Remembering Larry Todd: 1948-2024

4 weeks ago 15

John Kelly | October 23, 2024

Larry Todd, a multifaceted and talented artist whose work included wondrous science fiction paintings and trippy underground comix, died on Sept. 28 following a long illness. The cause of death was testicular cancer, according to Pepper Alexandria, a longtime friend of Todd's. He was 76.

"I consider him to be a super genius, with an imagination like no one else's," said Alexandria, a cartoonist, belly dancer and former girlfriend of Todd's, who remained his close friend for 50 years. She said that he was diagnosed with cancer several years ago and his condition took a turn for the worse a few months ago.

"After he had tests done in San Francisco two months ago, I called him and he said, 'Pepper, it's really bad and they can't operate. I'm going to die. I don't know when, but I'm going to die' ... he died at 4:20 pm," she told The Comics Journal.

The significance of the time of day would not be lost on his fans. Todd was perhaps best know for his character Dr. Atomic, a mad scientist who enthusiastically championed the consumption of marijuana. The series appeared in small press newspapers before Last Gasp began publishing it as a comic book in 1972. Dr. Atomic combined slapstick humor and fantastical scientific creations in stories that often involved the smoking of marijuana. Though not as well known as Gilbert Shelton's Fabulous Freak Brothers, Dr. Atomic was immensely popular among many fans in the counterculture during the early 1970s.

Todd credited cartoonist Bobby London with helping him define the Dr. Atomic character. And if the Doctor looks more like something that London would have drawn than Todd, it's because London did the original design.

"Larry was talking about wanting to do a character called Dr. Atomic and as he was talking I just sketched a drawing of what I thought someone named 'Dr. Atomic' would look like," London told The Comics Journal. "And that's what he based him on."

Todd said that London did more than just help define the character's look. In a 1972 unpublished interview with comics historian Patrick Rosenkranz, Todd said: "This Dr. Atomic story ... I had to go through a lot of changes, because I had written it one way ... which didn't work right. I had another way suggested to me which split it into two stories and that didn't seem any better. I fussed and argued and pulled hair and pouted, and had neurotic breakdowns before I figured out what to do with it. I wouldn't have gotten very far if it hadn't been for Bobby London [helping] me figure out the problem with the story."

The series produced six issues, several of which were reprinted numerous times, as well as a special edition primer – Dr. Atomic's Marijuana Multiplier – which, according to the website Underground ComixJoint, "provides detailed instructions for enhancing the quality of cheap, low-grade marijuana. The instructions are fairly complex and include volatile chemical recipes that should be approached with caution." Dr. Atomic #4 was subtitled, "The Pipe and Dope Book," and the issue offers "timeless information and advice about the consumption and cultivation of marijuana and instructions for building some elaborate home-made smoking devices," according to Underground ComixJoint. In 2023, Image Comics published a remastered edition of Todd's Pipe and Dope Book. It is available here.

***

Larry S. Todd was born on April 6, 1948 in Buffalo, NY. He began submitting stories and drawings to science fiction publications while he was in high school, with early work appearing in Galaxy Magazine.

"While in my junior year in high school I sold a story to Galaxy," he told Rosenkranz in 1972. "I had their illustrator do the illustration simply because I wanted to see what he could do. I was appalled. In my senior year, I sold another story, either to Galaxy or If. That one I chose to illustrate myself. Aside from a couple of little cartoons in the school newspaper, I never had much published in high school because I never made the vital head leap toward realizing that the comic books I read were actually drawn by human hands. They may have been signed by human artists, but for all I knew or thought about it, that could have been the guy who sat behind the console of the computer that drew these things. I never made the gap in thinking to go into comic art at that time. I had gotten off comics temporarily and into writing and illustrating."

After high school, he enrolled in Syracuse University and "wasted four years," Todd told Rosenkranz. "At least I didn't get drafted [to serve in the Vietnam War]."

At Syracuse, Todd met future legendary underground cartoonist Vaughn Bodē and the pair would go on to collaborate on many projects.

"Vaughn and I have been friends since my freshman year," he told Rosenkranz. "It's the one good thing I can account for Syracuse university. I met Vaughn through that."

While still students at Syracuse, Todd and Bodē began contributing work to Warren Publishing, including later collaborations on some memorable covers for the magazines Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella. A few week before Todd's death, the original art for his 1970 collaboration with Bodē for the cover of Vampirella #3 sold on Heritage Auctions for $132,000.

