When news of Starhead Comix-Brownfield Press publisher/Eros editor/musician/Tarot advocate Michael Dowers’ death started circulating on social media, some of his longtime artistic collaborators and friends from the 1980s–2000s Pacific Northwest minicomics scene reached out, many unprompted, with tributes. To read more about the mini comics publisher/promoter/editor, Michael Dean's obituary can be found here.
Peter Bagge
Being a city of migrants, Michael Dowers was one of the very few lifelong Seattle natives I met back when I migrated here myself back in 1984. In fact, Michael was so Northwest that he was actually related to the couple that inspired Betty MacDonald’s notoriously white trash “Ma and Pa Kettle” characters (not exactly something to brag about, but we both got a huge laugh out of that fact nonetheless).
Michael was also first and foremost an accomplished guitarist, and he grew up seeing — and occasionally sharing bills with — such legendary Northwest bands as The Sonics, The Wailers, The Kingsmen and Paul Revere and the Raiders (he also is the only person I knew besides myself that thought the grossly underrated Don and the Goodtimes were the best of the bunch). While still in his teens, Michael was even offered a chance to go on a national tour with “Angel in the Morning” singer Merrilee Rush, but he turned the gig down since her music was “too square” for him (and yes, he regretted that decision).
But the only reason Michael and I met and became friends was due to our shared love of underground and indy comics. Though not an artist himself, he had already started a comics publishing company called Starhead, which initially consisted exclusively of mini comics, but over time expanded into free newsstand tabloids and eventually standard-sized comic books. He had an impressive roster of artists, too — usually people on their way up, career-wise, since there was little money to be made off of his boutique imprint. Still, many cartoonists including myself were more than happy to do work for him, since he was quite simply an extremely pleasant person to work with and spend time with.
Being an unapologetic hippy, Michael eventually moved to some rustic island near the mouth of the Columbia river, living with a woman who read tarot cards for a living. The move also coincided with his permanent departure from the world of comics, and I sadly never saw him again after that move. Still, the last time we spoke on the phone he seemed quite content as he kayaked from island to island all day. A nice life — if you can avoid getting washed out into the Pacific Ocean, that is!
Condolences to Keenan. Your dad will be missed.
Jim Blanchard
I met Michael Dowers soon after moving to Seattle from Oklahoma in 1987, probably at a cartoonist party, tagging along with Pete and Joanne Bagge. When Fantagraphics moved to Seattle in 1989, Michael and I ran the mail order and shipping “warehouse” (actually an old pet store with no proper loading dock!) in Bothell, and a later warehouse in Capitol Hill for a year or so before I moved to the Fanta production department at their office on Lake City Way. I was already pals with Michael in ’89, but working with him five days a week strengthened our bond. We shared a passion for music, underground comix and publishing, and shot the shit all day while listening to cassettes and smoking cigarettes. We also spent time scheming on publishing projects, notably the Mondo Suburbia Trading Cards set, which we co-edited/published in 1990. The set turned out great and features a who’s who of “alt” cartoonists, including Bagge, Clowes, Fleener, Zingarelli, Jim Woodring, Armstrong, Worden, Wayno, Spain, The Pizz, XNO, J.R. Williams, Rick Geary, and R.L. Crabb, among others. We simultaneously co-published Neat Stuff Trading Cards by Peter Bagge. Those trading card sets we did are what caught the eye of Fantagraphics art director Dale Yarger, who was impressed enough with my design skills to hire me to work in the production department.
Michael was an incredibly prolific publisher via his Starhead and Brownfield Press imprints, and cranked out hundreds of titles, including comix, mini-comix, digests, trading cards, large format 3D books, and his long-running tabloid, The Seattle Star. He was clearly addicted to publishing. I recall him constantly trimming mini-comix on the guillotine paper cutter at his house in Seattle. Some solo books of mine that Michael published are Teat Warp, Mayhem In Miniature, Primitiva and Psychoptic Micro Picture Funnies.
