Saturday, January 1, 2011

Morty the Dog # 1







































Do not be misled by the numbering. This is actually the second of a three issue run.

The first issue was Morty the Dog # nothing, released in an odd oblong minicomic format.

Issue # 1 was printed in April, 1987 and consists of reprints from Natural Functions, Tales From the Timewalker, Starhead # 9, and Shin Kage.

This was one of my few nationally distributed comix. I think Michael intended it to be a quarterly. It is now a fairly common visitor on eBay. Notice Michael's recognition of the famous black and white glut of the mid-late 1980s in his intro.

I notice that on the inside back cover advertisement, I'm the only artist listed who is still above ground today. Little shudders like that creep into my cranium on a more frequent basis these days as I reacquaint myself with these old comix. I never knew Sloan, sad to say, but Big Daddy Roth and I had sort of an interesting connection. I covered it in a minicomic called Musical Chairs.

Nils Osmar, who has an ad on the back cover, is a Seattle artist, writer and nice guy I met a few times at those comix get-togethers Bruce Chrislip used to host up there before he skeedaddled back to Ohio. Nils is apparently still active in Seattle and has a webpage worth visiting.

The panel in the first story where the scientist shows Morty the Starhead Comix on display under museum glass was sort of how I felt seeing the Tragedy of Morty on display in Maryhill Museum last October!