"CHUCK MOONCHOW IS MY GURU"

"DRAZIW" pencils by CHUCK inks by MIKE M.

I don't think I've ever had a dream that didn't come true. I was lonely and I was granted friends. It's funny how it still works that way. The friend you need is the one you find. Like a poor kid at Christmas I didn't know what I was getting, but I got 'em.

They came in a trinity.

Two sisters and a brother from West Virginia. Mary, Charles, and Louella Gibson. I had crushes on all of them. Mary had a glam name. She called herself Candy and I had a big imagination as to why. I wrote a song about her when she was alive called CANDY AND THE GANG and I wrote a song about her when she died called CANDYS DEAD. (In the ROCKROACHES and FINGERS LIKE SATURN, respectively).

Her brother Charles chose his name in front of me one day in Saltillo. That's the little town where Elvis got laid for the first time. Charles called himself CHUCK MOONCHOW. Their younger sister Louella wasn't around very much. She was gorgeous, almost my age. She had a good head on her shoulders. I had no idea how to act around her or any girl, so she was safe, from me anyway.

Actually I was pretty damn cool, but who could know that? Given the cultural milieu of Mississippi 1976-83. I was waiting for collaborators. These are my Moonchow years.

Chuck Moonchow was my guru.

As I have stated in the Chuck Moonchow interview, I met Chuck at Candy's house in 1978. I was fifteen and he was twenty five. I have also introduced Chuck in my ROCKROACHES; PHASE TWO discourse. So you you're probably wondering, what more could be said. In stating 'how' and 'why', maybe it's the 'WHAT' that should follow. This little esoteric block (and how it fits with all the other esoteric material on my loser-god-site.) can be chalked up as more of Mike's weird little essays on strange influences.

So be it. So bite me.

1978: I meet Chuck Moonchow in Saltillo Mississippi. I immediately note that his subconsciously punk way of dealing with life reveals no difference between the sublime and the mundane. His zen is in check. I decide to make him my guru then and there. Since Chuck has just moved to my neck of the woods he works alongside me in his sister Candy's road side fruit stand on 45 Highway where I learn to eat strawberries and watch Chuck master the flying kick. We sketch barbarians on sheet rock walls in pastel and wait for customers, (This would have been the back cover to KID ANARCHY #4, had it been published.) I start to get the feeling that life is passing me by if I stay in Mississippi for much longer (I still have six years to go). His tattoo "Crazy Oakie" has a story that would later appear in KID ANARCHY #1.

1980: Chuck and go see Kubrick's THE SHINING in Tupelo with my 10th grade air guitar buddy Ricky Palmer. Ricky has introduced me to gravel road beer and marihuana at the late(?) age of seventeen but that night no one drinks. I don't care much for cheap beer (still don't). Chuck's approach to beer drinking is to slip and hide, as if he were eternally seventeen. Chuck is ageless. I remember Busch beer, WARLOCK comics and FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS in our new FHA home, but Chuck was too slick to have my dad catch him drinking in the house. He hid the beer can in the bathroom and that's where we took turns. Later my dad would question our sobriety by "eyeball checks" after all night D&D games in my grandfathers "car shed". The same car shed that held the first (and last) ANGRY REDNECKS practice. Chuck unplugged us in the carport.

1981, 82: Chuck paints what he knows: bass fishing, the last supper (all lost)and he and I begin to play Dungeons and Dragons.

1983: My new friends at Junior College (John and George: The ROCKROACHES) have turned me onto punk and I turn them onto underground comics - and Chuck Moonchow. We begin a six month D&D game. Chuck becomes "DRAZIW" ("Wizard" backwards). The game comes to a finish in the house depicted in KID ANARCHY #1 (Fantagraphics). The audio is recorded and lost.

1983: Rockroach George Cole and I take Chuck to see "YOR, HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE". A visit to the thrift store that day inspires moments from KID ANARCHY #3 ten years later. Chuck writes an honest poem about his own experiences as a caveman from the future called "UNK". But George changes it to "Let's Book", a key expression from Chuck.

1983: St. Patricks Day: Chuck Moonchow steps inside the Antenna Club in Memphis for the first and only time. (the second time for me and George).

1984: I'm pretty sure this is the year that we shot the super 8 footage of a shirtless Chuck in Tupelo singing JOURNEY WITH ME. In finally restoring this footage in 2004, it's seems incomplete and there is no sound. At this stage Chuck is distracted by his second of three wives who we cared so little for, we could not lampoon.

1984: With more Super 8 film to burn and editing 'in-camera'. I shoot a 3 minute film called "DORM" in my bedroom starring 'high school-gone-college' brothers Ronnie and Tink Nolan. Their boarding experience turns sour when Chuck shows up, arm outstretched like the Watcher, offering doom in my Don Post Chewbacca mask. This film came back to Medical Arts Pharmacy all black with no sound.

1985: Chuck gives our new post-roaches punk band DISTEMPER it's name.

1985: At art school I create a bronze statue of the pirate Black Michael (I clung to pulp as Linus would a security blanket). But still, his stature, his face, is that of Chuck Moonchow.

1985: Our latest 'soon-to-be-defunct' ; 'one-off clique' the BATPUNKS travels to Tupelo to play D&D with Chuck. The photo booth shots at McCrory's in the Tupelo Mall are some of the best. It is our last game.

1988, 89: I interview Chuck over the phone and meticulously transcribe everything he says onto paper. This interview is published in POPCORN, a limited run fanzine initially only given to the groomsmen at my wedding.

1989: George Cole and I write and draw five pages of KID ANARCHY and show it Gary Groth. This leads to three issues (1990-1993). Chuck Moonchow is a main character. His dialogue is almost verbatim from the interview tapes.

1992: I write a song called CANDY & THE GANG about Chucks sister and her seemingly endless relations (with everyone but me).

1993: My directorial debut DAMSELVIS DAUGHTER OF HELVIS features three characters named 'Candy', 'Louella', and 'Charles'. Fantagraphics publishes a photo book with a 'making of' essay.

1993: Somehow George and I pay Chuck a visit and give him all three issues of KID ANARCHY. Therein a cameo by his third wife. Chuck loses the comics in another move.

George writes the script for KID ANARCY #4 which I never draw. Chuck was to be featured on the cover.

1995: My mother passes away while I am editing TEENAGE TUPELO. Candy, Louella, and Chuck come to the Baldwyn, Mississippi funeral. I give them copies of DAMSELVIS. In my car during Visitation, I record Chuck's voice (and image) on video tape to be used as Capt. Crypt. dialogue in the movie. (Where is that $&*#*#@ tape?!)

Following my mothers funeral, I dont see Chuck Moonchow for 12 years. Turns out he only lived one hundred miles away.

1997: Artist Ellis Chappell plays a character named CHUCK MOONCHOW presides over the hippie death scene in SORE LOSERS wherein Jack Taylor Experience plays. (the real Chuck could not be found to play himself and Jack Taylor is dead).

2007: My band FINGERS LIKE SATURN records a song I wrote called CANDYS DEAD based on Candy's untimely death in November, 2006. I see Louella and her family and Chuck and his dad Charlie at Christmas. His wanton years have caused him some health problems but he's alive.

Chuck is still "the Crazy Oakie".

These thoughts dedicated to Mary Gibson and Candy McCord.

MIKE McCARTHY 2008

Check back here for Super 8 footage of a shirtless Chuck that same night singing an original song "Journey With Me".