Clotto Clabber

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CLOTTO CLABBER w/ toast (2009)

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Artwork © 2009 Rick Grimes

GRIMES: “The above pic was perhaps my first real line art scan posted on Facebook. It’s been there for years now. But I find people there don’t seem to look at one’s ‘albums’ much anymore, I’m rather disappointed to say. So, I figure anything’s fair game for reposting here. It’s never been in a magazine or book.

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“Clotto is a great character, serendipitously created out of a single figure on my More’s the Pity page. That is, he wasn’t specifically there before. Yet he was, and more or less took over that page, quite confidently.

Sort of a ‘rear guard action’. He might seem to hail from the same corner pantheon as Adult Swim’s Assy McGee, which I am and was aware of, tho’ my character is in no way a copy of that and ‘shares’ only the universality of rumpitude itself with detective Assy. (And I highly recommend the latter. It’s seedy, raunchy, hyper violent go-one-better on the now beyond hackneyed modern crime shows. His butt-eral vocalizations are hilarious enough).

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“But, Clabber, from what I’ve seen of him so far, is more of a no nonsense sort. And unaffiliated with any group or job politic. He has some sort of personal integrity, which he is perhaps too proud of, that may stem partly from his freakish physicality or lack of height, tho I am only now putting such traits into words here.

His hair is one of those clown toup’s that fold in the middle, tho he needs no string to make it move. His leggings, if not nylons, are support hose that aren’t quite ‘pulling it off’. And the ‘dad’s’ house slippers are the obligatory stuff of shuffling duffers everywhere.

He’s of course absurd, but Clotto Clabber is the type who would walk through Hell to pick up a loaf of bread or a pack of ‘butts’ for someone he cared about; or only just met, if he felt right about them.

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“I plan and hope to do much more with him. In a dream story of the same period, at the very least —mostly a walk through at an odd airport and so forth, in the manner it was dreamed as much as possible.

The sort of thing I love to do a lot, tho others may find such include-it-all-because-it-was-there mixed bags confusing to even see, let alone read as comics. And they can take an awfully long time to do.

Tho’ only one page of a memo book, this dream (of 8/23/’09) would play long, if presented at the slow pace I want. Clotto’s pace.

I won’t be attempting to take it on anytime soon.

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“But, in short, Clotto’ll be another surrogate for me. One who seems to have some familiar qualities I need to explore a bit.

So, keep a reddening eye out for him in the future. Some of your best friends may be asses.” –Rick Grimes (March 24, ‘015)

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<Unpub’d, too/’00s                                Clotto page>

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{See also the Dreams page, or my short stories in Rare Bit Fiends for further blab about other surrogates, particularly Grogan in ‘Clutch Angel’; and ‘Clem Clambeau‘ his own self}. –rg