I have a few fond memories of adventures with Michael, including the time we rented a small motor boat and cruised around the San Juan Islands all day with Andy Schmidt, drinking beer and smoking pot. Michael had lived there in the ’70s, and we found the battered one-room shack he lived in on one of the islands during the hippy era. It still had his old bed in it. Eventually we were run off by a private security patrol boat dude as the island was now owned by some bigwig who can afford such patrol boat dudes. Another crazy memory is dropping acid with Michael and J.R. Williams when we were in San Francisco for some comic-related event. We had an absolute blast goofing on foot and bombing around up and down SF hills in a rental car blasting the Meat Puppets at full volume. I could tell Michael was an expert at driving on LSD, as though he’d done it many times.
I’m sure others will mention that Michael was a humble sweet man and definitely a behind-the-scenes guy who didn’t like the spotlight. I hope he knew how important he was. He was one of the most selfless and supportive people I’ve ever known. I was very sad to hear that he passed away, but I also know he was in a lot of pain, and I hope he can now truly rest in peace.
Bruce Chrislip
Sometime in the fall of 1982, I got a letter in the mail and the first two issues of the Starhead Comix digest from Michael Dowers. He had picked up a copy of my City Limits Gazette zine from Zanadu Comics in downtown Seattle and wanted to get together. I wish I had held onto that letter for later historic significance. We spent an enjoyable afternoon together talking about comics and he gave me a cassette of the Wild Rose String Band, a traditional Irish music band he headed. I was impressed.
In short order, I was contributing to Starhead Comix #3 and various minicomix he was publishing. I introduced him to Wayne Gibson and he was soon publishing lots of comix by Wayne, too. Included in City Limits Gazette #6 (1983) were cover reproductions of the first two issues of Cranium Frenzy by Steve Willis. Michael Dowers was so impressed with Steve’s work, he drove all the way from Seattle to Steve’s apartment in Pullman, Washington (about 300 miles away on the eastern edge of the state) just to meet with Steve and ask about publishing his comix. That’s not a short drive.
Over the years, Michael would publish lots of Steve Willis comix in all formats. Willis even designed a Starhead Comix t-shirt for Michael featuring company mascot Steve Starhead. In 1986, Michael published Starhead Presents #1 featuring Steve’s Morty the Dog character. It was the first Starhead comic book to be distributed through the Direct Market. To save on production costs, Michael collated and stapled all 5,000 copies of the print run by hand. I couldn’t believe it when he told me, but Michael enjoyed collating comix. He said he found it relaxing. A true publisher if ever there was!
Peter Bagge moved to the Seattle area in 1984. He sent me a postcard mentioning that Steve Willis had told him to look me up when he got to town. Michael Dowers and I arranged to meet Peter at Zanadu Comics on Union Street, downtown. We had no idea what he looked like so we starting asking everyone that came through the door, “Are you Peter Bagge?” Nobody was. Finally, we saw a guy jaywalking in the middle of the street and carrying a box of comix. I knew that was our New Yorker!
Afterwards, Pete drove us to my apartment where I got out the tape recorder to interview him for the next City Limits Gazette. (Never waste an opportunity.) Michael and I struck up a friendship with him that day. Pete contributed to lots of Starhead Comix publications from then on, including many memorable covers to the Seattle Star.
I knew Michael Dowers for decades and could probably fill a book with our misadventures together in the comics world. In the 1980s, he was a major part of the comics scene in Seattle and was the major comic book publisher in town before Fantagraphics arrived in 1989. Always friendly, always laid back. I was impressed by Michael’s multiple talents but he was always humble about his own achievements.
Michael drew a lot of the comix in the early digest issues of Starhead Comix . But his own work soon disappeared from his publications for the most part. He always had a bit of an inferiority complex about his drawing skills. Maybe because his younger brother Patrick had been a children’s book illustrator and he was comparing that to his own efforts. I think Michael was more of an artist than he knew. His strong design skills and general artistic taste were on display in the Seattle Star and in all of the comic books he published. I miss my friend Michael Dowers. He helped me a lot over the years in countless ways. I’d like to think I helped him, too.
Pat Moriarity
I’ve known Michael since 1991: when I moved to Seattle. He was an early cheerleader for my comics work and published the first couple issues of my comic, You and Your Big Mouth, an anthology of artist/writer collaborations. I did a lot of stuff for Starhead, including two covers to Bluesy Toons, his first foray into reprinting Tijuana Bible comics. I continued to work with Michael on minicomics, including Little Big Mouth (with Jay Lynch) and Devil Stay Away from Me (with J.R. Williams and R.L. Crabb). Later, I did all the covers to The Tijuana Bibles, a volume set of paperback collections he edited for Fantagraphics Eros imprint — eight or nine books and, later, a hardcover. He could have gotten several cover artists, but it was me he wanted every time.
