02 phantom blot
02 phantom blot
Last Gasp 1971
The nucleus of the Air Pirates collective began to form in late 1969-early 1970, when London met Richards at the office of the Berkeley Tribe, an underground newspaper where both were staff cartoonists. (London later drew a highly fictionalized account of their experiences at the Tribe in his story “Why Bobby Seale is Not Black” in the Air Pirates’ comic Merton of the Movement.) In 1970 London and Richards attended the Sky River Rock Festival near Portland, Oregon, and met Flenniken and O’Neill at the media booth, where Flenniken was producing a daily Sky River newsletter on a mimeograph machine. Before the festival was over the four of them produced a four-page tabloid comic, Sky River Funnies, mostly drawn by London. O’Neill also met Seattle-based cartoonist Gary Hallgren at the festival.
Meanwhile, O’Neill, who was producing the strip Odd Bodkins for the San Francisco Chronicle, but was fearful of losing his copyright over it, decided on an odd tactic to regain control of his strip: he would engage in copyright infringement, which he reasoned would force the newspaper to surrender the strip’s copyright back to him for fear of being sued. O’Neill worked 28 Walt Disney characters, including Mickey Mouse and Pluto, into the strip. In late November 1970, the Chronicle fired O’Neill for the final time and discontinued the strip.
In early 1971 O’Neill invited Flenniken, Richards, and Hallgren to San Francisco to form the Air Pirates collective. The Air Pirates lived together in a warehouse on Harrison Street in San Francisco where London and Flenniken began a relationship that turned into a short-lived marriage.
Each of the cartoonists shared a common interest in the styles of past masters of the comic strip, and – unrelated to their assault on Disney – in creating their stories for Air Pirates projects each set out to imitate the style of an old-time cartoonist:
Shary Flenniken’s Trots and Bonnie imitated Clare Briggs and H. T. Webster
Gary Hallgren’s Pollyanna Pals imitated Cliff Sterrett’s Polly and Her Pals
Bobby London’s Dirty Duck imitated George Herriman’s Krazy Kat
Ted Richards’ Dopin’ Dan imitated Mort Walker’s Beetle Bailey
After the Pirates were established, Willy Murphy, Larry Todd and Gary King started hanging around the collective and contributing to their projects, missing the original Air Pirates Funnies but appearing in later Air Pirates comics.
Gary Hallgren – 1, 3-8, 33-42+, 44 • Dan O’Neill – 2?, 17-24, 33-42+, 43 • Ted Richards – 9-16, 33-42+ • Bobby London – 25-32, 33-42+
2 – The Phantom Blot • 3 – The Tortoise and the Hare • 9 – Zeke Wolf • 17 – Buckey Goes West • 25 – Dirty Duck • 33 – The Mouse • 43 – I Forgive You • 44 – You Can Be Sure It’s Disapproved! (ad)