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I Never Saw It Coming

what is this awful thing?

what is sparrow's fall?

...somewhere between the city of the poor and the city of the not-so-poor, a long ways from heaven but not quite in hell, is a neighborhood where the people are mad and the animals are sane, where armadillos are on the wrestling circuit and dogs go to art school. If you see god, or aliens, or if you go to group with a neurotic otter, you live there. Only one question: did he fall, or was he pushed?

who makes it?

parrish baker, kansas city comic artist since at least 1995, was born as the old sepia-tone world was finally fading away, four days before nixon narrowly won a first term in the white house. parrish grew up in the countryside of missouri, not quite in the plains but neither quite in the ozarks. the summers are hot there, and the winters cold, and there is often a great deal of wind. eventually he received an adequate education--primary, secondary, and college, and even bothered to get a master's degree in a useless topic. he walked out of the halls of academe into the heart of a recession. moving to kansas city, he luckily found a temporary job that lasted twelve years before he decided that it had become permanent, and decided to move on to other endeavors. somewhere along there he began drawing mini-comics . . . or something like drawing . . . judge for yourself . . .

he still lives in kansas city, drawing his ridiculous indy comics like there was no tomorrow. of course--if you watch the news . . .

just what is it about comics in kansas city?

The year was 1996. Or 1997. Your call.

1995 . . . 1996 . . . 1997 . . . 1998 . . . a golden age for comic book art in Kansas City. 40 Oz. Comics was alive and well, and, most importantly, here, Jim Mahfood’s Grrlscouts and Cosmic Toast were in wide circulation, and Thereyago! Studios was about to produce the first (and last) issue of Meanwhile... and other folk were busy drafting out comics and cartoons left and right.

Like all Periclean ages, it was probably better in memory than in reality, and like all such ages, it did not spring out overnight and from nowhere, but drew, god knows, its strength largely from the illustration department of the Kansas City Art Institute. People who could draw and people who had something to say walked and breathed amongst us, and we were willing to listen.

Amongst those paying close attention was a youngish scrawler who, encouraged, authored the dreadful comic book Calyx, after sitting in the Broadway Cafe for the better part of a year pretending to teach himself drawing. This little science-fictional horror fading instantly from collective memory, he looked for something else to create.

Why did he do it at all? Obviously he was talent-free, that much at least could be said. He felt, nonetheless, that he wanted to say something, and in those days saying something seemed possible, mandatory even. An emotional catastrophe had taken the ability to write from him; the inability to draw would have seemed to conspire keep him in his place. He ignored reality, however, persisting in making wretched things that are safely contained, like industrial waste, in sketchbooks to this day.

If he’d had half a brain, he would have despaired.

But he didn’t. Chance encounters with no less than two possums birthed the characters of Possum and Hot-Dog onto paper; a failed attempt to sell the idea to the Pitch cemented a thick distaste for that paper that survives to this day. However, the Possum flourished, and, by a metamorphosis whose details have been lost to memory, a little cartoon called Sparrow’s Fall was born.

Little of Kansas City’s comics heyday remains: an unfortunate exception is Sparrow’s Fall. It has endured, continuously published, since November 1996. The author of this long spiel of angst, irritation, and occasional perverse humor can’t understand why. More to the point, he can’t understand why other people do not try to hide his dreck with work of their own.

It is becoming urgently necessary that people do it. Our culture is becoming suffocated with one great universal Voice, the AOL-TimeWarner-Disney/ABC/CBS giant that neither is interested in, nor wishes to hear, what we have to say. Comics, believe it or not, are an important part of the resistance. They and zines (which also seem dead, evidently a victim of the internet,) occupy a corner of visual and textual media the entertainment giants simply cannot fill or block. We must have a voice, we must draw, we must write. If not to drown out AOL altogether--then at least to distract attention from that dreadful Sparrow’s Fall.

The author is gloomy. Where are the Mike Huddlestons, Jim Mahfoods, Daniel Spottswoods, and Scot Stolfuses of tomorrow? And why aren’t there more women here in Kansas City doing comics?

Well . . . maybe one is looking at this right now. If you are--put it down right now, and start drawing.

