The Orbiting Dictum of a Salty Salt Ghost Beetle

I would like to address the erroneous notion that this panel somehow depicts the extinction of...

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Ancient Quincuncial Networks

Jainne Lummrey was a postgraduate student at Newcastle University, studying the history and literature of early modern Britain, when she discovered Geranium Lake Properties in the British comic magazine Viz. (GLP appeared irregularly in Viz from 1987 to 1991, according to a deal with John Brown that was independent from Yost’s agreements with his other comics syndication services.) Jainne wrote to Yost after the “Ancient Quincuncial Networks” panel was published in May 1990. Thus began an ardent correspondence that lasted for nine years, until Jainne Lummrey’s death in 1999. Yost last letter arrived at Jainne’s London address two days after the police discovered her body. The letter was sent from New Zealand, postmarked the day before Yost disappeared after boarding a ferry from Auckland to Rangitoto Island.

Rainwater Mama

Yost often challenged other artists to make Geranium Lake Propeties comics. For a shy eccentric, he could be surprising brazen when inviting people to participate in the GLP universe. Al Hischfeld, Saul Steinberg, Charles Addams, Shel Silverstein (who all declined) were among the many Yost asked to contribute a GLP panel.

Today's post is by Gina Garey, who worked as an inker and colorist for Marvel Comics in the 70's and 80's, when she was married to editor Fred Garey. She started her career at the age of 17, painting animation cels. Her divorce from Garey ended her employment with Marvel, but she immediately found a job at DC Comics, where she worked for five years, then she quit comics altogether. After that she dedicated herself to making zines and mail art. She came out of professional retirement in 1993 to work with Vertigo Comics until 1996. She died in 2001 of cancer at the age of 72. She always signed her zine and mail art as "uggi". At Marvel, DC and Vertigo she was always credited as Gina Garey, even after her divorce. Her legal name was Ursula Regina Garey Iversen.

GLP historian Michael Veerduer has a theory that "hrera dachre" was derived from four names of democratically-elected leaders who were assassinated by CIA, but he has not been able to decode it and tell us the four names.

© 2017 lcmt
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The Stele of 14-Shull Min, from Izabal, Guatemala

When melissadawn showed me these N52 magnets I started digging through my image files, looking for this particular GLP comic. Her image had reminded me of a note from Ha Kim Ngoc, Yost's assistant and occasional collaborator, about a puzzling inscription. "Drawn by magnets" had been written by Yost in pencil, in one of his most easily recognized forms of handwriting, on the back of the original drawing for this comic.

The original art for Geranium Lake Properties is in an inaccessible place, spirited away by the Italian media corporation that claims ownership of Yost's intellectual property, but I have a nearly complete set of images made from high quality transparencies of Yost's drawings. This incomparable resource was entrusted to me by Ha Kim Ngoc. Along with the image library, Ha Kim Ngoc gave me copies of her notes about the creative history and physical characteristics of the drawings.

© 2017 lcmt
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The misprints of "Laid Down Gin"

On the back of the original drawing, Yost wrote in pencil: "brand new key unlocks them both".

Lucy Mondegreen's Ledger

Geranium Lake Properties, turn one hair

In this panel, I am feeling the end of fall, and the first frosts of winter. Ha Kim Ngoc identifies this as part of Jack Loki's translations of Shakespeare for horned lizards, but she does not tell us which play this panel illustrates. To me it looks more like Dickens, especially at this time of year, when I have already watched my first Christmas Carol movie. "Mothers and daughters" is the note Yost penciled on the back.

Geranium Lake Properties, when the pied ordinaries of your grief become mute

On the back of this comic, Wm. Yost penciled "Series: Jack Loki translates Shakespeare for horned lizards" and "Phrynosoma platyrhinos or coronatum?" His assistant, Ha Kim Ngoc, says there are more than a dozen panels that belong to the Shakespeare translation series, but she is not sure this panel is one of them. Yost wrote his ideas down on pieces of paper, scraps or envelopes or whatever was handy. He jotted all sorts of things on the backs of his GLP panels, including phone numbers of people he never called, titles of books he never read, and confirmation numbers for bills he paid over the phone.

Asemic comics are published here three times a week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday (or sometimes Saturday night).

Geranium Lake Properties, the Return of the Jackalope

Jack Loki's Raindance

In the summer of 1992, golden California was baked brown and burnt from a drought that had lasted 5 years. Wm. Yost was a California resident at the time, living in a trailer park* near Oceano Beach. GLP's sporadic protagonist, the irrepressible jackalope named Jack Loki (or "Holmes Tuttle" to his close friends), lived in an undetermined desert that could have been the Sonoran, the Mohave, the Gobi, the Mongolian-Manchurian steppe, or the deserts of Barsoom. Yost, born in Wickenburg, Arizona, and Jack, a wild creature native to deserts, were both accustomed to drought as a natural cycle of their environment. Even so, the situation in California in 1992 seemed severe, almost dire. In response, Yost created a series of GLP panels called "Jack Loki's Raindance". That winter (1992-1993) the drought broke with rainfall totals that nearly reached record amounts.

California is suffering from another tremendous drought right now, so I thought it would be a good time to break out the raindance panels.

*The trailer park grew up around a Victorian-style mansion called the Coffee T. Rice House. Before the trailer park was built, the house was surrounded by a Christmas tree farm where my family would find and cut our tree when I was a child. Here are two encounters with the Coffee T. Rice House by bloggers writing about California's central coast:

https://newleafgarden.wordpress.com/2014/01/27/birds-and-beef/

http://diaryofamadbabyboomer.com/2014/10/15/pacific-coast-highway-day-1-la-to-pismo-beach/