Startling Stories for All Ages
The first Famous Feztoinian featured at Oddball Art Labs’s 2015 pop culture event ⎯ Fez Fest!
Elgin’s own Rich Wagner posing as singer, songwriter, and international drug merchant, Francois Anatole. Read his Feztonian bio below.
(Write-up by yours truly; design work by artist David Metzger.)
The next time you’re in downtown Elgin, be sure to stop by Rediscover Records and tell Rich, “hello!”
It all started when I bought myself a limited edition, hand-crafted Freedonian fez from the fine folks over at Fez-O-Rama ⎯ the same one perched atop my skull on the home page.
[For the record, Freedonia was the fictitious country ruled by Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) in the 1933 classic, Duck Soup. Every year, Fezmonger Jason Rodgers rings out the old and rings in the new by watching all of the Marx Bros. movies in order.]
This was back in December 2014. I don’t know who’s bright idea it was to put together an art show around the famous headwear. All I know is that the gang at Oddball Art Labs was instantly on board and working hard to make Fez Fest a reality in 2015.
Two of the Oddballs ⎯ Dave Metzger and MikeRende ⎯ invited me to collaborate on “Famous Festonians in History”: an installation showcasing the fez and the people who wore them.
Dave would take picutes of people he knew and I’d write up brief but detailed fictional biographies that would hang under the oversized photos.
A lot of imagination and research went into those bios. I also joined one of the photo shoots, which was a lot of fun and lead to some great pictures. More on that later.
Dave did a terrific job putting together the words and images. The Festonians were a hit and, after the show, Dave presented each of the models with their picture and the write up. For a while, one hung in the Martini Room in downtown Elgin. There might still be one up at Rediscover Records. (If anybody sees it there, please take a picture and send it along.)
To celebrate the show, I’ll be posting all six ⎯ seven! ⎯ of the Famous Feztonians, one at a time for your viewing pleasure, along with a few other artifacts from the show.
If anybody was a contributor or has any photos from the show ⎯ crowd shots, friends and family, the Shriner cars, belly dancers, etc. ⎯ email them and I’ll throw ’em into future posts.
For now, here’s the front and back of the announcement postcard that went out before the opening. (Text by me, artwork and layout by Dave Metzger.)
More soon!
“No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job”
— T. S. Eliot
The challenge was self-imposed and wholly unnecessary: Write a poem with only ten lines per stanza and only two words per line, any length on any subject.
Here’s the result.
(It should come as a surprise to exactly no one that this piece takes an ugly turn early on then steers into it.)
Enjoy!
By Bradley James Weber
FIRST DAY
Nine men
One lifeboat
First Officer
Now Captain
Eight passengers
One oar
Zero rations
Endless horizon
No compass
SECOND DAY
Air: equatorial
Sun: blinding
Tongues: parched
Lips: cracked
Water: none
Less food
Nine men
One wounded
One malcontent
FOURTH DAY
No land
No ship
No respite
No rescue
Sunburned eyes
Stomach cramps
Fata Morgana
Madness brews
FIFTH DAY
One captain
Eight men
Nine straws
One short
“Why draw?”
The malcontent:
“Kill him.”
The dying:
“Yes, lord.”
DAY SIX
Eight castaways
Seven sated
One abstained
“Pure savagery.”
Bloody work
Bloody hands
Bloody sea
One lifeboat
Attracting sharks
DAY SEVEN
The malcontent
spreads dissent
“Land ho?
Ship ahoy?
Not likely.
Hunger returns!
Cowardly ‘captain,’
who’s next?
Decide already!”
DAY EIGHT
Abstainer dead,
stolen overnight.
Seven straws
Become toothpicks.
Offal overboard
Sharks return
Selene’s crown,
Luminous, enchanting
Storm’s harbinger
DAY NINE
Glorious downpour!
Quenching rain!
Huzzah! Huzzah!
Relief stillborn.
Savage lighting
Heavy gales
Rudder useless
“Grab something!”
“Hold fast!”
DAY TEN
Three lost,
Four remain.
The malcontent,
Two lickspittles,
The captain––
Badly wounded.
“Die choking.”
The malcontent:
“You first.”
DAY FOURTEEN
Sundown, starlight
Waxing moon
Pensive sea
Restless sharks
Three men––
Forward, aft,
Amidships crouched––
Ever vigilant
Entertaining hunger
DAY NINETEEN
Human bones
Thrice gnawed
Cracked, sucked
Gnawed again
No avail
Futile, exhausting
“Like prayer.”
The malcontent:
“Abandon hope.”
DAY TWENTY
Two remain.
One astern––
Tearless, broken––
Overboard slipped
Midnight’s suicide
Alone together
The malcontent
The other
Battle sleep
DAY TWENTY-NINE
S. S. Duneeden
“Captain, sir?
Lifeboat spotted,
Port bow.”
The captain:
“Anyone aboard?”
“Unknown, sir.”
“Best investigate.”
“Yes, sir.”
Word spreads
Doctor ’roused
Idle crew
Crowding rails
Captain’s command:
“Engines stop.”
Duneeden drifts
Distance closes
All hands
Holding breath
Hopeful silence
Woefully broken
Curses, prayer
Revulsion, despair
Bones bleached
Bloody thwarts
Hunger, madness
Souls abandoned
Horror’s Testimony
Witnessed, notarized
Everywhere, everywhere
Fleshy strips
Salted, drying
Nearly cured.
Asleep astern
The malcontent
Charon’s helmsman
Meat–surrounded
Peacefully cradling
Someone’s head.
Having finished the first two pages of Avenge-O The Crimefighting Robot only to find that Supermarket Action! wasn’t happening killed my enthusiasm to finish the rest if it.
A few years later, I contracted San Diego cartoonist Jorge Pacheco to tackle the second part of the story. He did a nice job.
(Click on the first image to view the gallery.)
Story by Bradley James Weber
Art by Jorge Pacheco
(Copyright 2007 Bradley James Weber)
Way back when the Art Sunday gang was the Fine Arts Guild, somebody came up with the idea of doing a group comic. Everybody would get five pages. The title and theme: Supermarket Action! I thought this would be a fine showcase for the crimefighting robot idea that I’d been kicking around for a while.
For one reason or another, Supermarket Action! never got off the ground.
Here are the first two pages of my five. You can read the other three at the “.38 Caliber Discount” post.
(Click the first image to view the gallery)
