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There I Was

Dreamed 1971?, drawn 1972 by Michelle Brand

SOURCE: Wimmin's Comix #1 ( Last Gasp, 1972); in 2016, Fantagraphics reissued the whole series in two volumes as The Complete Wimmen's Comix.

INTRODUCTION

This shouldn't be here for a couple of reasons. I can't find Michelle Brand to ask if it's OK to post this; worse yet, I don't even know that it really was a dream. For all I know she just did a lot of acid that year. I mean, Berkeley 1971... what do you think?

But this comic had a huge impact on me as a kid. I never liked superhero comics--they were just muscle boys beating up people, and I faced that world every day at school. I'd been looking at underground comix for inspiration but they mostly didn't reflect my inner life either. I felt alone.

But Brand's stream-of-consciousness stuff made me see I could cartoon my dreams. Just go ahead! They didn't have to make sense to others. They just had to be me--the real me.

The next year I drew my first real comic. Technically bad, but my world. And ultimately all my dream-comics came because Brand dynamited a dam in my soul. (Well, OK, Aline Kominsky was a strong purgative too...)

--Chris Wayan

Black and white comic by Michelle Brand telling a dream or vision. She floats on a raft with a dog in an interior ocean; constellations come alive.
Black and white comic by Michelle Brand telling a dream or vision. She wanders a sunny Italian town where everyone's naked including her.
Black and white comic by Michelle Brand telling a dream or vision. She summons a monk's robe and roller skates, and sings about Dixie..

LISTS AND LINKS: dream comics - improv? - ink - gender - creative flow - nocturnes - the underworld - SAO dreams of underground Boats - dogs - I'm naked! - nude in Italy again, in Perissa - lucid dreams - tricksters & play - song & dance - skating - a Michelle Brand comix-poem: You Are what You Know - panels from Kominsky & Crumb

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