Pubdate: Thu, 21 Mar 2002
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: John Mackie, Vancouver Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

HIPPIE-ERA CARTOONIST WHO CREATED HAROLD HEDD DIES

Rand Holmes Was A Renowned Comic Artist

Internationally renowned underground comic artist Rand Holmes died Friday 
in Nanaimo. He was 60 years old.

Holmes was Vancouver's premier underground cartoonist during the 
psychedelic era in the late 1960s/early '70s. His strip, Harold Hedd, was 
the Canadian equivalent to American underground favourites like The 
Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Wonder Warthog, and Mr. Natural.

Harold Hedd first appeared in the Georgia Straight, back when it was a 
radical hippie weekly. The strip featured the misadventures of a 
bespectacled dope smoker, Harold Hedd, who was forever being hassled by the 
super-straight Constable Leroy. It was a classic of its time, riddled with 
pot references, hairy hippies, and lots of free love.

"It was a treatise on the counter-culture," said Holmes, who was paid $25 
per week for the strip. "I was living it at that time."

Georgia Straight publisher Dan McLeod said Holmes was an integral part of 
the Straight's alternative persona.

"Rand was a huge part of the Straight," said McLeod. "A lot of our response 
to what was going on in those days was crystallized through his comics.

"He had a very sharp satirical sense, and a lot of [issues] got argued 
through the strips rather than through editorials. We never wrote 
editorials per se, so the arguments were presented in comic strip form. He 
was the perfect guy to do them. He was one of the best guys in the genre in 
the world."

Partly because he lived in Vancouver, Holmes never enjoyed the commercial 
success of American underground artists like R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton or 
S. Clay Wilson. But San Francisco publisher Ron Turner of Last Gasp comics 
said Holmes was one of the best underground artists.

"He was a real master draftsman, just incredible," said Turner, who 
published a couple of Harold Hedd collections.

"I think Rand was one of the greatest humourists I ever saw. He could make 
you roll around and split a gut laughing. I was always surprised he didn't 
end up in film-making, because his work was perfect storyboards [for movies]."

Turner said Holmes' abilities were showcased when he was chosen to do the 
cover for the History of Underground Comics, which was published by Rolling 
Stone magazine's book wing, Straight Arrow.

"It was quite brilliant," said Turner. "There were all kinds of in-jokes he 
put in. His favourite was that he put both him and Robert Crumb playing the 
banjo together."

Holmes published three Harold Hedd collections in the early 70s. He also 
contributed to underground collections like All Canadian Beaver Comix, 
White Lunch Comix, and Fog City Comix. He enjoyed some success in Europe in 
the 1980s with a series called Hitler's Cocaine, and kept active doing 
artwork for science fiction comics like Death Rattle, Alien Worlds and 
Twisted Tales.

One of his biggest fans was Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, who hired 
Holmes to do a comic just before Garcia's death.

In 1982, Holmes left Vancouver to live a simple life on Lasqueti Island 
with his second wife, Martha. It was a bare bones, back-to-the-earth 
existence -- it took 10 years to finish building their house.

"We lived in a tent the first year, and for five years we lived in a 
dirt-floor tar paper shack," Holmes related in a 1997 interview. "I was 
doing comics every night in that shack too, to a propane lamp. My wife 
would be next to me, inches away, making beer in a big vat."

On Lasqueti, Holmes' comic output slowly petered out, and he took up oil 
painting, supplementing his income by doing carpentry. His paintings still 
had underground themes -- his wife Martha said one of his favourites is 
called The Bud Clippers.

"It's an amazing hippie scene of grandparents, parents and kids all sitting 
around the kitchen table clipping buds [from marijuana plants]," she said. 
"As the family business."

Holmes was born Randolph Holton Holmes in Truro, N.S., on Feb. 22, 1942. 
(His father's name was even more colourful -- Cecil Ulysses McDonald Holmes.)

When Rand was a baby, the family moved to Edmonton, where he grew up, 
married young and had two kids.

"He came out to B.C. in '67 or '68 for a visit, found the hippie scene and 
said, 'I'm outta Edmonton,' " said Martha Holmes. "And he never looked back."

Holmes is survived by his wife, their 14-year-old son Sirett, two children 
from his first marriage (35-year-old Michelle and 32-year-old Ron) and a 
10-month-old grandson, Denton Rand Holmes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager