The quest, she is over.
So Scott McCloud…and this isn’t just name-dropping, this will be important later in the post…was clearing out some storage space, and in the process of making two storage units into one decided to unload a small portion of his comic collection. Not nearly everything of course, mostly just redundancies he also had in collected editions and such. Pal Nat was good enough to haul ’em over to the shop on Scott’s behalf, and we certainly found a few goodies in there we could use.
But most importantly, in that collection was a copy of this:
Ah, Yummy Fur #9, at last we meet. And now, after literally decades of searching for this issue, my Yummy Fur run is now complete. …I get a prize for that, right?
I’ve mentioned once or twice before about my ongoing search for this elusive little bugger, and now…well, I don’t really have any comic collection white whale to hunt down any more.
But that Yummy Fur. That was the thing. That was what I looked for at shops and at conventions and on the eBays and the Amazons and never seemed to come across a copy. And now I have it, and I, once the hungry young comic fan on his ongoing desperate quest to fill holes in his collection, no longer have that drive, that need, and now, old and tired, will just slowly fade away into comic collecting history as tomorrow’s comics fans push me aside.
Oh, wait, I still need Steve Lafler‘s Dog Boy #9 from Fantagraphics. Okay, forget all that “fading away” business. I’M STILL IN THE GAME, BABY.
And now, the reason I mentioned this was Scott McCloud’s collection (and in case you worried…I checked with him, he’s okay with me talking here about the store getting some of his comics) was because also in the collection were a handful of these title dividers that were made up for a certain special project of his:
For those of you not familiar, this was the title of a mini-comic by Scott and Matt Feazell featuring Scott’s Zot! characters, released between the conclusion of the initial 10-issue color run of Zot! and the launch of the black-and-white run. And in fact, it looks a little something…like this:
Alas, there were no actual copies of Adventures of Zot! in Dimension 10 1/2 in the collection, but having these custom-printed title dividers for them is pretty neat*. They’re full-sized, so you’d have to put your AoZiD101/2 mini-comic in a standard bag and backing board for proper back issue bin display. Also, as an additional bit of personal trivia for you to log into your “Important Facts About Mike Sterling” journal, this was the first Zot! comic I’d ever bought…which then sent me on a search for the previous ten issues, resulting in one of my previous comic-collecting white whales (since found), Zot! #5.
(EDIT: Okay, ignore my previous assumptions about the purpose of that divider. Nat corrects me on the fact that the mini isn’t “Adventures in Dimension 10 1/2” but rather the original “10 1/2” from which the later, actual, full-comic-sized Zot in Dimension 10 1/2 comic takes its name, and is most likely the intended recipient of today’s featured title divider. And now I have a headache.)
So thanks, Scott! I promise to give your Yummy Fur #9 a good home! I’ll also give one of those title dividers a good home, too, because I’m totally keeping one of those since, you know, I need to be able to find my copy of Adventures of Zot! in Dimension 10 1/2 easily.
I too, spent well over a decade trying to complete a Yummy Fur run. In 2006, I sold my entire set sans one lousy missing issue on eBay (can’t remember if it was #9 or not).
Imagine my utter delight when D&Q published the Ed the Happy Clown HC this past year.
Now imagine my jealousy and bitterness knowing that you have THE ENTIRE RUN. The gospel, Disgust, Playboy, and F%^k backup stories. Curse you Ahab. I will make it my personal mission to purchase every issue of Dog Boy #9 I can find (he said, stroking his white Himalayan cat next to a pool of live sharks).
BTW, what is it with you and #9 issues?
Not to take away any reason you have to go on, but DOG BOY #9 doesn’t seem that hard to find….
My sister might have that issue of Yummy Fur someplace back in Buffalo NY.
I am a proud owner of Zot 10 1/2! I might have a full run of the series, I might be missing 1 or 2 issues still…can’t remember.
I do not yet have a copy of DESTROY! or his Abe Lincoln kids book/comic. If you got copies of that is this lot of stuff, let me know, I’d buy it for the right price.
Class act, that Mr. McCloud. Very much wish there were some more Zot somewhere within him, but it may have been a product of innocence. Still, if anyone has *that* little bugger still nestled safely within them …
And here’s my little “squirm with envy” (cause I have sad little needs, I guess) for ya: I own the very 1st page where Zot appears (not the cover) zooming out of his own little Zotish dimension. Pure comicbookery.
I’m almost certain I bought my copy of that minicomic direct from Feazell at my first big comicon (in NYC in the late 80s) but after the full-sized Adventures of Zot! in Dimension 10 1/2 one-shot (after Zot issue 14?) I stuck the minicomic in that bag so it didn’t get lost.
Congratulations! that was one of the last couple that I got. I believe I got mine maybe 15 years ago when Bill Marks sold a batch of warehouse stock to Last Gasp (I feel like #13 was also tough to come by). Of course, we wouldn’t have had this problem if we hadn’t been living on the East coast, where we were made the victims of Steve Geppi’s capricious priggishness. I still don’t have a first print of ANT BOY #1, since it was that rarity of rarities, a product not considered “of professional caliber” by Diamond. And remember when Diamond also decided that DRAWN AND QUARTERLY #1 was also not up to the high standard of, say, Solson or Revolutionary Comics product, until Oliveros suggested that THE COMICS JOURNAL might find that an interesting story, and they grudgingly relented?
Now you can die a happy man.
Aaron points to something correct, a fact that I’m afraid your essay stumbles on. That minicomic you pictures would not be properly put behind the divider you mentioned. The minicomic would be put behind the Zot! divider, in between issues 10 and 11, because it’s Zot! issue 10 1/2. The Adventures Of Zot! In Dimensions 10 1/2 had only one issue, numbered 14 1/2, which came out between Zot!s 14 and 15, and was a standard-sized comic. (The Adventures… was otherwise a backup series in the regular Zot!.)
Because I can’t clear these unimportant facts out of my brain, that’s why!
@ Devlin: I think I do have Ant Boy #1, found proudly at Queen City Comics of Buffalo NY, or the lamented Super-Flee flee market that I heard was bulldozed for a wal-mart. YOU’LL NEVER EVER FIND ANT BOY AT WAL-MART AMERICA!
I’m almost certain that comics original title was “Squirming Rectum Fur”. Wasn’t it by the same folks who did “Jean-Paul Satre Revisionist Comix”?
But I’m still “Pal” Scott, right? As opposed to “Pal Scott not-McCloud?”
Zot! 10 1/2 is one of my white whales, too — that and John M. Ford’s poetry collection _Timesteps_ are pretty much the last two books I’m looking for.
Been looking for Yummy Fur #4 for WAY too long! Mike Sterling, you’re my only hope.
” I wonder if there was ever the temptation to make really humongous title dividers for his oversized Destroy!! comic”
and would they say “COMIC TITLE DIVIDER!!” on them?