Each month the CLAW holds an open meeting for both members and non-members to attend. The CLAW is involved in many project requiring it’s unique skill sets. This meeting gives a us a chance to work on those projects while kibitzing with our friends and associates who also take an interest. More than anything, it’s an excuse to get together, draw and share our talents with each other. You’ve heard rumors about the CLAW. Come and see which of them are true. Or just come to see the fez.

We are meeting in the back room to the left of the stage. In order for creative juices to flow freely and uncensored this is an adults only event. No kids.

7:30 pm Wednesday, January 28th 2009
The Mandolin Café
3923 South 12th Street
Tacoma, WA 98405

Whether left in a stack in your favorite coffee shop or ‘stuffed’ into a library book, these little comic books (or zines) can be super fun.  The No-Staple, method is nice because all you need to do is print, cut and fold.  Avoiding to use a stapler saves lots of time, especially if you’re churning out a crap load of these little suckers!

The Method

In the schematic below, please note location and orientation of FRONT COVER (F), BACK COVER (B), and PAGES 1 – 6.  You’ll need to shrink and orient your pages in photoshop.  It works best if you have a laser printer.  You can just print out one (1) copy and then duplicate the rest in photocopier if you don’t want to waste your own toner.

Assembly Instructions:

Cut along the dotted line between the two marks “X” (pictured above) .  Now Fold the paper the long way (fig A). Next fold the pages taking care to pop out the middle (fig B).

And that’s all there is to it!   If you want to get tricky with it you can print a MINI-POSTER on the REVERSE BLANK SIDE of the paper, giving people the option to unfold the comic and hang up after reading. Excelsior!

TACOMA, WA – December  12, 2008 – On Wednesday, December 10th 2008, in the backroom of the Mandolin Café in Tacoma, Washington, four cartoonists wearing burgundy colored fez gathered and signed the charter of The Cartoonist’s League of Absurd Washingtonians, otherwise known as The CLAW.

And so the great book says: exiled by the masses into the bowls of the internet, the lone warrior, Electric Elliot Trotter, approached Tacoma’s own benevolent white knight of cartooning, RR Anderson.  Referencing an existing notion to start such an absurdly ridiculous group, the two blew the horns of shadow, calling upon the greatest cartoonists the South Sound had to offer.  Within moments (days to you mere mortals) two had become four, now joined by the cartoonist from the eighth dimension, Mark Monlux and the ever-present threat to humanity STOWE.  With their unruly powers combined, the band sought to establish themselves so that all marks of disinnovation and anti-creativity (or antivity) were isolated and abused to destruction while harnessing humanity’s last breaths to welcome in our future robot overloads. “More than anything else I think we were all looking for an excuse just to sit down with other artists and have fun doodling,” said Mark Monlux. “Oh, that and wear fez and have a secret handshake.”

This not-so-secret secret society does have at its heart a nobler goal then a bunch of man-apes chanting about zombies and robots in its semi-cryptic rituals. The CLAW Scholarship will be granted to art students of merit who have shown and interest in the mystic study of sequential art and dragon slaying.

The CLAW meets twice a month on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. To find the current venue details, or information on becoming a member, visit http://www.cartoonistsleague.org or pay the ultimate price!