Jesse Marinoff Reyes ( Jesse Marinoff Reyes Design, Maplewood, N.J.)
2 Live Crew Comics
June 1991 issue, #1 (one-shot)
Design: Dale Yarger (1950-2012)
Another design in our ongoing tribute to my friend, Dale Yarger.
JMR Design
Part two of two, the Table of Contents spread: See the previous post for a further story on this comic. As you see here, the Table of Contents is spread over the inside front cover and the first page (so you have to be forgiving of the registration difficulty in the gutter). Bold and incredibly graphic.
…This has a slight Raygun sensibility to it (though more functional). Just looked up the dates and this was published in 1991, Raygun was ’92. Carson had done Beach Culture previous to that but now I’m wondering about Yarger’s influences. Likely it was just the times and has more to do with Nevil Brody or someone I’m forgetting or don’t know but it’s hard for me to judge. (I was in high school then.)…
…Part of it was the zeitgeist of the era—the big influences being New Wave Britain’s Neville Brody (as you surmise), Barney Bubbles, Vaughan Oliver, Terry Jones and of course, their punk predecessor Jamie Reid—then you look at the NW, and you have Art Chantry influencing the overall scene. Carson had been doing Beach Culture, but wasn’t as big or significant an influence as he came to national prominence after guys like Dale had already got their game on, much earlier in the ’80s. Art’s impact, and The Rocket, cast a spotlight on the NW that “we” could scarce recognize at the time, being insecure Nor’westerners, and the work of Seattle’s design “underground” would prove to have reach far beyond its confines. Underscoring that is the exodus of so many former Rocket art directors and designers for places like Chicago and New York who ended up directing important pubs like The Village Voice and many national magazines from the late-80s through the ’90s and even up to the present (which is how I got here). I can’t count how many times Dale was entreated to come and work here. Luckily for Seattle, he stuck around and had a huge impact on stuff like The Stranger and Fantagraphics….
…Seattle had some killer designers floating around. In our “scene” you’d find the likes of Norman Hathaway, D. Thom Bissett, Kate Thompson, Jeff Christiansen, Jim Christie, Helene Silverman and the list goes on and on. Dale was one of the best and brightest of an already loaded group….
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