It’s a sign of Tacoma’s maturity, and it’s about time. Though the details are necessarily hazy, a small group of locals has created Tacoma’s first secret society. Currently comprising four adepts of the dark visual arts, the Cartoonists League of Absurd Washingtonians, or The CLAW, is coming for your kids.

Well, maybe not your kids. Not yet anyway.



Without hesitation or coyness, co-founder Elliot Trotter heralds the group as heroes of sorts. They wear Fez, meeting in smoke-filled rooms surrounded by strange, musky women and ashy, pinched-faced old Mullahs, chanting to forgotten gods through the ambient mist of whiskey breath and candle wax. They are bent on ridding the world of zombies (not the undead kind — the “you’re probably one of them” kind). They scheme to prepare humanity for its inevitable transmutation into a race of robots, says Elliot.



Plus they draw stuff.



“We are trying to prepare for the inevitable. We’re trying to connect,” says Elliot. “Don’t fear us. We’re here to help.”



The CLAW was formed in the backroom of the Mandolin Café in Tacoma. Born of a fateful meeting of the self-proclaimed lone warrior, Electric Elliot Trotter, and Tacoma’s own benevolent white knight of cartooning, RR Anderson, CLAW is here to rep South Sound cartoonists — a force foretold in books whose names are not spoken. They are joined by the cartoonist from the eighth dimension, Mark Monlux and the ever-present threat to humanity known in human tongues simply as “Stowe” (rhymes with “I want some mo”). The group, against all odds, has joined to wage an unholy holy war against the slobbering demons of disinnovation and anti-creativity, or antivity. Their chosen weapon is the pencil, their methods are ancient and various, and their motivations blessedly simple. 

“I didn’t feel like driving to Seattle every other weekend,” says Anderson, referencing their grim alternative for cartoonists looking for a home, Seattle-based Cartoonists Northwest. “They’re cool, but we’re totally going to poach members from them.”



“Personally, for me, CLAW is an opportunity to create and share work with my fellow illustrators, cartoonists and creative absurdists,” adds the Stowe. “My participation hinges on the camaraderie proposed by the formation of the League. Potentially there will be many artisans drawn into the grip of the CLAW. As a founding member I look forward to collaborating with all of them. That, and I am a sucker for Secret Societies ... always have been.”



Like all mystical organizations, The CLAW is rife with ritual. We already mentioned the fez, each of which is adorned with a plastic eyeball to represent the all-seeing eye of the Great Architect. Members who forget their fez or pencil are shamed, forced to wear a really stupid looking Fez and use a huge novelty pencil during drawing sessions. Other icons and accoutrements abound, says Anderson, but have not been codified.



“We’re still trying to figure out what were going to do with all this stuff,” says Anderson.



Like their fez-wearing, secret society counterparts the Shriners, The CLAW supplements its global agenda with some charity, says Monlux. The CLAW Scholarship, for example, will be granted to art students of merit who have shown and interest in the mystic study of sequential art and dragon slaying.



“We decided that we should have an ulterior motive,” says Monlux.



For Anderson, there is one more secret motive worth sharing.



“The local cartoonist is a dying breed. Everyone is going to syndicated, outsourced cartoons,” he says. “I’m seeing it as a way to bring attention to a craft that is slowly slipping out of the consciousness of everyday newspapers.”



Who wanna be down !?!

The CLAW meets twice a month, on second and fourth Wednesdays. To find the current venue details or information on becoming a member, visit their Web site or pay the ultimate price!