Morty Comix # 2404

Morty Comix # 2404 was drawn on a notepad given to me as an incentive to subscribe to the magazine Golf Digest, which is very strange since I have never played golf and have no desire to learn. In fact, the whole world of sports strikes me as incredibly and expensively absurd, but I recognize I am very much in the minority view here in America and realize millions find joy and meaning in this activity. This is a major part of the human experience most people find very important but has somehow escaped me. I just don't get it. But I'm OK with being a freak in this regard.

Sports have appeared in my comix. In my book Dog of Dawn Dog of Dusk I highlighted the historical sport of Dog Butting, introduced to me by my friend Bob Richart, who was featured in an altered way as a character in the story. Also in State of Beings # 5 I proposed my new baseball team, the Stationary Pus-Filled Pancakes.

Sarah introduced me to Robin Williams' great take on golf a few years ago. The fact I have a healthy dose of Scottish blood made me laugh even harder.

Page 2-3 of this Morty Comix came from two leftover old post-its I had from Morty Comix # 2394, which were affixed to an outside door almost two weeks ago and were, incredibly, still there when I drove by  today even though the weather here has been rainy and windy!

Anyway, since someone in my town has seen fit to take down anything I put up on the Post Office community bulletin board, rip it into shreds and throw it away, I decided to tuck this Morty Comix behind the bulletin board. I know who the perpetrator is and I highly doubt she follows this blog, so I think this one will survive her strange and unvoiced hostility to my work.

McCleary is kind of a weird place. I tried to capture the culture in my Bezango WA 985 series. We enable our many local eccentrics and that adds to the surrealism.

Mini-Comics Day Prep

Mini-Comics Day is almost here!  I took the afternoon off and went to City Hall to pick up the key to the Community Center. Then I found Sarah and brought her with me for set-up since she graciously offered to help. Somehow that seems fitting since she was the one who set this blog up in the first place, so this whole thing in McCleary really traces back to her!

A tip to those of you coming from other places. We are about 25 minutes from Shelton, 30 minutes from Oly, 40 minutes from Aberdeen, 60 minutes from Centralia, 90 minutes from Seattle, 2+ hours from Portland, 6 hours from Spokane my birthplace, 9 hours from Redding, California if you drive like a bat out of Hell, and a stone's throw from Bezango. Keep in mind Memorial Day weekend traffic to the Coast will be thick.

These tables are not the greatest for acting as a drawing surface. Be sure to bring a drawing board or pad. I'll be using a clipboard.

I'll be providing a photocopier, a very funky paper cutter, a longneck stapler, some old dry gluestick, colored paper, pencil sharpener and a few other things. Bottled water will be there too, as well as some "fine" music on old sound cassettes. heh-heh.

This is also the venue where the Man in the Morty the Dog suit appeared in the late 20th century.

The Community Center resides next to the McCleary Cemetery, originally started by the Knights of Pythias in 1912 and then given to the town shortly after McCleary incorporated in 1943. Here is the headstone for one of the many Greeks who lived here in the early days, Christ Pappas, 1882-1956.

 A rare thunderstorm followed these clouds a few minutes later.

I returned home to start hauling out my dusty comix-making tools. Meanwhile, Charlie and Dreamer had an epic wrestling match next to the equipment I gathered in my living room.

Selected Quotes From Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space

with an introduction by Michel Jolivet. I have no idea what sort of print run this had, but it couldn't have been very many copies. This was hammered out on my old typewriter in May 1988.

I later reviewed Plan 9 From Outer Space as part of my Cheaper by the Dozen film reviews for OlyBlog. Here's what I said:

Plan 9 From Outer Space / directed by Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1959, VHS). Bela Lugosi, Vampira, Tor Johnson, Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Duke Moore, Tom Keene, Carl Anthony, Paul Marco, Dudley Manlove, Joanna Lee, John "Bunny" Breckinridge, Lyle Talbot, Criswell, Conrad Brooks, Tom Mason. "Can you prove that it didn't happen?" Don't you hate it when you enjoy what you think is a nice little secret and then everyone finds out about it and it gets to be a big deal? That's what I experienced with Ed Wood movies in general and this one in particular. There is a natural evolution for Woodians. First, you laugh at his movies, then you slowly start to realize the guy really was a true visionary. A conceptualist. A genius. His work was totally unique, there was no other director like him. But as you reach these last stages of Wood enlightenment, the rest of the world is just starting to discover him-- and they laugh. And if you try to explain the gifted side of Wood and his masterpiece, Plan 9, no one will take you seriously. Wood first came to my attention in the early 80s when this movie was touted inaccurately as "Worst Film of All Time" in the book "The Golden Turkey Awards." Then I fell in with a wild crowd of bassoon players, which included a veterinarian in Burien who showed cassettes on Beta and a librarian who had a lawnmower that was previously owned by Mason Williams, and we watched Ed Wood movies with morbid fascination until all hours. Those were the days, before Tim Burton mainstreamed Ed. Plan 9 was Wood's attempt to lift the veil on the government's secrecy concerning UFO activity. Through the aliens, the brutal every-man-for-himself and ignorant nature of our modern American society is revealed. What makes this movie so interesting is that Wood built the whole thing around a few minutes of footage of Lugosi, right before Bela's death in 1956. In the course of telling the story Wood asks the audience to suspend expectations of several natural consistencies, like day and night going back and forth in the course of a few minutes, different actors playing the same character, scars that move around, etc. The cast is wonderful. Wood must've been a very gifted director to bring out such unique and spirited performances from his actors. They might not be polished, but they have spark. Since Wood didn't really believe in more than one take, you are watching some pretty spontaneous and improvisational moments on the screen. Plan 9, watch it once and laugh, watch it twice and think.

Gyorgy Ligeti : a Bio-Discography / by Robert W. Richart

Another one of my reprint-on-demand titles from the 1994 era. This was a partial reprint from a full monograph originally published in 1990 and written by my friend and librarian colleague Bob Richart. I watched him at close range when he went through the ordeal of compiling this work.

Ligeti is best known to American audiences via Stanley Kubrick. He used the composer's works in the soundtracks of both 2001 a Space Odyssey and The Shining.

Bob Richart is someone I've known since Pullman days and he has taught me a lot about how to listen to music. He also is a very funny, creative man and has been a great supporter of my comix work through the years.

City Limits Gazette # Lumpy fingered parking meter waltzing with no one to the music of silence, in the background a neon merry-go- ... (June 1993)

Logo by Mike Lee, Bob Richart responds to Dusty Rhodes, Bruce Chrislip's film career beckons, a rant from me on the trials of being an editor (I can tell in hindsight this was the start of me letting go of CLG), a nice note from Kathe Todd of Rip-Off Press, Comix reviews by Lynn Hansen, Bil Keane Watch and Jake Drake the Naked preacher on TCTV, Comics Journal small press index by Gary Usher.

City Limits Gazette # Talking Dog (May 1993)

Logo by Matt Love and Goodman, Bob Richart targeted by Dusty Rhodes, Bil Keane Watch, Staff at The Evergreen State College hire a psychic to rid the library of them demons, Comix reviews by Lynn Hansen, Jeff Nicholson on Xeric, Music reviews by Wayno, Comics Journal small press index by Gary Usher, Dream Teens of Eugene Oregon is one of worst bands in the United States.