Living at the time in a very small room, within a rooming house on Dwight Way, one day a punk rock type guy knocked on my door, and forced himself in saying " Since we're neighbors. let's be friends" How can you resist such a line, since Safeway wasn't using it anymore....Josh Levine, foul, fun, flamboyant, was now apart of the gang. He had more balls then most, so I took advantage. While living on Potrero Hill, I was neighbors with a very cool guy, Don Dahlstrom. I knew I was on the right track in my life when I met him, and it turned out he collected original comix art! He knew most of the Zap artists, and showed me his collection! Wow, what a small wonderful world! Well anyway, he turned me onto the phone number of the legendary underground maniac, S. Clay Wilson.
I told this story to Josh, and we had light bulbs light up over our pot hazed heads! Let's call Wilson and interview him for the first issue of Kär-tön'! New comics arts journal, That's what I named the magazine. I have an affinity for umlauts! We called up S. Clay and asked if we could venture over the bridge and visit and talk. He said ok, only if we could bring some coke and beer. We explained that we were poor, and couldn't afford any coke, but would be happy to bring some beer. It was on! Nervously we knocked on the door and a big burley guy quickly answered the door. We both, Josh and I, a bit scared to say the least, but Josh, having the balls he did, pulled off a brilliant interview. We taped the whole thing, drank some beer, got what we needed, then fled. I fired off the tapes to my sister, who transcribes, and she sent back the interview.
In those days, their weren't a lot of computers around, so we I went to a local place in Berkeley, and rented time on a machine. Once having all the great comic work, including a brilliant cover by John Seabury, we gathered everything up and hit Sean Condon's father's printshop. We shot all the stats and burned all the plates (the good old days!) and ran off about 1200 copies. Taking all the boxes of pages, and a loaned saddle stitch stapler, set off to put the first issue together!
CONTINUED
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