From the Beanworld Archives!

8 1/2" x 11"

The cheapest bond paper imaginable
Black markers and color pencils
Late 1970s

At recent convention appearances, I've made it no secret that Beanworld Book Four: Something More has been slowly taken over by the Boom'r Band.

I set out telling one story and this other one, in a direction I hadn't foreseen, took over. Recently I've learned that this does fold back into the story I originally set out to tell.

The side track is the Origin of the Boom'r Band.
This tale of the Beanworld has been hinted at from time to time, most significantly in a frame of
Beanish Breaks Out! (TOTB #4 and/or page 112 of Wahoolazuma!).

While going through my accumulation of notes regarding the Boom'rs, I found the drawing above. This is part of the going-backwards process I often talk about.

Beanworld started out as a complicated entity and I kept simplifying it, parsing it down, narrowing its scope intil I discovered Gran'Ma'Pa (or maybe Gran'Ma'Pas discovered me...not quite sure!).Then I started moving forward with the comic that became Tales of the Beanworld #1.

I cant say with certainty what year this piece was drawn.
I think late 1970s.

If I recall correctly it an early attempt at a Beanworld story about a human being (it might have been me) who is transported to Beanworld (I've forgotten how) and finds himself (assuming it was me) in a Bean-body.

And in a (clumsy) Wizard of Oz-ish riff finds himself on a red and yellow boardwalk that he follows on his adventures until he...he...I'm not sure as I don't think I ever finished it.

That's The Visitor, surprised, in the lower left hand corner.
That's about all I can recollect.

By 1980 I had come up with the Boom'r Band trio.
They had a different look but they had their current instruments.

In the sky are the four symbols of the Beanworld Tarot.
Two of those symbols came down to the ground as Mystery Pods.
The other two came down even further and became two of the Four Realities.

I really like some of these Beanworld-ed of instruments.
The bass balalaika still works for me.
And the Bonging-thing with the hammers too.
The Harp-ish thing isn't so bad either.

What really jumps out at me though is wooden structure sure looks like something from Angry Birds doesn't it?

Bo Diddley RIP

Bo Diddley is gone. I've never said much about what the Boom'r Band might sound like. I've always saifd that the Boom'rs sound the way you want them to sound. That's what I told Robert, Indigo, and Erica when they asked about it for the Beanworld mini-animation. That's what the Boom'rs sounded like to them and so, that it was the proper accompaniment for their piece.

But one thing I've always been sure about is this: the rhythm in TOTB #6 (Yeah, yeah! The Clang Twang!) was a real hard driving Bo Diddley beat. His rectangular Gretsch guitar was, after all, often called the "Twang Machine." The first time I saw him rocking on that thing on Shindig! --I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. The man could rock and he had a sense of style that was unmatched. Even his album covers always were always a notch better than any of his contemporaries.

The Boom'r Band sure will miss him.