Jaxon, 1941-2006

by M. B. Taboada, American-Statesman staff

Austin artist Jack “Jaxon” Jackson, generally credited as the first underground cartoonist, died Thursday.  He was 65.

Jackson’s body was found Thursday night outside the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Stockdale, where his parents were buried.  His death is being investigated as a suicide, according to the Wilson County Sheriff’s office.

Jackson’s first underground comic, “God Nose,” appeared in 1964.  He co-founded Rip Off Press, one of the first independent publishers of underground comics, in San Francisco in 1969.

Jackson was well-known as a historian cartoonist who created graphic novels of Texas history, including “Comanche Moon,” “Los Tejanos” and “El Alamo.”  He was the art director of Family Dog, which promoted concerts in San Francisco.  Jackson received multiple awards for his work, including a lifetime fellowship of the Texas State Historical Association.

“He was someone very accomplished who had come before me and treated me like a peer and made me feel like I was a part of the club,” said Sam Hurt, a 48-year-old Austin cartoonist whose work became prominent in Austin in 1980.  “Like a lot of cartoonists, there was something about (his) presence that resonated in his cartoons.”  Hurt described Jackson’s work as having an “amazing level of detail.”

A mentor to other cartoonists, Jackson was the first artist featured at the South Austin Museum of Popular Culture when it opened to the public in 2004.  The museum will create a memorial for him, said Leea Meeching, executive director.

“He has left us with visions of imagined worlds and of the steps made on it by others,” wrote Emma Little, a close friend of Jackson’s, in an e-mail sent Friday to his friends and colleagues.  “He enriched our imaginations and our hearts.”

Jackson is survived by his wife, Tina, and son, Sam.

A memorial service will be held at 11 AM Saturday, June 17th at Hyde Park Christian Church, 610 E. 45th St.

Jaxon and his family were our neighbors across the street for several years during the 1990s, and his son and T were childhood best friends.  I also introduced him to my mother, and they immediately became friends over their common interest in Texas history, and particularly in the gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.  (Both of them are what C. L. Sonnichsen called “grassroots historians,” largely self-taught but doing significant and important work in their field.)  I called Mother a little earlier today to tell her the news, and she said she still felt grateful and privileged, all these years later, to have known Jack.  Jack was also, at least in part, responsible for T’s interest in professional athletics and eventually her decision to become an athletic trainer; she first learned about serious football from sitting with Jack and Sam in Jack’s living room on Sundays watching the Cowboys play.

I last saw him in late May of this year at his 65th birthday party, held at his home in Austin; he looked very drawn and tired.  Even the presence of a company of friends and well-wishers, including Eddie Wilson of Threadgill’s, poster artist Micael Priest, former City Council member Daryl Slusher and others, didn’t help much.  I believe he grew tired of fighting his illnesses (arthritis, diabetes and prostate cancer), and simply decided “fuck it all.”