In the late 1960s, Bodē moved to New York City and joined the staff of the tabloid The East Village Other, where Todd (who joined him in New York) also contributed work. Todd continued to do art for various Warren publications, often teaming with Bodē for notable covers, but soon went full time into the world of underground comics because, he told Rosenkranz, it allowed him to retain possession of his original artwork:

Rosenkranz: Did you decide you could make more money in underground comix?
Todd: No. I just decided that at least I could keep my own original artwork, which was the most important thing to me. I'm writing fundamentally the same stores as I was back then [for Warren Publishing]. I'm just using a little bit more French and have a little bit more artistic freedom.

Todd and Bodē relocated to San Francisco in October 1971 and Todd's first comic, Tales of the Armorkins, was published that year by John Bagley's Company & Sons. Dr. Atomic made his first appearance in the first issue of John Bryan's alternative San Francisco tabloid The Sunday Paper in 1972. Todd also created the distinctive masthead for the paper, telling Rosenkranz that he based the image of the moon on the 1902 George Méliès film A Trip to the Moon.

"[The] sun was designed along the same lines," he told Rosenkranz. "I was looking through a book on advertising from the turn of the century, looking for eagles. I found one that I liked. I drew the eagle. I had seen in a flash the cannabis leaf, the flag and the eagle intertwined, which a design that comes from the Volunteers album by Jefferson Airplane."

In the early 1970s, Todd and Bodē were among a group of young cartoonists who frequented the San Francisco the Air Pirates, the renegade group of underground cartoonists who got into very serious legal trouble for very unauthorized parodies of trademarked Walt Disney characters. And while never an official "member" of the Air Pirates, Todd did contribute work to the 1972 Air Pirates Funnies tabloid publication; additionally, some original art sold at auction attributed to the Air Pirates was actually done by Todd. In their 1972 interview, Todd told Rosenkranz that Dr. Atomic #1 was initially conceived to be one of the many spin off books that came out of the Air Pirates universe, such as Ted Richards' Dopin' Dan series or Dan O'Neill's Comics & Stories.

"The Dr. Atomic book was [originally] decided [to be] an Air Pirates book," he said. "I was going to do mostly Dr. Atomic in it, but some of the Air Pirates were going to contribute. Right away they had suggestions on how I should do my book. Right away. They kept it right up. They pointed out some very true things, but ... eventually, I got so sick of it that I couldn't take it anymore and I cut the book away from them."

***

Vaughn Bodē died at the age of 33 in 1975. In 1968, Bodē had published a comic story, Cobalt 60, in the sci fi fanzine Shangri L'Affaires. The story was later republished several times, including in Witzend (1970), and Métal Hurlant (1980). In 1984, an expanded version of Cobalt 60, written by Todd and illustrated by Bodē's son, Mark Bodē, began running in Marvel's Epic Illustrated. It was later collected as a series by Tundra press in 1992. In 2006, Universal Pictures announced it would be adapting Cobalt 60 into a Hollywood film, with Zack Snyder directing.

In 1978, Todd collaborated with writer Harlan Ellison on the comic book Chocolate Alphabet (Last Gasp), a somewhat complicated collection of extremely short stories that Ellison reportedly wrote over the span of three days. The project was inspired by a Todd painting called "N is for Nemotropin," In Ellison's introduction to the book, he called Todd "one of America's premier visual technicians."

An extremely prolific artist, Todd estimated that while he was a teenager he had completed approximately 7,000 pages of comic art. He told Rosenkranz that the vast bulk of that work was either thrown away by his parents or lost in a fire while he was a student at Syracuse.

"This is the last remaining volume of the 7,000 pages of comics that I did in high school," he said to Rosenkranz in 1972. "It's free hand pen and ink, fountain pen drawing. It's very simple and I can do up to 10 pages a day. It was mostly science fiction ... I lost the 10 remaining volumes, that my parents didn't throw out, in a fraternity fire in '69. This book managed to survive it by virtue of being at the bottom of a big heap of papers. Only the edges got singed, but the firemen wetted the pages."

