Earth Muffin

"I don't need the bread, but it's nice to do something creative." - John Goodman

By 1991, after the end of a dozen or so years working in the food-service industry, I found myself washing dishes for Whole Earth Grocery & Deli in Fairbanks, Alaska. By this point in my restaurant career I'd had amassed a lot of experience, but I was at a point where the job position reflected my life: what was needed was a reboot, and starting over at the bottom was where I wanted to be. I was happier and more at peace with myself then than I think I've ever been arms immersed up to the elbows in the warm sudsy sinkwater, with simple duties and simple tasks freeing up time and energy for a monumental shift that was I was undergoing as far as art went. I had also discovered the now classic zine "Dishwasher," by Pete Jordan, which planted a weird little seed in my brain, and was incremental in the resurrection of taking comics and self-publishing a bit more more seriously. Not to mention being surrounded by good folk and great food was a tremendous bonus.

This piece became an underground classic amongst the network of bakers in the community - I kept seeing it pop up in kitchens in miscellaneous restaurants around town.

Like so many from that period, all that exists now is a photocopy - given that it would have been drawn with crappy felt-tips on xerox paper and used Zip-A-Tone for shading, the original will have long since self-destructed.

"Art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead." - W. H. Auden