I have been scanning a lot of decorated envelopes sent to me by longtime correspondents like Geoff Seaman, Amy Schoppert, Elsa Warnick and Steven Abrams, but I have also heard from some people to whom I only wrote for a short time who have saved their one example for years.
David Chelsea is listening to:
“Started Early, Took My Dog”
by Kate Atkinson
Chaz Weigler is a friend from high school days who worked for a while at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Connecticut (which gave me a chance to caricature the famously brooding playwright as “Gloomy Gus”). Chaz later changed his name to Will Weigler and wrote the book Strategies for Playbuilding: Helping Groups Translate Issues into Theatre. While still Chaz, he found his way into a dream which I wrote down in a diary and later made into part of the 24 Hour comic “Everybody Gets It Wrong!”, (which is half of the Top Shelf booklet 24X2).
I never met Jeremy Pinkham; he was an editor at Fantagraphics’s porn imprint Eros Comics when I was pitching them some proposals. I guess Jeremy shared my enthusiasm for 60s singer-songwriter Laura Nyro, whose portrait appears on the front of the envelope; the nudity collage on the back is obviously a demonstration of my porn chops (nothing came of the Eros proposals- they wouldn’t meet my price).
Anne Clark is an old girlfriend who probably counts herself fortunate that I never put her in a comic strip. Anne didn’t send me this envelope; instead it turned up in one of my files (BTW, Anne is “Clark Jr.” because her father owned a clothing store called Clark Junior).