His wife, Jan, was a doula employed to provide guidance and support to pregnant women during labor. She assisted my wife in the birth of my son Jack and set me up to cut the cord myself. We became good friends with the Dowers, Jan, Michael and daughter Keenan.
Michael continued to support my work and asked me to do art for some of his music projects, including Crystal Forest and the Manatees. He was a phenomenal surf-style guitar player and formed a great band called the Lovejoys (named after a racy comic book) with Eric Reynolds, Chris Jacobs and Andy Schmidt.
After Starhead comics, Dowers’ next publishing empire was Brownfield Press, less focused on minicomics and more on tarot card sets and art books. In 2017, Brownfield published a tall, narrow book of my art called Totems and, most recently, a 3D book of my art, called Pat Moriarity’s Deep Artwork, in its third printing. These were all his ideas and his prompts for me. I never pitched anything to him.
When he divorced and moved down to Cathlamet, WA, way down near the border to Oregon, I would drive down there to visit. It was there I gradually saw his health issues interfere with his publishing ambitions. The first time I went down there, he rowed me around in a boat on the Columbia River, right from his backyard. The next time, his arthritis was an issue, so we used a motor. Soon, it was not possible to do that, and we just stayed in the house. Every visit revealed more limitations. He could no longer play guitar, and his hands started looking distorted. Eventually, my visits were more like appointments. His new wife, Christine, had him planted in a chair before I got there. He never moved the whole time because of arthritic pain. He was just there like a statue, only his eyes and lips moving, but it was always a great visit. He still had plans and projects.
I kept driving down to see him, but the last time I inquired there was no response. He finally emailed me and said no, he was in too much pain and didn’t want me to see him like he was. He used to be a roundish fellow but now was very thin. Christine called me and said, to just come down, anyway. Don’t listen to him: just bust in and see him while I could. So, I drove to Cathlamet again a couple months ago and forced myself on him. Michael was really glad to see me. It’s hard to write this. This time, he was bedridden, and I sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his feet. He was hard to recognize but still handsome and full of integrity. We talked about a million things, but soon it was time for me to go. I planned to come back again, but I guess that was it.
I loved Michael. He was instrumental in my development as an artist. He predates Fantagraphics in the northwest comics boom and as important and influential as he was in the comics community, Michael was famously anti-social; he did not like to talk about himself. He rarely showed up to any events, but he always welcomed me to his home because of our friendship. OK. I’m gonna stop now because I’m tearing up. What Michael did with his life was a gift to the world, and modest as he was, he deserves recognition for all the artists he championed. His passion for comics and art was practically spiritual.
Larry Reid
Michael Dowers was an important presence in Seattle’s art community. I met him in the mid-’80s when he published the free comix tabloid Seattle Star, which introduced countless young cartoonists to a broad audience. He continued to nurture emerging artists with his Starhead Comix imprint and later as editor of Fantagraphics’ Eros line. In addition to his work in comix, Dowers was an accomplished musician. His short-lived surf band the Lovejoys (named after a salacious Eros title) included Fantagraphics staffers Eric Reynolds and Martin Bland. I once booked them for a beach party-themed New Year’s Eve celebration at the Lava Lounge in 1996. We trucked in a couple tons of sand, handed out sunglasses, pails, shovels, and beach balls to the winter revelers. To complete the atmosphere, we projected off-the-shelf surf videos behind the band. Dowers’ surf guitar sound was so astute that people were convinced the videos were created by the band. Best New Year’s Eve ever!
In 2010, Fantagraphics published Dowers’ collection NEWAVE! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s. We orchestrated the launch party at Fantagraphics Bookstore. I brought in a photocopier and Dowers assembled a group of local cartoonists to create a souvenir minicomic on the spot. It was the perfect way to celebrate the book and helped propel renewed interest in handcrafted, small press comix. I’ll miss his boundless enthusiasm for underground culture.
Eric Reynolds
I once read an interview with Michael Dowers where he said that if someone truly wanted to know him, they would have to either have worked with him, or played music with him, or made comics with him. I’m proud to have checked all three boxes.
