Zippy-Scope

Plot

Francoise Mouly explained that the early projects created with her printing press included local business street maps/guides that she and Spiegelman made in effort to make some money, as well as stickers, postcards and other small projects for their cartoonist friends.

One of the first of these was a Zippy-Scope, an ambitious spooled-reel toy of sorts that took 287 wordless panels of Bill Griffith's famous Zippy character (from a tale called "The Enigmatic Donut") and placed them in a printed cardboard viewing contraption that looks a bit like the cheap disposable cameras of the 1990s. A total of 100 signed copies were created and you could view the Zippy strip by turning the device's handle counterclockwise to see the panels one at a time through a clear plastic window. In the clip below, they discuss the process of naming RAW, as well as how the Zippy-Scope was constructed.

In an email, Bill Griffith explains, "The drawings in the Zippy-Scope are taken from the center spread of my comic, YOW #2 [Last Gasp, 1979]. In the comic, it's called 'The Centerspread Caper,' 280 little panels in all, across two pages. Art and Françoise were impressed by the craziness of this piece and came up with the idea to make it into the Zippy-Scope. Françoise printed all 280 little panels (plus seven more for 'front matter') in sequence on two long turning spools inside a box, viewable one at a time through a little plastic window. Now who's crazy? Art and Françoise made a few for themselves and I got five 'artist's proofs,' of which I still have two. I also did a flyer which was mailed out to potential buyers."