-Link- Marder art in Cliff Gallery

Walt Parrish collects original artwork with some unique themes, including a massive collection of drawings of characters on cliffs. And of course there’s a famous cliff in the Known Beanworld, called the Legendary Edge, so Marder’s represented in the gallery with a nice piece of a Cutie watching as Proffy takes a dive off the Edge into the Thin Lake.

-Link- Marder in Baltimore 2006 photo

Heidi MacDonald, who did one of the most extensive Larry Marder interviews ever in THE COMICS JOURNAL #201, has some photos from a 2006 convention in Baltimore over on her blog The Beat. Half way down is Larry Marder at the CBLDF table with a cute apparently new Beanworld drawing.

Bean Spotting – Doctor Fate #41 [1992]

Doctor Fate #41 [1992]
Published by DC
Written by William Messner-Loebs, drawn by Peter Gross

As mentioned before, Marder was a regular letterhack to Loebs’ creator owned solo comic JOURNEY back in the 1980s. This I suppose partly explains the rather odd reference on page 14 of issue issue, the final issue of this particular Dr. Fate series.

Inza Nelson, then holder of the helmet and power of Fate, is reading a book called “Beans and The World” by “Fr. Lawrence Marder”, a geneticist and mystic who studied beans and taught using “subtle, illustrated metaphors”. Hmmm. Interestingly, the lesson she learns from the book is one straight out of the Beanworld, about how everything is connected and dependent, and is actually a crucial aspect of the final resolution of the series in the next ten pages.

-Link- Marder Wonder Woman sketch

Art collecting fans ask for the weirdest things, sometimes. God bless them for it. In a gallery of Wonder Woman sketches from a variety of artist is Larry Marder’s unique and terrifying vision of the Amazon warrior. Trust me, needs to be seen to be believed.

Marder-ography – Images of Omaha #2 [1992]

Images of Omaha #2 [1992]
Pin-up by Larry Marder

OMAHA THE CAT DANCER was a long-running adult funny animal comic by Reed Waller and Kate Worley. At this time Waller was going through serious health problems that caused enough financial struggles that Kitchen Sink and a bunch of cartoonists got together to produce a pair of benefit books. This second one features a cover by Dave Sim and contributions from the likes of Al Williamson, Scott McCloud, Alan Moore, Melinda Gebbie, Bryan Talbot and dozens more. Well worth picking for many of the pieces if you don’t mind the nudity that figures into a lot of them. Larry Marder contributes one of the cleaner images in the book, a page with the title character dancing with about a dozen denizens of the Beanworld, capturing one of the important aspects of the series.

While Waller got through his medical problems, unfortunately Kate Worley passed away a few years ago. However, OMAHA continues with Waller working with Jim Vance on plot outlines that Worley had done before her passing, and the original series and new material is currently being published by NBM (http://www.nbmpub.com/eurotica/ewaller/cathome.html, adult material at site).

Marder-ography – Zot #4 [1984]

Zot #4 [1984]
Eclipse
Illustrated letter by Larry Marder

Of course the ZOT / BEANWORLD and McCloud / Marder connection would grow quite a bit in the years to come, with them sharing a publisher, cameo appearances and minor references galore, one doing introductions for the others book and more. This letter was before BEANWORLD was published, though, and has Marder with a super-hero version on one of his Beans praising ZOT by comparing Jules Feiffer’s remarks about Superman creator Joe Shuster’s classic work and McCloud’s early issues.

Scott McCloud of course has come a long way from the early issues of ZOT, best known now for his non-fiction books on comics theory in comic book form, the latest of which, MAKING COMICS, he’s currently on a year-long tour promoting.