Kansas City Comics Community

(note: this includes a few, sometimes rather distant, outliers; i really had to draw the line at including sonny liew though, because last i knew he was in singapore. links are needed for a couple. )

a. david lewis
aaron williams
aim satellite
ande parks
anna marie cool
anthony oropeza
AR
arie dee monroe
b. clay moore
bill hook
bob ellis
bonnie leigh
brian mckinley
bruce jones
byron dunn
chris garrett
chris rich-mckelvey
comixclub
comixboard
comixperience
dale martin & wendy griswold
dan jacobson
daniel spottswood
darryl woods
dave bryant
dennis hopeless
dove mchargue
duane cunningham
greg gildersleeve
heavy water . . . ||| . . . nuevo
hector casanova
icecreamlandia
jake angell
jason arnett
jason foster
jason preu
jeff blascyk
jeremy haun
jeremy mohler
john parker
jon hook
josh cotter
kansas city comix scene
kansas city comics creators network web log
kelley seda
kelly sue deconnick
kerry callen
kevin gritzke
kyle strahm
lee leslie
mark stinson
matt fraction
matt hawkins
michael buckley
mike huddleston
mike sullivan
mike worley
parrish baker
ram and mason
rehab 25 press
richard corben
rob schamberger and jason arnett
rob schamberger's comix novella
rob schamberger makes comix
rob schamberger's the black chamber
scott ziolko
sean murphy
scott stewart
scribe
seth wolfshorndl
shane thayer
shawn geabhart
steve lightle
steven sanders
tom bumgardner
travis fox

Kansas City Bloggers

comics links

remaindered blogroll

artists, science, odd blogs, and musicians

75 degrees south
astrobiology magazine
david ford
hugh merrill
kansas city art institute
kittyspit: list of kansas city art sites
knack
living with liver cancer
mike baker
peregrine honig
rachel stuart-haas
reading reptile
starbucks delocator
the storm track
susie gharemani
wednesday kirwan

kansas city comic book stores

Action Sports - 5243 NE Antioch Rd (816) 455-6319
A to Z Comics - 1300 SW Us Highway 40 (816) 224-0505
B-Bop - 3490 Main (816) 753-2267
B-Bop South - 5336 West 95th Street (913) 383-3200
Broken Lotus - 1412 NW Vivion Road (816) 587-2007
Clint's Books Comics & Games - 3943 Main St (816) 561-2848
Collective Cache - 10150 W 119th (913) 338-2273
Comic Cavern - 5404 NW 64th St (816) 746-4569
Elite Comics - 11828 Quivira Rd (913) 345-9910
Lawless Times Comics & Magazines - 3117 Troost (816) 931-2400
Monty's Book Swap - 9302 E. 40 Highway (816) 737-1427
Omega 7 Comics - 1925 N 83rd Terrace (913) 321-6764
Pop Culture Comix - 9337 W 87th Terrace (913) 341-0040
Wonderland - 1605 Westport Road (816) 931-0065

shows

miniatures! 8-96, juried invitational show at broadway café, kansas city.

reversion/counterrevolution 11-01, solo show at a copy shop, kansas city.

mail-art show 11-01, at the telegraph gallery.

heavy petting 10-02, juried show at the lemp, st. louis

sequence 05-03, juried show, at the panacea, kansas city.

solo show at broadway café 05-03, kansas city.

Media

Spank Fanzine #25, 09/98

sometime in this period i think i was written up in the topeka zine, mimezine, circa 1998.

You know what's next when there's nothing planned at the Crossroads gallery galas, Kansas City Star, 10/08/99

appearance on local cable access, in late 1999 or so: "Gallery Guide” for Kansas City Round a Bout.: interviewed by holly swangstu

The Best of Kansas City: 2000--Best Local Zine, Pitch, 1/26/00

The Inscrutable Mr. Baker, Kansas City Star, 4/8/01

Homegrown: Parrish Michael Baker, Kansas City Magazine, 09/01

Superfast In Action: SPARROW'S FALL, by matt fraction, Warren Ellis Forum 12/16/01

From the Calendar section of the Pitch, by gina kauffman, 12/26/01

Action Heroes, Pitch 4/24/03

capsule reviews of no other fish in the sea, the girl in the window, and five string serenade, by lunar circuitry, 06/01/03

another brief mention from mimezine, 7/31/03.

SPX-Parrish Baker, 10/03, comicreaders.com

appearance in an account of the 2003 kansas city comicon, on scott stewart's comic art site

capsule review of possum trot, by Jason Arnett, "I Make Believe #19," 01/01/04

mention on comicbookresources.com, by J. Torres / B. Clay Moore 03/25/04

ultimately uncaptioned appearance in community faces, 02-17-05

words - and - pictures (comic creator's network newsletter 04.24.2005)

totally undeserved praise from fire and knives , the magazine for people who eat, 10-2005

article in the pitch about the broadway group, 11.16.05

reference from kansas city public library's local history collection, 2005

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