GUNK'L'DUNK e-mail newsletter for fans of _Tales_of_the_Beanworld_ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Issue 00, 11 September 1991 Gunk'l'dunk is here to provide a forum for fans of Larry Marder's _Tales of the Beanworld_ (TOTB), and to promote wider readership of this unique comic. Compiled by Jeremy York, jeremy@stat.washington.edu Submissions, and comments on content and/or format gladly accepted! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION AND ADMINISTRIVIA Proffy :"I'll spread the secret words that gather the Gunk'l'dunk gang! Hoka Hoka Gunk'l'dunk!" Beans :"Hoka Hoka Hey!" --TOTB #7 Hello! Glad you could be here! Whether or not this thing takes off, I'm having fun. This issue is only the bare bones and my babblings -- you folks will have to flesh out future editions with your contributions, and spare us all from too much of my babbling. Submissions in any form are gladly accepted, just mail them to jeremy@stat.washington.edu. I'd appreciate it if you would label things like "this part for Bean News, this part for Misc. Discussion", etc, but free-form ranting and raving will be gladly accepted too. Any Unix wizards out there? I'd like to be able to set up a shell script that would screen my mail, recognize Gunk'l'dunk submissions, and save them into a file where I could deal with them later, but I don't know how to do it! A complimentary forum to Gunk'l'dunk is the comix mailing list (send subscription requests to comix-request@world.std.com). That list is devoted to alternative, non-superhero comics, and TOTB discussions are welcome. The comix list allows for fast, spontaneous discussion which is impossible with a newsletter. If you don't feel like subscribing to the comix list, I will be including all the Beanworld discussion there in each Gunk'l'dunk. Does anybody have any nifty ideas for the name of this thing? I thought of gunk'l'dunk, the all purpose Beanworld adhesive, 'cause an electric fanzine like this is something that connects us and sticks us together. Other ideas for a name??? WANTED : ASCII art for the header! WANTED : More subscribers! Feel free to advertise this newsletter through any local means, and give my e-mail address out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTIONS This section will be for us to introduce ourselves and say hello! I'm very happy to be involved in this, because when you're into something as eclectic as TOTB, it can be hard to find friends who share your interest. Now, we've got the chance to form our own little Beanworld community! So, tell us in a few lines who you are, and how you came to find the Beanworld. Here's the list of people who are currently signed up : am110@cleveland.freenet.edu (? I lost your real name!) eda@persoft.com (Ed Almasy) barger@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu (Jorn Barger) mkb@mica.berkeley.edu (Mike Brodhead) jacob@taitastigon.tcs.com (Jacob Butcher) bc@last.cac.washington.edu (Brian Chin) chryses@xurilka.uucp (Phong T. Co) bam8rlc@cabell.vcu.edu (Richard L. Corcoran) vicka@wrq.com (Vicka Corey) DCOSTA%DREW.BITNET@bitnet.cc.cmu.edu (Dave Costa) paul@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Paul Dworkin) tiktok@milton.u.washington.edu (Steve Feldon) jf2z+@andrew.cmu.edu (John Charles Fiala) WUGCRC@wums2.wustl.edu (Dan Flasar) GRF101@psuvm.psu.edu (Glenn Frantz) goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) EVANS@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (Ronald Hale-Evans) ST701134@brownvm.brown.edu (Danny Horn) rick@cstr.edinburgh.ac.edu (Rick Innis) kenj@kambo.asd.sgi.com (Ken Jones) yummyfur@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Stephen K Jusick) jamesc@eng.sun.com (James Langdell) otten@quark.umd.edu (Neil Ottenstein) samr@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Samuel A. Rebelsky) nestene@css.itd.umich.edu (Peter Ward Riley) sadoyama@argon.berkeley.edu (Eric Sadoyama) rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) schlatt@math.berkeley.edu (Mark Schlatter) mike@b.cambridge.ibm.com (Mike Wojcik) jeremy@stat.washington.edu (Jeremy York) karl@tiger1.prime.com (Karl E. Zimmerman) Hey! there's a couple of folks in here who have had brushes with Beanworld greatness! I saw a letter by Glen Frantz in #13 (Glen, by the way, posted a "feeler" about TOTB in rec.arts.comics about the same time as me!); Vicka Corey was one of the Do It Yourself Beanworld winners in #16! Did I miss anyone? To get things started, let me (Jeremy) introduce myself -- I'm working on a PhD in statistics at the U. Washington; 26 yrs old, recently married, with two bouncing 3-D mystery cats. Other interests include weird music (like the Residents), astrology (I'm strictly amateur), and, of course, obsessing on the Beanworld! My first TOTB was #13, and I was hooked as soon as I saw the cover. I just recently sent in an order to the Beanworld Press for #'s 8-12 that will complete my TOTB collection! Yeah! