business" part of the "comic book business" out of my system entirely.

There was never an official date upon which OHO had outlived his usefullness, but his "demise," as it were, came well before I closed up shop at the flea market.

And that, as they say, is that...

Oh, wait. I lied. I was just messin' with you. Silly me.

In 1988, OHO was involved in a major fanzine project of mine, and that's what you'll be reading about next week! (UPDATE: For reasons I won't get into here, the follow-up to this post never appeared. Sorry.)

See you then, I hope.

But until then... Last, but not least, a little "bonus" for you:

Here's my ages-old rendering of OHO doing an "impression" of Rorschach, from the then-more-or-less-current DC series, Watchmen! (And ya gotta love the timing, considering that the Watchmen flick will soon be hitting the theatres!)


Thanks for your time!

The Once and Future AERO, Chapter One!

David M. Lynch's First Rule of Writing: Never throw anything away.

Part One ~~ The 1960s

The very first character -- a superhero --- that I remember creating was "Lobster Man," a rather unimaginative sort who popped into my head when I was about five or six years old. Someday, I'll tell you more about him. But not now.

• The very first story spawned by my young mind was the now-painfully-recalled tale of "The Grandson of Dracula," which made its almost-debut a year or two after Lobster Man's creation. Only a few paragraphs of the story were ever actually written down (by my mom, no less), and only parts of it were plotted, as well. And if you're a glutton for punishment and want to know more about the story, all I can remember at this late date are two plot points:

1. The main character's father -- the Son of Dracula, natch! -- was briefly mentioned at the beginning of the story. He was an American soldier in World War II, who was unceremoniously staked right in his foxhole by another American soldier who'd discovered his true identity. Swear to God.
2. The climactic battle which resulted in the death of Drac's Grandson -- I don't recall ever having given him a real name -- took place atop the uppermost tracks of a freakin' roller coaster. Again, I swear to God.

When I was really young, I would often act out the stories I created in my warped little brain. I seldom took these sessions all the way to the point of dressing as the characters, but if my memory serves me correctly, I did end up dressing as the Grandson of Dracula, wearing a costume comprised of:

1. A Frankenstein mask (Of course it made no sense, but my "costumes" were assembled from whatever I had around the house!).
2. A pajama top designed to look like a gaudy sportcoat (It had wide red, white, and blue horizontal stripes, and IIRC, red lapels.).
3. A wooden ski pole as a "weapon." I don't know why I used a ski pole rather than one of the zillion toy guns I owned. Maybe it was more in keeping with the superheroes, who didn't kill. Captain America had a shield, not a gun. Thor had a hammer, not a gun. And so on.
   
4. Lord knows what else.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say in my typical roundabout fashion is that I don't know who or what I was supposed to be on the day the above photo was taken, but it sure as hell wasn't Lobster Man or The Grandson of Dracula.

It wasn't Red Raven, either. He came very slightly later, when I was about seven. (Yup, that's another tease, for another time. Sorry.)

I went through a lot of phases when I was a little brat kid. I had to, as a sort of coping mechanism for the fact that I didn't have too many neighbors my own age. What I did have was a sister who was six years my elder. She and I didn't play together very much. I remember two games we played a lot, however:

1. "Jocko" was what we called the game where my sister played a young girl who owned a monkey named Jocko. I, of course, was Jocko. Yay.
2. "Chicken Hawk" was what we called it whenever we would ride our horses -- real horses, I should add -- to various imaginary farms, warning all the farmers to lock up their chickens because the dreaded chicken hawks were coming! Swear to God. Damned chicken hawks never even showed up. (Chickenshit was more like it, apparently!) And obviously, since it was our game, they could have shown any time we wanted them to, and I dimly recall at least one time when I suggested to my sister that such a confrontation was necessary for the sake of an exciting storyline... but no. She controlled these stories. No wonder I wanted to be a writer as I grew older, so I could be in control of the story.
   

But I digress.

Something else that I had, which was ten times better than neighbors and a damned sister any day of the week, was 4.7 acres of mostly fields, with some surrounding woods... added to an over-active imagination.

When I wasn't in the house watching television or reading, I was usually outside in the field -- my father often instructed me to "go outside and play with yourself" [sic], which was about as racy as the humor got in my house during the sixties -- and that gave me leave to play on one of the two huge wagons we had on our property.

