Some spirited effort.
Okay, when I was talking about Tom Yeates, cocreator and artist of Timespirits, and how he sneaked into someplace or ‘nother for research on a story for the book.
Well, I dug through my archive of The Comics Journal issues from around the period the comic was being released, and lo, in Comics Journal #102 (September 1985), there was the article. It was a sidebar to the main article about the differences between writer Steve Perry and Yeates (discussed in detail on this site), and had I been thinking, I would have started my dive into my Journals with that issue, but nooooo.
But here’s the bit from the issue, talking about how Yeates found his way into this retreat for the rich and the political to get reference for his comic. Still a completely wild thing:
Also from that issue of Comics Journal, similar to what they ran regarding editorial changes in Sisterhood of Steel, there was a page of changes made to that issue of Timespirits #6. Yeates was pushing the more political aspects of the story, but Perry rewrote to ease up on that particular tone:
I’d be interested in seeing a full deluxe collection of this series, maybe somehow presenting both versions of these rewritten pages. At any rate, I’d love to have a nice reprinting of Yeates’s beautiful art.
Also, I’m surprised this bit of business regarding Yeates’ infiltration of the retreat has stuck in my head all these years. Especially since I wasn’t a Timespirits reader at the time, but I was a voracious Comics Journal reader. And the stories behind the making of this comic were interesting in and of themselves.
Wow! What a cool story that Tom Yeates snuck into Bohemian Grove—and now we know that The Court of Owls gathers there…
Has there ever been a Batman story published where Bruce Wayne has been at Bohemian Grove?
Also, Tom Yeates is a great artist. I wonder if he uses photo references a lot, similar to Al Williamson?
It’s funny that he jumps from Jack London to Herbert Hoover in that article. I think London’s politics were a bit different than Hoover’s. The grove was, apparently, originally a retreat for actual Bohemian-types, as far as I can gather. Hence the name. While it was a retreat for the American artistic elite, I’m not sure how it went from that to the political/financial elite.
The owl statue was put there to represent Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom.
There’s also an “interesting” anecdote about Nixon being invited to attend the Bohemian Grove and his less than positive appraisal of the goings-on (including offensive language about the attendees’ sex lives).
More recently, Alex Jones also snuck into the Grove and got footage of some type of ceremony. He claimed it was a Satanic human sacrifice. Others who have viewed the footage are more doubtful, saying it looks like a “frat party for overgrown kids”.
A few years ago there were plans to put out a Timespirits collection, not sure now who was going to do it but I remember Steve Bissette was working on, or had done, an introduction. The best laid plans, I guess, because it never saw print.
Mike:
Re: The Three Stooges vs. Cthulhu cover posting, I would imagine Moe just grabs Cthulhu by the tentacles and pokes him in the eyes while Curly does the Curly Shuffle and Larry plays the violin…