Morty the Dog

1st edition, 1984, Seattle, Washington : Starhead Comix, 100 copies, goldenrod cover, regular digest size.

2nd edition, 1986 (probably November), Starhead Comix, purple cover, regular digest size.

As you have probably noted by now, Michael Dowers had a second career of taking my obscuro comix and reprinting them in collections for a wider audience. There is no doubt in my mind that the attention Morty the Dog received in the 1980s was a direct result of Starhead providing a bigger stage upon which the mutt could strut and fret his way across.

This comic was the first of those anthologies. The cover was drawn specifically for the book, but everything else was reprinted-- in this case from Pacemaker Defect, Dogtown Zoo # 1, and Cranium Frenzy # 4.

Bruce Chrislip wrote the intro for this one. Shortly before this comic was published Bruce had journeyed from Seattle to Pullman to attend a lecture at Washington State University by none other than Robert Crumb. To tell you the truth, meeting Bruce had more an impact on my memory, and subsequent influence on my comix inspiration, than seeing Crumb.

Bruce's comment in his intro regarding "The Family Circus" was pretty ironic considering what happened later. First, while Bruce was taking over editorship of a series I started, Outside In, I had taken over editorship of a series he started, City Limits Gazette. Then, in CLG, one of the most popular running features was "The Bil Keane Watch." So popular that when collected and published as an individual book it filled 2 volumes!