We did it. The CLAW has made Tacoma history by arriving on this month’s cover of City Arts Tacoma Magazine. Created only a mere four months ago by Frost Park Chalkers, James Stowe, Mark Monlux, RR Anderson and Electric Elliot Trotter, the new CLAW’s City Arts issue can be found all over T-Town.

Not only does this issue feature a collaborative cover art piece by the CLAW’s council of four eyes, but it also includes a cut-out version of our first zine and a fine article by Mark Thomas Deming.

From the article:

CLAW is a joke. But it’s a joke its members take seriously. They’re serious about upholding the traditions of service and fraternity established by the organizations they mock. They’re courting new members. They’re planning fundraisers. They’re producing a zine of CLAW cartoons. They’ve even endowed a scholarship. This year it’s worth only one hundred dollars, but they’re hopeful it will grow. An apologetic Grand Pooh Bah explains: “We spent a lot of money on the hats and the gong.”

In addition to this awesome bit of CLAW-news, The Melon recently put out brief interviews with CLAW artists James Stowe and Mark Monlux. Take a look below a catch a glimpse of what CLAW is all about:

To find out more about the CLAW check out cartoonistsleague.org.

TACOMA, WA – December  12, 2008 – On Wednesday, December 10th, 2008, in the backroom of the Mandolin Café in Tacoma, Washington, four cartoonists wearing burgundy colored fezzes gathered and signed the charter of The Cartoonist’s League of Absurd Washingtonians, otherwise known as The CLAW.

And so the great book says: exiled by the masses into the bowls of the internet, the lone warrior, Electric Elliot, approached Tacoma’s own benevolent white knight of cartooning, RR Anderson.  Referencing an existing notion to start such an absurdly ridiculous group, the two blew the horns of shadow, calling upon the greatest cartoonists the South Sound had to offer.  Within moments (days to you mere mortals) two had become four, now joined by the cartoonist from the eighth dimension, Mark Monlux and the ever-present threat to humanity STOWE.  With their unruly powers combined, the band sought to establish themselves so that all marks of disinnovation and anti-creativity (or antivity) were isolated and abused to destruction while harnessing humanity’s last breaths to welcome in our future robot overloads. “More than anything else I think we were all looking for an excuse just to sit down with other artists and have fun doodling,” said Mark Monlux. “Oh, that and wear fez and have a secret handshake.”

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