San Diego Surf Culture Makes Comic Waves

By Ken Lewis 7 p.m.July 21, 2014

original link is here:  http://www.discoversd.com/news/2014/jul/21/comic-con-surfing-wilber-kookmeyer/

Wilbur Kookmeyer cartoon by creator Bob Penuelas. — Courtesy Photo

Comic-Con week is here! Soon you will be spending countless hours wandering the convention center floor and will be bumping into your tubby neighbor dressed as Han Solo, or your buttoned-up receptionist walking around half-naked and painted blue like she’s in the X-Men. Yep, this week rules.
So how does the surf guy have anything to write about this week that doesn’t involve tubes, bros or sunshine? While I admit I don’t know what Mindcraft is or what a 20-sided die can do, I do know that surfing and comics are not as far apart as you might think.
Surfing and art are in the same grouping and one of the most famous surfer artists that comes to mind is the legendary Rick Griffin. Griffin garnered acclaim in the ’60s and ’70s for his “Murphy” comic, that ran in Surfer magazine and later gained mainstream popularity with his concert posters of rock ‘n’ roll greats Frank Zappa, The Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix. Decades after his death, Griffin’s art still can be found on t-shirts, posters and movie covers, and chances are Griffin’s influence can be found somewhere on the tradeshow floor at Comic-Con in 2014.

Local artist Bob Penuelas created Wilbur Kookmeyer. — Courtesy Photo

Another great surf artist is local Bob Penuelas. Penuelas is a well-known airbrush artist who has been coloring surfboards in San Diego for 35 years. At some point in the mid-’80s, Bob developed a character that became the wildly popular surf cartoon strip, Wilbur Kookmeyer, which was also featured in Surfer magazine. In the comic, Wilbur was like many young surf grommets: mouthy, dumb and full of himself. The gangly Wilbur always found himself in bad situations because of his attributes, but his exploits kept readers coming back each month to see what trouble he was going to get into next.

Many of the comics were great social commentary on how the beach was changing from a sleepy town to something bigger and with less soul. It was very much what he was seeing right in front of his eyes, in Pacific Beach at the time. Eventually the comic ended but Wilbur is alive and well and can still be found on Facebook at facebook.com/pages/Wilbur-Kookmeyer/110447028469
I could go on a bit about that obvious choice of the Silver Surfer and how he is drawn as both a goofy-footer and as a regular-footer. That may not mean much to you, but to a surfer, it is a glaring mistake. But he is an alien, so I wont complain much because we too have an alien in surfing; we call him Kelly Slater.

So there you go Comic-Con homies. We’re practically the same people! How about we make a deal, you let me roam around your convention in my flip flops and buy me a corndog and I’ll take you surfing and buy you a fish taco. Deal?

To see more from Bob Penuelas check out his website, wilbur-kookmeyer.com