Todd, a heavy smoker his whole life, seemed plagued by fires. In June 1989, a fire destroyed his Willits, California, home and the bulk of its contents, including a large amount of his original art. The blaze left Todd with severe second degree burn on his upper torso and he was airlifted to a burn unit where he received skin grafts and recovered. Mark Bodē edited Fire Sale, a 1989 one shot comic book published by Rip Off Press to help with Todd's medical expenses. The collection included contribution by many notable underground and alternative cartoonists and contained a story by Todd, Fire Sale: Everything Must Go, that he drew while recovering in the burn unit.

Beyond comics and science fiction, Todd had a wide range of interests and his art appeared in numerous alternative outlets. In addition to his marijuana-themed Dr. Atomic, Todd illustrated a sex manual, did art for Laughing Gas, a book about Nitrous Oxide and had art appear in a publication called The Pleasures of Cocaine. He also did hundreds of illustrations for a homesteader, counterculture publication called The New Settler Interview.

There were many other non-mainstream ventures. In the early 1970s, he joined with a small group of fledging marijuana device entrepreneurs to form the Proto Pipe Company, which manufactures what is often called the "Swiss Army knife of pot pipes". Todd created countless examples of artwork for the company over five decades and even, at times, lived in the company's Willits, California, wooded headquarters. His contributions to the company's massive success was immense, said Richard Jergenson, a partner in the company whose brother, Phil, developed the original Proto Pipe.

"Thanks to...ads in counterculture magazines, artwork by underground comics artist Larry Todd (best known for his Dr. Atomic character) and a retail presence in record shops and waterbed stores, the brand thrived," the Los Angeles Times wrote in a 2021 profile of the company. "Not so much a pipe as a smoking gadget, the Proto Pipe is a palm-size tool for the working man that's somehow futuristic and old-school all at once."

In recent years, Todd had worked with cartoonist Larry Welz painting carnival rides and funhouses at Duncan Designs Inc., a Santa Rosa, California, company. During these periods of work, Todd and Welz would often meet up with Bobby London when they were painting carnival attractions in Jurupa Valley.

"The boys would come by my house for dinner two or three times a year for a couple of years and I knew full well these visits would be as close to an Air Pirates reunion as I could expect," London said.

Throughout his long career, Todd did very few interviews with the press. The Comics Journal is grateful for Patrick Rosenkranz for providing his 1972 interview with Todd for this memorial.

"Larry could talk at length about any number of subjects, but the one thing he never really talked about was himself," said Richard Jergenson of Proto Pipe.

"He didn't care at all about the media, because he was just obsessed with getting his art right," said former girlfriend Pepper Alexandria.

And despite the countless drawings and paintings Todd created, his work was never widely exhibited during his lifetime. On Sept. 28, 2024, a career retrospective of Todd's work opened at the Willets Center for the Arts. It was the same day that Todd died.

"Larry died just hours before the show opened," said Gary Martin, curator for the Center. The exhibit, believed to be Todd's first, runs through October 20th.

"Todd's work is not only artistically compelling, but it also offers a powerful commentary on the cultural and political issues that have shaped our society over the last 50 years," Martin said.

He is survived by his wife, Julie, and son, Justin.

In the space below, some friends and colleagues share memories about the life of Larry Todd.

***

Mark Bodē
(cartoonist)

As a child growing up in the underground comic field, my father Vaughn Bodē introduced me to a chosen few as "uncle". I had Uncle Jeff (Jeffrey Catherine Jones), Uncle Berni (Berni Wrightson), and Uncle Larry (Larry Todd). All three were second to none in the comics, horror and sci-fi fields. My mentors are all gone now. When I was 12 years old I tragically lost my father. At the age of 33, Larry filled in where my dad left off giving me the guidance and direction I needed to make it in the comics field. First thing Larry said is to continue Cobalt 60. It is something your dad should have continued with and did not have the chance. Larry wrote a graphic novel based on a cast of characters my father left unused for me to illustrate.

Some years later, still in my teens, I pitched what we had done to Archie Goodwin of Marvel's Epic Illustrated and my career was off to a strong start thanks to Uncle Larry's insight and powerful writing skills. I am 61 years old now and I am over 500 pages deep into the Cobalt 60 saga. It was even optioned for a live action film by Universal and director Zack Snyder. Yes Cobalt became our most powerful property, even bigger than Cheech Wizard, thanks to the insight and talented mind of Larry Todd.

The last time we talked was just a week or so ago. I told him his collaboration painting he did with my father for the cover of Vampirella #3 just sold at auction for 132K! He was elated and smitten with the news. Larry had entered into an elite crowd of great sci-fi and fantasy painters that command six and seven figure prices for their original art.