I must have met Michael in 1994, my first full year living in Seattle, though I don’t remember any details. I was certainly aware of what he was doing with Starhead Comix. Fantagraphics was sub-distributing Starhead to Diamond and Capital City distributors in those days, and he was publishing several then-Fantagraphics staffers, including Jim Blanchard and Roberta Gregory and Pat Moriarity. It would have been impossible to not be aware of him.
But it was when Michael was hired by Fantagraphics in the mid-1990s to be the editor of the Eros Comics line that we grew more friendly. Working in an office every day together eventually led to frequently hanging out in his apartment after work. It was a musty place that smelled of cats and marijuana and had absolutely no natural light. But I enjoyed my time spent there. He was surrounded by his formidable minicomics-making operation and collection of guitars; if it wasn’t so thoroughly lived-in, you might think it was just office/storage space. He loved to talk about comics and music and was a wealth of Seattle music/comics history. Michael was more than 20 years older than me, so it was fascinating to listen to him talk about seeing icons like Hendrix and the Sonics, in their heyday.
As much as comics brought us into each other’s orbit, it was the music that deepened our friendship. Michael loved classic surf/psychedelic guitar: Dick Dale, Link Wray, the Mermen, etc. He was a phenomenally talented lead guitarist who practiced for hours every single day. Before I knew him, he was a locally renowned folk guitarist. But surf music was where his head was at in those days. He was obsessed with it. I had been playing in a rock band at the time with our mutual pals Andy Schmidt and Chris Jacobs, and at some point Michael floated the idea of us all playing some surf tunes together. It was just for fun, but we had such a good time we officially became a band, named cheekily after one of the comics that Michael edited.
The Lovejoys played several shows over the next couple of years, sometimes with Chris on drums, and sometimes with fellow Fanta staffer Martin Bland on drums. There was a memorably foggy New Year’s Eve at the Lava Lounge, a party at the Ballard Eagles that Michael threw to commemorate the end of Starhead, a block party on Peter Bagge’s street, and more. We even recorded songs for an album that was never released. It was recorded and engineered by an unassuming older pal of Michael’s who had a home studio. Andy, Chris, and I only learned after the fact that this fellow, Kearney Barton, was NW music royalty, with a career dating back to the ’50s and recording/engineering credits that included the The Ventures, The Wailers, The Sonics, Quincy Jones, Ann and Nancy Wilson, The Young Fresh Fellows, and many others over his long career.
I imagine Michael must have had an ego. He was too talented a guitar player not to. But even though he was the unquestioned front man/Svengali behind the Lovejoys, as a bandmate he was endlessly patient and encouraging. None of us had even played surf music before, and largely followed Michael’s direction. I was strictly amateur and struggled with particular chords and progressions. But I don’t recall him ever getting impatient with me; quite the contrary. He was always a calming presence, a gentle soul that belied the powerful sound he could get out of his guitar.
I don’t know anyone who worked with Michael, or published with Michael, or played music with Michael, that didn’t love the guy. He was a warm, soft-spoken, unpretentious man surrounded by egos at every turn, yet as near as I can tell never ran afoul with any of them.
In 2000, Michael asked me if I would do a minicomic for his new (and final) publishing venture, Brownfield Press. Inspired by the ties that bound us together, I produced a small eight-page comic called Surfin’. Had it included a dedication, it would have been dedicated to Michael, for his selfless pursuit of creativity. It was the last thing we worked on together, and once Michael moved out of Seattle, we mostly lost touch aside from the occasional email or running into each other at Short Run. He always encouraged me to come visit him, but by then I had a kid at home and never took him up on it. I regret that. But earlier this year, I had a couple of old VHS tapes transferred to digital, and they included a few Lovejoys gigs that Michael’s then-wife Jan had recorded back in the day but that I hadn’t seen since. It was a pleasure to revisit that period, and to share it with my old bandmates. I knew Michael was in poor health by that point, and not really communicating with anyone, if he was even able to. So, I was grateful for a short reply, thanking me for the memories. And great memories they were. That was the last time I heard from him. Michael, I hope you’re cranking up the reverb and tremelo, wherever you are.
The post Michael Dowers Tributes appeared first on The Comics Journal.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
No comments:
Post a Comment