I want to thank Adam Manley and Joe Izenman for helping me with this noble masterpiece.

See this wireframe diagram scrawled on a spiral bound cocktail napin? This drawing is going to change the world. And by world I mean Tacoma World and by drawing I mean the idea it represents: A FULL ON FEED TACOMA SUNDAY COMICS PAGE by your friendly neighborhood cartoonists. A line up of strips including but not limited to:

• MARK MONLUX with The Comic Critic and The Return of Stick Man
• RR Anderson with THE TACOMIC (political cartoon)
• ELECTRIC ELLIOT with Bob the Dog
• STOWE with DADDY’S NUT SHOT OF THE DAY
• Jeff Hawley with LOG JAM!
• MIKE SHAUDIS with Ocryx and Joe
• And MORE YET TO BE ANNOUNCED!

Why is this any different than other local collective comic sites like ALASKA ROBOTICS?  Because we are wedding LOCAL COMICS to a LOCAL NEWS/CLASSIFIED/BLOGGING site feedtacoma.com. At long last there will be absolutely no reason to purchase a newspaper like the TNT.  What is more you’ll have a strong personal connection to every comic strip illustrator.  For example say you’re sitting in a favorite dining establishment. You look over and see one of us at another table eating a sixth avenue dog or something.  You can say “hey man I like your cartoon strip!” or “Hey I thought your last strip was a real stinker! Why don’t you draw something funny like you used to do”  We’ll say Yes! You’re right! and BLAMO! A personal connection has been formed.  Next week you can tell your lover “Look, I told him to be funny again and heck if he didn’t do it! HAR HAR HAR!”  You just can’t do that with national syndicated strips.  You think the creator of GARFIELD gives two halibut craps about your and your problems?  NO SKIPPY!

Not only will our strips collectively be awesome, but you’ll be able to buy the strips.  You’ll be able to interact with the cartoonist instantly through comments. You’ll be able to sponsor a strip through cartoon product placement AND OR banner advertising.  YOU’LL BE ABLE TO DRAW IN THE FRIGGIN COMMENT BOXES!!!!!!!  HOLY CRAP I JUST BLEW MY OWN MIND!!!!!

1. agreed that this Friday will be best to attend Buddy Holly play at TLT. some will be gathering to eat before the show, others will be meeting up at TLT right before the show.  Agreed that we will all wear fez.
2. New pledge Michael ( http://jinxmedicstudios.us/ )  has paid his $70 dollar membership fee. We have assigned him a size 7 fez from the box of props for him to attend the TLT show.  Be prepared for official initiation ceremony next OPEN SWIM. In the meantime please check out his website… the dude is like Leonardo da Vinci. Amazing.
3. Elliot reaffirmed his idea of tacoma needing a CARTOONIST LAUREATE to compliment the POET LAUREATE program. Idea still needs development. How will Cartoonist Laureate interact with the community?
4. talked of taking over all COMICS on feedtacoma.com creating tacoma’s first online-bottom up-anarchy-newspaper comics page in Tacoma as most of us already produce (semi)weekly strips.  RR will follow up with Kevin to see the best way to go about this…  could be as easy as collecting a bunch of RSS feeds together and the cartoonist adding a keyword tag like ‘tacoma’ to their respective blog/webcomic whathaveyou.  Need to check with Mark Monlux though to get his thoughts how he feels about this. My personal thoughts are in an age when traditional newspapers are shrinking their comics pages, this could be a big F.U. to the universe–which makes me happy.
5. [ANONYMOUS TACOMA ACTIVIST] stopped in to share feelings that Tacoma is really hurting for an alternative/underground publication zine that young people would be interested in. Something with lots of comics and a place where alternative music venues can share events.  Perhaps side 2 of CLAW zine?  [ANONYMOUS] expressed that local biz get zip in return for expensive ads in [TITLE(s) REDACTED]…   shared a flier that Sean Alexander (previously of helm gallery) put together where he illustrated all advertising.  Maybe biz could pay cartoonists to illustrate ad in zine…?  Who knows exact details..  But  [ANONYMOUS] wanted to bring to our attention as creative creator types developing a publication that there is a niche market right here in Tacoma that is dying to be tapped into.  to recap:  young people with money aren’t reading local publications because all lame.  Biz owners don’t want to buy ads in publications that young people with money aren’t going to read.  ???
6. report on back room of Urban Xchange as meeting place for CLAW:  owner is super nice, back  room sexy but hot, fez gets sweaty. unsatisfactory table space for drawing.   Next steps?  Check status of Mandolin?  Stowe: Check with Comic Book Ink,  tables in back might be good for open swim.  Anyone check comments here? http://www.cartoonistsleague.org/an-open-swim-teaser/
   looks like a member of the pythian knights lodge invited us to have meetings at pythian temple downtown.  Maybe somebody can follow up with him?
7. Talk of end of the year CLAW awards dinner. Naturally we would need to consume food that had claws..the lobster for example.  We all painted visuals of such an evening with the wacom stylus of the imagination.