Larry and I went to the mountain tops together on several occasions over the four decades we worked together professionally. It all started for this 5-year-old kid walking up the hill with my dad Vaughn by our apartment complex in Syracuse, N.Y. We were waiting for Cheech to join us for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Uncle Larry was always there telling tall stories and being a brilliant mind and top notch writer and painter. I will never work as closely or as extensively with anyone as I did with Larry Todd. He is my lifelong mentor, friend and collaborator. Safe travels my friend.

Ron Turner
(publisher, via Last Gasp)

The expected news of Larry Todd's passing came with a thud today. We were hoping for his miraculous survival, but it was not to be. The great creator of Dr. Atomic and endless numbers of fantasy and science fiction artworks had passed, leaving a void that will never be filled.

Larry was old friends with Vaughn Bodē back in Syracuse. When I met him, he was a mad scientist cartoonist constantly testing the limits of art and science. He was an early proponent of marijuana freedom.

As to why his various stories were never made into movies was beyond me. He had very tight plot lines, wonderful surprising twists and turns, and artwork that filled every panel to bursting. He was very well liked by the cartoonist communities and the belly dancers he attracted. He was a unique man.

Paul Mavrides
(cartoonist)

I met Larry Todd by happenstance on my first trip to San Francisco after moving to the Bay Area in 1975. A few years before, at a dinner with the Firesign Theater in Phoenix, Arizona, they passed along to me contact information for a friend of theirs, UG cartoonist Jay Kinney, and suggested that I look him up if I ever made it to California — so I did on my second day there, riding a rickety 1930s street car out to Jay's Victorian flat in the SF Mission hood and got a unexpected twofer — Jay and his flatmate, Larry Todd.

We all hit it off immediately and they went through all the art and sketchbooks I had dragged along with me for "show & tell" and deemed me worthy. We then spent most of the afternoon dong what most UG cartoonists did back then, consuming a pound of weed, a mountain of cigarettes and gallons of coffee in just a couple of hours. Despite all that self-medicating, I can still recall that Larry had chained up several banks of long fluorescent tubes high over his drawing table, lighting it up brighter than an exploding sun. Most impressive. And it worked for him. After years in somewhat culturally and politically hostile territories like Akron, Ohio, and Tucson, I felt like I was "home" at last with like-minded artistic weirdos and outliers.

My two new friends kept teasing me though, telling me they were both pals with another UG cartoonist from Akron, Ohio, the forge on which my renegade personalty was first hammered into shape by hostile forces. I was puzzled, I couldn't recall anyone I knew back there being into drawing comix, although we all pretty much read them. Larry and Jay wouldn't tell me their friend's name though, adding coyly that the Buckeye cartoonist lived nearby, within quick walking distance. I insisted on a visit.

We set out and arrived at another Mission flat's door, knocked, and were greeted by Rebecca Wilson, indeed a surprise. Becky was indeed an old friend from Akron days who was busy cartooning, and now living in Trina Robbins and Sharon Rudahl’s old flat. A capper on a great afternoon, with one final surprise for me still off in the future – just a few years later, Becky would ask me to split the flat with her, and to my amazement, I still live there to this day, 45 years later. A ribbon that was tied by Jay Kinney and Larry Todd.

Larry Welz
(cartoonist)

I was visiting the Air Pirates, Dan O’Neil and his band of crazy kids he’d gotten from Seattle – Gary Halgren, Bobby London, Shary Flenniken and Ted Richards – at their new location, a large warehouse/industrial-type building south of Market Street, which was an industrial neighborhood in San Francisco at that time. It was owned by American Zoetrope, Francis Ford Coppola’s production company. All the cupboards and drawers in the large kitchen were stuffed with costumes from THX 1138, those androgynous white outfits that the masses wore in that. I was brought in to meet the newcomer there. From the other side of a stainless steel table, a head popped up from where he had been looking through the costumes and said, “I’m Larry Todd, I take drugs for a living!” Drugs are about altered perception; art is about altered perception. Larry Todd was into altering perception. He was unapologetic and unrepentant about his drug use. He mostly kept it under control.

He claimed to go by “Doc,” but when I addressed him as such, he never responded. We called him Todd, because, well … too many Larrys, you know.

