I was the Son In Law to Ed Watson down in San Jose, California from 1982 and I Grew Up as a Teen around Ed and he showed me art and I’ve been hooked every since … you inspired a lot of lives!

Thank You & Godspeed My Friend

Matt, 48, Grafton, Australia

James

I own one piece of original art by him. Ironically, it’s a small realistic self portrait done in pencil – very a-typical. Wish I could share a pic of it with you.

And for those of you wondering, I emailed “Bubbles” about the Checkered Demon t-shirt and he still has some. I Just scored an XL. Now if I just understood why “Checkered” was misspelled!

I went to the School of Visual Arts for cartooning and being from upstate New York and of a certain background held an equal regard for the transgression of the aesthetic movement i.e. Beardsley as much as I did the general attitude of bikers which surrounded me in my upbringing. What I had no awareness of was the influence you had in carrying both torches and, nonetheless, quite possibly incubating “biker” art as a whole. That being said, all of my early assignments in cartooning school had my professors in a predicament of assigning me to read and study your work. A professor or two may have even known you at some point and told me stories, a professor may have even edited a magazine including you which they shared with me xeroxes of your work- to which I was floored and found you to be, what even those who suggested your work did not suggest, a role model.

It was obvious that you possessed no filter, sought every taboo, which held as an obstacle to complete freedom of expression to be hurdled and, had no hope in this world but to display your purebred thought. I found your work at the society of illustrators exhibition of ZAP! and studied closely, read the thick volumes which have been dispersed on you over the previous few years and aspired to somehow come within close grasp of step which you kept atop the fine line dividing cartoons and the unconscious. I found not the obvious semiotics which adhere most frequently with the “sublime” but the honest incorporation of time spent indulging in Gorey, Wyeth, decadence, E.C. comics and also the lens of life which could filter it unto “S. Clay Wilson”. At first it made me want to become you but in enough time it inspired me to attempt to seek out what I could be capable of.

I am sorry that we will never meet, but I hope solemnly, to tell you that you’ve at one time remained deeply engrained in my thoughts as an artist and it will forever be important to me.

Best,

Kade

-Max