The History of the Beanworld Action Figure

Chapter One

Re-creation of the picture before

Sometime in 1973, when I was working at Lithographics, Inc. in Canton CT, I found a little picture in the recipe section of TV Guide of a white spoon containing a mound of kidney beans.

For reasons that are totally fogged in memory, I cut the photo out of the magazine, dotted some eyes onto the beans, took it to work and taped it to the wall by my work station.

I've mocked up these two rudimentary facsimiles to show, how simple a transformation it was. One moment it was a recipe illustration. The next it was a doorway into what would one day become part of the Beanworld.

Re-creation of the picture after

For almost the next twenty years, at whatever place I might be employed, the photo of the spoon of beans was always part of the decoration of my work space.

The photo above was taken somewhere in the early 1980's while I was an art director at Sander Allen Advertising in Chicago IL. The fellow on the left is Sal Garcia. We worked together for about 5 years, During that time, he was one of the only people who understood what I was attempting to do with Beanworld.

The guy on the right is me. Inside the circle that the arrow is pointing to--is the spoonful-of-beans-with-eyes picture. Also of note at about 1 o'clock--upper right from the circle is a PMT of the "Beware the Fog" drawing that was printed in Larry Marder's Beanworld Book One trade paperback.

Out of all the treasures housed in the Beanworld Archives--this little picture is the one artifact that hasn't surfaced since I left Illinois in the mid-1990's. I find it impossible to believe that I've actually lost it--but it is quite misplaced!