When we were living in a cul-de-sac in Rincon Valley in Santa Rosa, in the heart of the Northern California wine country, Todd would often stop there on his runs between San Francisco and Willits for days at a time. Sometimes he would help me draw some Cherry comics. He helped me paint a mural in the windowless studio we built in the suburban garage. He helped with the model city we had in the living room. He was part of the family.

I had been working with Greg Duncan for 10 years or so doing signage for amusement parks and ride fronts for carnivals. I met Greg through Ron Turner of Last Gasp. Greg would assemble teams of three or four people and send them to carnival shows, winter quarters, or midway lots at fairs, to paint mostly what they called “back-end pieces” – funhouses, mirror mazes, and dark rides that were usually clustered around the end of the midway.

One day [my wife] Sharon said to me, “You should take Todd to go see Greg. He could paint rides.” Todd’s ears pricked up. So I did that and next thing you know, he and I are painting a funhouse. I remember we did dinosaurs on it. Todd took right to it. We painted lots of rides in lots of places over many years. These were big things, built on 40-foot trailers with 20-foot flaps that opened up on either side, so there’s 80 feet of sheet metal 15-feet high that’s parked out in the sun and the wind and the rain in the middle of nowhere, or in a really shitty part of town, that we had to apply this solvent based enamel to with four-inch rollers and one- and two-inch squirrel-hair brushes, cleaning them out with highly toxic lacquer thinner (until they banned that shit in California). It was death-defying art. It was painting really big pictures as fast as possible. It didn’t have to be good art, it just had to be attractive.

They mostly weren’t actually rides, they were attractions, for the masses. Ron Henon, owner of some off-beat attractions, said, “The audience is your average drunk teenager.” So it was folk art. We were folk artists, like Joan Baez is a folk singer. Todd loved it. We could be as silly as we wanted. Todd drove Greg nuts with his futzing around, experimenting with different techniques, and taking longer than was budgeted, but we were still way faster than “real” artists would have been.

It ended up being a semi-regular gig going to Owen Trailers in Jurupa Valley, just across the river from Riverside, where they built the things from the ground up, welding together frames of one-inch square steel tubing and pop-riveting sheet aluminum to them and hinging them so they unfolded like a pop-up book using hydraulics. So they’re still working on it – wiring up lights, running hydraulic lines – while I and Todd and a couple of other guys are going up and down, back and forth on scissor lifts painting on it. This meant we had to paint the same things over and over again.

The Mardis Gras mirror maze was popular, we must have done a hundred of them. “One of them has been spotted in low Earth orbit” Todd said. They were supposed to look the same every time, but of course Todd and I changed it up a little each time. Then there were the Wacky Shacks, the top-of-the-line funhouse with all the bells and whistles, which went for around a quarter of a million. They were huge, We did dozens of them. Dark rides were less frequent, and they were different each time. I was never really happy with the way any of the fronts came out, being a cranky old perfectionist, but it was an accomplishment after a week or more of hard work. They were big shiny things. The crews that ran the rides were proud of them. The crew at the trailer factory treated us with awe and respect, even when Todd managed to spill gallons of paint on himself from the overhead scaffolding. We were heroes, with awesome powers.

Eventually the whole carnival show thing – excuse me, I mean the outdoor amusement industry – slowed way down. I finally quit, having become too old, feeble and irritable to continue. Todd kept going for I don’t know how long until Owen Trailers folded after three generations of owners.

The paint jobs on these things would last up to ten years of being folded up, hauled thousands of miles and popped up at hundreds of shopping mall parking lots near you, after which they were painted over. Or sometimes the front would be reskinned and the old panels would be pulled off and thrown onto a pile of scrap metal. There are no surviving pieces being preserved and displayed. This was folk art. It lived and died out in the world.

David Scroggy
(writer and comics executive)

Larry Todd was one of the underground comix and science fiction genre's distinctive voices. He started out as a result of a fortuitous meeting with the late Vaughn Bodē in their college days. They collaborated often, creating some memorable covers for Galaxy, and various Warren magazines.

I have pictured their cover to Creepy #31 here (above). Larry later collaborated with Mark Bodē on Cobalt 60, taking one of Vaughn's concepts forward as graphic stories. Larry also famously collaborated with the late Harlan Ellison, rendering Ellison's work Chocolate Alphabet in comic book format.

