HEAD CHEZ (1981)
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Artwork: “Head Chez” (as featured in 1981’s THIRD RAIL #1, Ken Feduniewicz) © 1981, Rick Grimes. The story was drawn in 1977, at the Kubert school.
GRIMES: “A raft of pages could be written by me on the extenuations of doing the Weird Dick and the Professor story ‘Head Cheese’ (as I had always wanted to call it – in practice, the actual logo letters didn’t seem to sit right). For now, I’ll stick to highlights of the ‘day’:
– saw head cheese in a Dover, New Jersey grocery story (as well as whole hog’s head).
– saw [Steve] Bissette’s copy (?) of Max Ernst’s collage novel, A Week of Kindness, full of birdheaded humans.
– epiphany: film, dream as comic.
– story continues first page.
– setting of (school) building, drive.
– created and drawn winter ’76 – ’77 at the school in Dover.
– inks completed ’79 or ’80 in Shreveport.
– published in ’81 by classmate Ken Feduniewicz who saw the story or was well familiar with characters from time we spent at the school.
Ken’s book, nicely done by any measure, has ever since been the story’s one and only harbor.
The first page of the originals hasn’t fared too well, as at one time, in the second year I cut it up into an experimental two row format and later pasted it up again ‘as it had been’. (The rubber cement, as usual, hasn’t lasted well).
The cliffhanger ending eventually was not the snag it first was. There is a partial sequel story from the early ’80s. (Also with its own problematic format quirks). None of that held me back so much. Rather its the many ideas for other sequences and my obsession to organize much of it and find the best way to place all of them – their dream logic requires just the right amount of ‘real time’ or a semblance of that. For his ‘life’. Most of it by now has been organized. Lots of versions tried. Finally, parallel planmaking with the actual. The initial story was finally completed over a ten year period in the ’90s. One page a year. (Not because of excess of detail – only the time I spent on it).
At that rate, if I live to be four hundred I should be all set!
Two pages on the ‘second’ story, despite my wish to improve my rate even to two a year, became even slower (due to time spent taking care of my mother).
A cover. For the first story. Had always envisioned the stories as small press things first. Could still happen. We’ll see.” — Rick Grimes (December 22, 2008).
{For the best read, go full screen & click image to enlarge}
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A Walk With My Eyeballs 