Marvel After Hours: The Barking Dog Museum

Hey, Marvel Comics Bullpenner, you’ve worked a hard 8-hour day—what do you do to relax?

Why, spend more time with all those maniacs plus a couple more you never met before!

This small tale is a slice of The Rick Parker Story. Some of you may know Rick as a letterer, some as the total artistic package behind Marvel’s comic of Beavis & Butt-Head. Some of you lucky New Yorkers know him as the guy on the street who would draw you an impromptu piece of art on a white matchbook. [Those Ricks are for another blog!]

But this Rick Parker is just a pal who invited his chums to his own establishment, The Barking Dog Museum, to relax and have some quiet conviviality after the day’s raucousness (I’m leaving Rick’s then-wife out of this narrative because she was out of town during this event). The name of the museum is strictly from Rick’s having a dog. In this case a real noisy dog. There was a small in-window installation of Rick’s found art. The windows of his store-front ground floor home were all covered up. But the museum display was only a middlin’-sized opening, showing a box filled with wonders. Walking up to take those wonders in would result in a barrage of dog barking. (The ticket artwork above was for another downtown party that Rick threw! Why I still have the original art, no one can say…)

Tonight, some time in late 1984, we all assembled to enjoy the wild downtown not-quite-bohemian atmosphere of Rick’s Barking Dog Museum.

Seen here are some of Rick’s pals and acquaintances. That’s Rick in the dapper Bowler hat. Yes, that is a sign reading “CAT” in the entryway of The Barking Dog Museum.

Arlene Puentes (the future Mrs. Brown or, really, Ms Puentes…) who was the Executive Secretary for Epic Magazine (run by Archie Goodwin), Cover Man, Art Director and Production Person Ron Zalme and looking rather fuzzy, on-staff Correction Artist Bob Camp.

Above, Ron and Bob just looking cool. These days, Ron is a hired gun, doing all manner of magazine art and illo work (I spotted my old comrade’s style while perusing a Highlights Magazine in a podiatrist’s waiting room!). Bob is pretty well known as an animator who made dozens of Ren & Stimpy cartoons. What’s not known is the full dimension of his artistic and creative abilities.

Assistant Editor Daryl Edelman and Bob Camp. In fact, they are looking at Rick with that cat on his shoulder. Combining those images would be child’s play but my son is a creaky 25 years old.

The tawny beauty to the right has been identified as Ms Puentes but the two dames to the left are a) Christie Scheele and b) Karen Scheele. Christie, also known as “Max,” was a fine art painter who graced Marvel with her ability to work in watercolor. Christie’s color sense cursed her with being one of Marvel’s very best and most sought-out colorists in the 1980s-90s. I was fortunate to have her contrast my own Iron Manual’s hard edge with her dramatic color styling, making a synergy that stood out. Remember, these were the days of introducing “75% values” (prior, there were only 100%, 50″ and 25% values of each primary color available to mix!) and “K-tones” (black dot patterns) that gave a bewildering rainbow of choices and mood. Nothing Chris couldn’t handle. Karen was the very healthy young woman who ate almost nothing but baked potatoes– and who caused Mark Gruenwald to originate the derivative of “bud” to “spud.” She was also a physical trainer.

Accomplished Production Artist and Letterer Jack Morelli making a door-busting entrance! To image right is a way-out-of-focus Christie, picking nits I guess, who was the future Mrs. Morelli.

Here’s an idea of how jammed a really neat loft space can get! That’s Rick and his shoulder-mounted kitty cat, center. And Ron to the right. Almost everyone else in this pic are friends of Rick.

A better shot of Karen!

No idea who these friends of Rick are, save one: to image far right is Jim Salicrup. At this point, I believe Jim was a freelance Editor– having been one on-staff for years– probably also a writer. Very talented fellow and still a friend to Rick! Who that lovely lady is, making that silly face, is still a mystery…