His painting "Moby Gleep" is one of my all-time favorite artworks (below).

But it is probably Dr. Atomic for which Larry is best-known. This rascally mad scientist came forward after Larry's move to San Francisco in the 1970s. Dr. Atomic had one stoned adventure after another, powered by a variety of inventions and constructs conjured up by the fertile imagination of Larry Todd.

I was able to observe a real-life example at one of my first San Diego Comic-Cons at the El Cortez hotel. I was program director that year. Besides the main program room, there were a few smaller break-out rooms upstairs, where we held more specialized programs with smaller audiences. I put Larry Todd in one of these, where his program topic was recreating one of Dr. Atomic's inventions. This drew a very small audience – maybe a dozen underground fans showed up. Undaunted, Larry launched into his demonstration. Not too surprisingly, this turned out to be construction of an elaborate pot pipe. It was one helluva device, which Larry assembled out of toilet paper and paper towel roll cardboard tubes, and other bells and whistles. It had pumps and baffles and God knows what-all. As Larry assembled this crazy device, he gave a running commentary about the science behind the technology, anecdotes about himself and Dr. Atomic, opinions on various topics of the day. It was fascinating.

After about a half-hour, as the program was winding down, Larry surveyed the group, who had all moved their chairs closer in kind of a semi-circle, winked and said "Well… I guess there's nobody here but us." He then pulled a large baggie stuffed with green leafy organic material from his pocket, stuffed the (very) large bowl of his newly-made pipe full, and lit the sucker up. As he passed it to the audience, everybody got what could truly be called a "hands on" demonstration. The small room began to fill with clouds of pungent smoke. As the so-called responsible party, and official representative of the event management, I twitched a little at the thought that some hotel staffer would come along and bust us, but it didn’t happen. In all the many Comic-Con programs I staged over the years, Larry Todd’s still has a special place in my memory.

Larry's inventive concepts and comics have a special place in my memory as well, and always will. RIP.

Bobby London
(cartoonist)

Larry Todd showed up with Vaughn Bodē in San Francisco one day at the second Air Pirate studio rented from American Zoetrope. Bodē went back to Syracuse but Larry moved into a 3-bedroom apartment on 17th Street with Ted Richards and Willy Murphy, about a block away from where Shary Flenniken and I lived. Of all the people in that particular group, Larry Todd was the nicest to me, which is why, in recent years, I never failed to get together with him and Larry Welz whenever they were in town. He was a fine artist and a kind soul with a good head for figures, and I mean that in more ways than one. I’ll miss him very much.

Gary Hallgren
(cartoonist)

Larry … when I first met him … impressed me with his wild science-fiction concepts and the time he spent at the drawing board. Actually, he had help to make him crosshatch like an Olympian … and then he introduced us, the Air Pirates, to Vaughn Bodē.

I still have the first edition Proto Pipe Larry gave me in 1971 and I think of him every time I see it.

Shary Flenniken
(cartoonist)

Larry Todd was the kind of person I love. He explained things. He had a strong sense of wonder, and always tried to figure things out. And then he shared what he figured out.

Here are some things that Larry shared with me back in the early 1970s…

Vaughn Bodē swept into the San Francisco underground comics scene like a diva. He had an established art career and an east coast following. It seemed as if he saw himself as God's gift to a struggling group of non-professionals. Thus, he was met with enormous hostility from everyone except the people who wanted to fuck him. So he was pretty popular.

I was just in from small-town, oppressively conservative Seattle. I was shocked that such an incredibly virile man would wear pink nail polish. Larry had been buddies with Vaughn for quite a while. Larry had already established himself as the kind of intellectually astute guy that I could talk to about his friend Vaughn's confusing style – what we would now call his brand.

Larry explained that Vaughn had a formative experience with LSD that had opened Vaughn's third eye, the one in the middle of his forehead. When this occurs, the recipient then moves to a higher plain of consciousness and is no longer bound by earthly conventions. This made a lot of sense to me. And it was a much more interesting story than just saying Vaughn was emulating David Bowie.

Alien encounters. This was five years before Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Stories of people being abducted by aliens were popular and being taken seriously. Larry had a complex theory about that and UFO sightings in general. He told us that the aliens are actually government operatives wearing costumes. The objective is to frighten people away from areas where the government is conducting secret projects. He insisted that there is proof of this, but I've forgotten where he said it could be found.