When I say "wagons," I'm not talking about the "little red wagon" variety. Nope. We had two full-sized wagons. One was similar to the old "covered wagon" you'd see in all the TV and movie Westerns... but without the cover -- or metal "ribbing" -- itself. The other was a "tilt-cart," kind of a forerunner of the dumptruck. Both were ancient, and starting to rot.

Potential death-traps, in other words. The perfect playground accessories.

There was no such thing as a "child-proofed" anything in my day. I guess they figured that if you survived all the scrapes, gashes, broken bones, concussions, and the like which you were bound to encounter while growing up, it was God's way of showing the world that He'd meant for you to make it to adulthood all along!

(Hey, not bad. I just managed to combine "intelligent design" with evolution's "survival of the fittest" angle.)

But hey, I'm still digressin' my ass off here, so what's say we only stay stuck in the '60s long enough to say that, in reference to the above photograph:

1. Somewhere in the back of my childish mind, I must have been pretending that the green monster toy -- The Great Garloo, by Marx -- was a gigantic figure in his and my "reality." Otherwise, I would've been a pretty crummy superhero to attack something smaller than myself... and with a damned ski pole as a weapon, no less.
2. Again, I really have no idea who or what I was supposed to be in the above photo.

Okay, boys'n'girls... Let's jump ahead roughly twenty years. Cuz I can.

Part Two ~~ The 1980s

During the mid-1980s, I was working at a store called That's Entertainment, in Worcester, Massachusetts, which sold comic books, records, sports & non-sports trading cards, role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and the like... and just about anything else one could call a collectible. (Can you say "milk bottles," boys'n'girls? Sure you can.) TE's owner (and Jerry Seinfeld lookalike), Paul Howley, was a shrewd businessman trapped inside the body of a "kid" who refused to completely grow up, at least where it concerned things he didn't have to act like an adult to accomplish.

I certainly hope that doesn't sound like an insult. It's meant as the exact opposite. "What I'm trying to say in this awkward way" (Sorry, old Rod Stewart line!) is that Paul generally didn't take things too seriously, which made him a really fun person to deal with, work for, etc.

(One example: Paul used to take a perverse delight in telling people "I sell funnybooks for a living." My personal view was that he purposely used the term "funnybooks" to good-naturedly thumb his nose at those who took the comic book hobby too much to heart. You know, like the oft-seen geek-made-good characters in movies and TV nowadays, who make constant, all-too-serious references to "graphic literature?" That type of person would positively cringe at a term like "funnybooks.")

In fact, it was the last Day Job -- notice I did not use my usual "Crappy Day Job" designation -- which I actually enjoyed going to "work" at.

During my stint at TE, the so-called "black & white boom" -- spearheaded by the fluke success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- hit the comic book market. All of a sudden, anybody who had -- or whose dad had -- two or three thousand dollars to spare could become a comic book publisher. ("Could," and, in far too many unfortunate cases, did.)

Paul and I were both at the store one day, talking about an old TV show we'd both enjoyed as kids during the 1960s. It was a program called The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

According to Paul's recollection of that day, I was the one who asked aloud why none of the comic companies -- many of which had nostalgic licensed projects in the works -- were doing a revival of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series.

Paul and I suddenly became the 1980s equivalents of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, with their old "Hey, kids! Let's put on a show!" exuberance. (I'll leave it to you to decide which of us was Mickey, and which of us was Judy... !) It was decided that That's Entertainment would secure the rights to publish a Man from U.N.C.L.E. comic.

(I am greatly over-simplifying this story! Lord, am I ever! If you want all the dirty details, you can start here.)

Anyway, the decision was eventually made that the U.N.C.L.E. series would feature stories by various writers and artists. Several submissions were... umm... submitted. There was even a sheet of photocopied sketches -- not original art -- and an accompanying cover letter from comics legend Dick Ayers!

Ayers had been working in comics for almost forty years, and had helped usher in the so-called "Marvel Age of Comics" in the 1960s. Personally, I'd particularly enjoyed his work on two Marvel titles, Ghost Rider (a Western character, not the motorcyclist with the flaming skull that came later) and Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.

The "fanboy" within me asked Paul if I could keep the letter and the drawings, and he said yes. I "filed" the two pages somewhere and more or less forgot about them...

For about six years, anyway...

* * * * *

That's all you get this week, gang. Sorry! Next week, Chapter Two (including "Part Three," in my quest to confuse everyone!), which is all about Dick Ayers, myself, and the creation of AERO!

Thanks for your time.