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BEAN NEWS What I'd like to have in this section would be news about TOTB, things like "Issue X just came out!" or "Larry doesn't have anymore backissues of #Y to sell". ALSO, it'd be great if those of you who read fanzines and comic trade journals could let us know when the TOTB gets mentioned in the press. Any volunteers to monitor that media for us? Only bean news that I can give you right now is that #19 was the last issue to hit the stands, and in it Larry says not to expect the next one before Halloween. Also, I've heard rumors that The Beanworld Press is putting out the second trade paperback, collecting numbers 5 through 8 -- any confirmation on this? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TALES FROM THE MARDERWORLD I'm going to send each issue of this newsletter to the creator of the Beanworld, Larry Marder; hopefully, he'll be interested in submitting something himself! This section would be a good place to discuss or share any contacts you've had with Larry, or discuss things like his continuing involvement in advertising. In the lettercol of #19, he tells us that TOTB hasn't gone bimonthly yet because he got a chance to work on advertising for a comic store chain, and they're letting him do it the way he thinks it should be done. There were a number of other reasons, but this seemed to be the main one. Myself, I'm not bothered by his advertising career keeping him from publishing TOTB bi-monthly. For one thing, I'm not in a hurry for plot lines to resolve themselves -- the anticipation and wondering is as much fun as actually finding out what happens. Plus, I don't think it's good for people to specialize and devote all their efforts to only one project -- a little bit of variety keeps the creative juices flowing! Larry says he just got himself a Mac and learned to use it; does anyone know of easy ways for a home computer user to get Internet mail without having access to a college or commercial site? Maybe we could get him on-line! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ESSAYS, STORIES, INFORMATION FILES, ETC This is where I'll put longer contributions. A few things seem especially needed. One is a guide to the Beanworld for those who have only read a couple of issues. We've got a few folks like that on the list right now, and something that would dispell some of their confusion would be much appreciated. Perhaps a short and fun synopsis of life in the Beanworld, and the plot so far? Probably shouldn't go into too much detail, because figuring out what's going on is more than half the fun! Any comments? Any volunteers willing to put something together? Another useful thing would be a short blurb that would get *new* people interested in TOTB. If this newsletter actually takes off, it would be good to have something to post to various newsgroups, telling them that about this newsletter and TOTB. Any comments? Any volunteers to write something? One last thing seems essential, and that's a list of sources for obtaining TOTB. The two best ways of getting back issues that I know are direct from The Beanworld Press, and direct from Eclipse comics. I'll compile that info together; if anyone knows any other sources, either mail-order or comic shops worth a special trip, send me info and I'll try to compile it all. Then, of course, there's the fun stuff! Essays about aspects of the Beanworld, Bean stories, your own stories, whatever. Maybe Vicka could tell us about her Beanworld Tarot? (Hmmm, Vicka, rhymes with Wicca...) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTESTS Any ideas for contests out there? Any volunteers to coordinate or judge? C'mon, we've all got a little Hoi Polloi in us. We could have ASCII Beanworld art contests; Beanworld jokes, puns, riddles, and limericks; possibilities are endless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION This section will probably be the bulk of the newsletter. Here is where I'll put discussions, arguments, stuff taken from the comix list, general comments, Beanworld Q & A, and anything else that doesn't fit in another section. Also, if any of you read rec.arts.comics regularly, it'd be great if you could send copies of postings about TOTB, or at least inform me of them. By the way, I've been thinking a lot about the "factories" or influences that we've seen in #16 and #19. If you look at p.27 of #16, I think one of the factories is the one for the lil' poppin' critters from #1. Also, on p.31 of #1 (in the first collection book), it seems that the Little Clone Son and/or the lil' poppin' critters are from the mountains. Didja see some mountains in #19? I don't know what to make of any of this, I must say... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End, Gunk'l'dunk #00