Here is a nice Portland story I am about to comicize. I need to write it down first so I can look at it and figure out how I can condense it down to a fifth of the words and a couple of pretty pictures and still tell the story.
Up until the 90's Portland was a great basketball town. This was before the christian right bamboozled the fans into thinking that they needed to get rid of all the charismatic players including the messianic Rasheed Wallace for whom now god is punishing the Portland Trail Blazers. Back in the spring of I forget the playoffs were in full effect and the Blazers were the team to be reckoned with. Back then, when the Blazers were in the playoffs, the local newspaper (The Oregonian) would come with these cardboard placards that said stuff like BEAT THE JAZZ or RIP CITY! or KILL THE SONICS. We were playing the the Lakers at the time so the cardboard signs said BEAT L.A! The signs were always day-glo orange with black lettering. Everybody was expected to put them in the windows of their houses or the back windshield of their cars and many people did. For being such a non-conformist hippie city it was cool the way the Blazers could bring all sorts of people together. Freaks, dorks, and rednecks alike could sit in a bar all friendly like and bond around our hometown team. This was what I was thinking as I walked through an old neighborhood on a warm and sunny spring day. The pink and white Cherry blossoms were were slowly snowing on the sidewalk and life was grand. The day-glo orange signs were EVERYWHERE! Houses, cars, the windows of small businesses, everybody was a fan and so was I. There was pride in my heart and a smile on my face for the actual sense of community I felt looking at these little cardboard signs. As I passed a small Victorian house I almost didn't notice the cardboard sign in its window because it looked like all the rest except it was slightly different. It was the exact same size as the rest. It was the exact same day-glo orange with the exact same black lettering in the exact same font except it said CURE AIDS.
Up until the 90's Portland was a great basketball town. This was before the christian right bamboozled the fans into thinking that they needed to get rid of all the charismatic players including the messianic Rasheed Wallace for whom now god is punishing the Portland Trail Blazers. Back in the spring of I forget the playoffs were in full effect and the Blazers were the team to be reckoned with. Back then, when the Blazers were in the playoffs, the local newspaper (The Oregonian) would come with these cardboard placards that said stuff like BEAT THE JAZZ or RIP CITY! or KILL THE SONICS. We were playing the the Lakers at the time so the cardboard signs said BEAT L.A! The signs were always day-glo orange with black lettering. Everybody was expected to put them in the windows of their houses or the back windshield of their cars and many people did. For being such a non-conformist hippie city it was cool the way the Blazers could bring all sorts of people together. Freaks, dorks, and rednecks alike could sit in a bar all friendly like and bond around our hometown team. This was what I was thinking as I walked through an old neighborhood on a warm and sunny spring day. The pink and white Cherry blossoms were were slowly snowing on the sidewalk and life was grand. The day-glo orange signs were EVERYWHERE! Houses, cars, the windows of small businesses, everybody was a fan and so was I. There was pride in my heart and a smile on my face for the actual sense of community I felt looking at these little cardboard signs. As I passed a small Victorian house I almost didn't notice the cardboard sign in its window because it looked like all the rest except it was slightly different. It was the exact same size as the rest. It was the exact same day-glo orange with the exact same black lettering in the exact same font except it said CURE AIDS.
Great little piece, George. How about some more comics/short pieces/stories?
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