Hoo-Hoo-HAs & a Hoka-Hoka HEY!

Once upon a time, long long ago there was a comic book called Tales of the Beanworld. And at the end of every issue there were several pages of this archaic thing called a letter column. It was titled "Hoo-Hoo-HAs & a Hoka-Hoka HEY!" and instead of having you all poke through various treads, I thought I'd run some correspondence under the old flag.

Mark I said:
It's up! Our long Beanworld drought is over!
Congratulations, Larry.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

I owe a lot of thanks to Mark Irons, the curator of the Beanweb.

During my long years wandering in the wilderness, he never gave up the faith that someday I might return to the Beanworld. He, and my wife Cory, had an email correspondence that kept the flame alive.

I refer to the amazing compilation of information on his site almost daily.

He's a really good guy.

Bob said:
What's that word again? Oh yeah...Wahoolazuma!!!

And the same goes for Bob Heer, who I've never met, but has done an astounding job of you folks in the Beanworld community linked together and well informed at Gunk'l'dunk.

And don't forget, that word, "Wahoolazuma!" is also the sub-title of the first new hardcover volume of Larry Marder's Beanworld.

Anonymous said:
great story! i remember years ago the topic of recycling came up in TOTB lettercols and it's exciting to see the idea come up organically in the story. I am so excited to see more! What an amazing pleasure to finally read a new Beanworld story again after so long!

The nature of the Four Realities has been on my mind now for decades. I have a lot to explore in that area and this story was just a taste of what is to come.

JJA said:
Poor Proffy! Acetone hasn't been invented yet. Perhaps the Boomers can change their tune a bit...Also, what happens to the spears that the Beans leave behind in the Hoi-Polloi? Once they are pulled out and discarded, do they wind up in Der Stinkle?The Fix-It Shop appears to be growing. It now has a curl on top like the Cuties. I don't know if this counts as a clue.

A question of continuity - Does this episode come before or after "While We Were Eating?"

JJA, you never cease to amaze me.
Your observations are always right on the money!

As far as continuity goes, "? and !" and "Every Cutie Deserves a Toy!" both take place between issues #19 and #21 of TOTB.

"While We Were Eating?" takes place after TOTB #21 and before "Remember Here When You Are There!"

Carol said:
My favorite sequence is Proffy's pondering leading to revelation leading to the realization that their were holes in her reasoning.

Speaking of where things end up, what does Beanish do with all his old Look-See shows?

In your mind, were the beans always that color scheme (Blue for he wee and red for she wee) even though the comic was originally in black-and-white?

I notice there are several chow sol'jers and a Boomer bean missing from this comic.

Great story! Keep 'em coming.

I will, Carol.

Look-See Shows are accumulating in an area that seems to be called the Look-See Library.

I can't say I had the color scheme in mind since the get-go--'cuz I didn't use it in the early days of TOTB when I had some colored illos on the back covers.

At some point I decided on the color differences. I certainly had adopted it by the time I designed the Graphitti Designs t-shirt in the late '90s because I incorporated into the shirt coloring.

Yeah, there were a whole bunch of Beans missing in that story. In the first draft, they were all there but their sequences got edited out along the line.

Here is what they were doing.

There are 5 Sol'jers dancing with the Cuties.

The others were playing volleyball.

The other Boom'r was doing a Blank Tank gig for a Sol'jer who had a case of Krink'l Arm.

If you take a census, you'll see everyone was present and accounted for. Their stories just didn't fit into 8 pages. The first outline I wrote could have easily filled an entire issue of TOTB. I had to do a serious snipping but that draft resulted in pages and pages of good story material that will find a home when it's time to re-examine the ideas in the MDHP short story.

Also, some kind of production mishap occurred somewhere in the pipeline. There is a blot of a shape in panel 2 of page 3. Below is the correct panel. At least the blot didn't step on the joke!