Vaughn Bode

American "Cartoon Gooroo"   -   [1941-1975]

Baby-Biography

Vaughn Frederic Bode is born at 2:22pm on the 22nd July 1941. At the age of 12 he rewrites the Bible. On the 26th September 1957, Vaughn Bode the teenager creates his legendary Cheech Wizard cartoon character. As a commercial art student at Syracuse University, Bode develops and refines his style, establishing Cheech and other distinctive characters in his college paper by 1967.

In the underground comics heyday of 1968, he starts working in fanzines and is published in the 'East Village Other' and 'Gothic Blimp Works'. In 1969 he wins the Hugo Award for best fanzine artist. In the same year, Bode's Deadbone Erotica feature replaces R.Crumb's Fritz The Cat in gentlemen's magazine 'Cavalier'. In 1971, his Purple Pictography appears in another gentlemen's title, 'Swank'.

In 1972, Cheech Wizard appears for the first time in the 'National Lampoon'. In 1974, Bode is awarded the prestigous 'Yellow Kid Award' at the International Comics Congress in Lucca, Italy. His last show is in the Louvre museum, Paris, where he fills the Grande Ballroom to perform a 'Cartoon Concert'.

In 1975, Vaughn Bode dies tragically early at the age of 34.

Phespirit's Hero

From the moment Phespirit first spotted a copy of "The Complete Cheech Wizard" (number four) in his local comic shop, tossed unceremoniously onto a pile of miscellany, Bode was a Phespirit's hero. It's cover - a wizard's hat with legs, kicking the jism from a lizard's balls - could only be the work of genius.

"Believers, I has come to lighten da load in yer spritual pants!" - Cheech Wizard, 1974.

..... or, alternatively, .....                  

Once upon a time at 2:30 in the afternoon there lived a wise and benevolent and wonderful wizard who wore a big hat and went by the handle:   CHEECH WIZARD

- National Lampoon's feature strip introduction.

Vaughn Bode is Phespirit's hero for the complex characters he created, for the magical worlds in which he placed them, and for the distinctive style in which he rendered them; for producing a wholly unique blend of art, philosophy and blunt vulgarity. Phespirit's doodles were never the same after seeing Bode's wizard, the lizards and his disturbingly voluptuous 'broads'.

Cheech Wizard - a vile, crude, abusive, lecherous, drunken, bullying waster.
Cheech Wizard - the infamous, irascible, omnipotent, shit-headed, very holy, ever so earthly Hat.
Cheech Wizard - the Cartoon Messiah.

[the Bode characters can still be seen in graffiti art all around the world]

Phespirit's first Bode comic - cover painting by Mark Bode (son), based on drawing by Vaughn Bode

Influential 'Cheops' graphic - the lizard is now firmly established as Phespirit's preferred doodle

"Cheech Wizard in his student days" - the 'broad' cartoon plate most frequently copied by Phespirit