How to live without food or sleep. Eating food is not necessary. You do not need to sleep. You can live on sunlight alone. Larry tested this theory by sitting on the floor next to a sunny picture window for several days. I was not there and have not tried this. I can only assume that he was correct.

There was powerful cultural magic in California then and now. Larry was not just a good friend. He was a creative master who added his own delightful brand of enchantment to our world.

Bruce Simon
(cartoonist)

I knew Larry as part of the once thriving tribe of underground cartoonists in the Bay Area and always enjoyed talking with him. I admired how he could just loosely blue pencil his pages and then just attack them with pen, brush and an ocean of white-out. Larry was always the cartoonist of the practical mind with cartooning only one of his talents; he always had a scheme going to produce dope related products to augment his cartooning income but, regarding Larry's greatest creation,

I'm always amused to remember meeting composer John Adams as our kids went to the same elementary school in Berkeley. Years ago, on a weekend class trip to a music camp near the Russian River, my wife and I shared a bottle of wine with John and his wife and I mentioned that Jack Kirby was a childhood friend of Leon Klinghoffer, who was murdered by members of the Pales Liberation Front who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro. John, who specialized in writing operas based on American historical subjects, had written an opera titled The Death of Klinghoffer. John wasn't aware of Jack Kirby but when I mentioned that the title of his opera about Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, Dr. Atomic, was shared with a prominent underground comix character famed for his crazed experiments in growing cannabis, John turned to me with a eyebrows up and a big smile, but not a word. Good enough for me.

Richard Jergenson
(business partner via the Proto Pipe Co.)

For as long as I can remember we've been told how unique each and every one of us is and I know this to be true. I'm old enough to also know that some of us are more unique than others, and well I think you all know where I'm going with this. Enter one Lawrence George Eugene William Stickle Todd. Larry first came into my life winter of 1974. I had driven to San Francisco from Oakland that afternoon to procure my favorite smoking herb. Henry always had the best of whatever was available at the time. Upon entering the premises, Henry says, "Richard this is the cartoonist I've been telling you about, Larry Todd." I opened my wallet and removed a single panel illustration of a smoking pipe incredibly detailed with a verbal description explanation. Larry smiles nodding his head, "Yup, that's me." It was so dense with visual content that I packed it with me daily for some unknown at the time reason. Henry had also told Larry about Phil and I and the pipe business such as it was at that time. We began visiting one another and so began a 50 year or half century friendship and business partnership. Life was never to be the same again.

Larry was finishing up the Dr. Atomic Pipe and Dope Book, a fantastically drawn and captioned comic book that was to be published and distributed by Last Gasp Comics in San Francisco. We – my brother Phil and I – were in need of help and Larry said, "I'm your man either for graphics or manufacturing." This allowed Phil to re-direct his attention to streamlining the manufacturing process. Larry also introduced us to a young friend of his, John Burnham, who also was a gifted artist/cartoonist and we hired him as well.

Pepper Alexandria
(cartoonist and long time friend)

Larry and I met in North Beach in 1975. I think it was at a coffee shop. We were interested in the same things. I was belly dancing and I was also an artist. At first we were just friends and getting to know each other. He began introducing me to people like Dan O'Neill and Spain [Rodriguez], different people in the cartoon world. And we started dating after that.

Larry was teaching me and a lot of other people how to draw, so we were all gathering to learn from him. Since I was belly dancing, he got me and another woman to dance at one of the first underground comix parties that Ron Turner had and it was in the Mission District. It was a really small party, but Robert Crumb was there, Spain was there, everybody was there. We were dancing all the time for the underground cartoonists and they were the first people who ever paid us to dance. Belly dancers were just starting up ay the time and they would dance for free on the street. But the underground cartoonists paid us because they wanted to draw and paint us. I would model for almost all of them.

Even after we broke up. I always saw Larry. We would spend Thanksgiving and Christmas together for a long time. We always saw each other because his wife, Julie, was one of my dance students. And they had their son, Justin, and I am his godmother. We were always friends, for 49 years.

Larry was a genius. We hung out with Robert Heinlein and Harlan Ellison. Heinlein was fascinated by Larry. Larry knew how to constantly create. He was just creating constantly in his mind. About different forms of art – sculpting, paining, stories. And thats all he was ever really thinking about. He lived in his head, but everything in his head came out in a sculpture or on paper. He really was just a creative genius.