Ink and Design was founded in February of 2006, an incarnation of Flatwurks
Graphix.
But this is only the story so far. The quest started out in 1960, the
official date of copyright. Bruce Hilvitz was born in Southern Colorado. With a short stint in collecting comics. A good friend at that time collected HULK. To keep up, and to hang out, I chose SUPERMAN. I enjoyed the company, but not the genre. I liked the weirder stuff. Mad Magazine, Basil Wolverton, the Marx, Nutty Mad series, Big Daddy Roth... Being in a small town, there was not much to be "had". Until one day I ran across a copy of Apex Novelties, Mr. Natural by R. Crumb. Being under 18, The head shop guy wouldn't sell it to me. I asked my mother, who had bought it with no questions asked. Until later she looked at it!...it was too late for me.
Seeing what a lot of future colleagues would say they saw, something in the style and format, not to mention "subject matter", it opened up something in the psyche.
Deciding to join the ranks
of other underground cartoonists of the world. I gave myself (in 1979) 10 years to establish,
and apply my craft to the field, and get published in a national forum. Well little did I
know, that in a short 3 months, I would sell my first cartoons, three to
be exact, to Ziff-Davis Publishing. Well this made things a little tough...shy
of 9 years and 9 months to complete my goal, perplexed, I decided to spend
the remaining time honing my craft.
Moving to San Francisco
with my then girlfriend, Laura, and an old green army duffel bag. We landed at the
Greyhound Bus terminal on a rainy weekday. Our first purchase was an umbrella.
With a pocket containing an address of Rip
Off Press Publishing, I planned to go forward and boldly ask for a
job. Even if it meant sweeping floors. Gathering some nerve, and loading
onto the number 19, I took off to see just what may happen. Walking into
the legendary underground comix establishment, I approached a raggady long
hair hippy type, pushing a broom behind the counter. Asking if by any chance
I would be able to help out and replace myself with that broom, the "hippie"
looked a bit pissed, and replied "Sorry kid, we got someone who does
that!". Little did I know at the time, and found out much later, that
the cranky "hippie" was the legend himself, Gilbert Shelton,
creator of The
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and part owner of Rip Off Press.
Years later, both Gilbert and I would have a laugh at the re-telling of
this story.
