Matt Groening at The Evergreen State College, 1977

From The Sunday Olympian, Feb. 6, 1977.

I seem to recall Matt saying something about the Daily Olympian reporter holding up a copy of The Cooper Point Journal and declaring no one could get away with this kind of writing in real life after college.

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Twisted Conundrums

1st edition, February 2001, 15 copies, orchid cover, regular digest size.

1st Danger Room reprint edition, June 2005, 5 copies, blue, regular digest size.

This is a great example of how my work can be recycled over and over, seemingly without end.

This was originally a column around 2000 in the weekly Seattle tabloid The Stranger. Well, I think it was. They sent me checks for each one, but I never did see them in print myself.

Some of the situations I used in comix prior to the column. In this book most of the drawings were cannibalized from my stories in the past.

Many of these columns were collected and given yet another life in OlyBlog, where I continue to occasionally add a few.

People who are around me a lot are now to trained to roll their eyes and groan in pain after hearing me open a sentence with the line, "What would you do if ..." But hey, that's how cartoonists think.

I say Conundrums. Rick of OlyBlog put together the collection under Conundra. The Guardian has a nice discussion on this difference.

Twisted

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Morty Comix # 2263

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The back of the Old Capitol Building
Olympia, Washington

Morty Comix # 2262

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Spring! and Nixon

My Mother recently cleaned out one of her closets and found a couple old drawings of mine.

Spring! was drawn, I'm betting, about 1984.

The isolated Richard Slimehouse Nixon was probably drawn in 1973 or 1974 as his scandals piled up. Notice it is signed by "Jobbo Bonobo."

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Montesano, Washington

Morty Comix # 2261

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Morty Comix # 2260

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Morty Comix # 2259

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Abandoned parking places
Tumwater, Washington

It doesn't take long for the moss to reclaim things around here

The Tragedy of Morty, Prince of Denmarke, Act 5

1st edition, 1985, 50 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, March 1985, 30 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size.

3rd edition, May 1985, 30 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size.

4th edition, August 1985, 30 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size.

5th edition, January 1986, 30 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size.

Available as a print on title, 1994, regular digest size.

1st Danger Room reprint edition, August 2005, 5 copies (3 blue, 2 red), regular digest size.

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Mark Twain in the frost

Pop Renaissance/SPACE

A heads up. Jared Gardner has a nice piece about the meaning of SPACE 2011 in The Short North Gazette, a Columbus, Ohio biweekly.

It is in his column Pop Renaissance and is entitled: S.P.A.C.E. The Future of Comics Lies in Its Past

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Morty Comix # 2258

On the way home from SPACE, Delta handed out little stickyback notepads as a giveaway. I filled mine up with drawings.

Now they have become the first online Morty Comix. I left the art in public places in Olympia, Tumwater, and McCleary, but this online photo itself is the actual numbered issue.

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SPACE 2011 Report, pt. 17

Before leaving Columbus, Bruce and I paid a visit to the Thurber House, once home to one of America's great cartoonists and humorists, James Thurber.

Naturally on a Sunday it was closed, but I enjoyed the Thurberesque dog art in the yard.

What a nice way to end a day of celebrating comic art.


Back in Cincinnati we viewed old photo albums and laughed at pictures of ourselves from the old Seattle days running around the sunny slopes of yesterday.

Many thanks to Bruce and Joan, and Bob Corby for hosting this visit.

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SPACE 2011 Report, pt. 16

The rest of Sunday was a long goodbye with some winding down.

Above: Hillary with her Dad, Buzz Buzzizyk. This is my favorite photo taken at SPACE. By this time they were both so tired it was hard to tell who was guiding who. We'll meet again, hopefully here in the Pacific Northwest.


Above: Josh Blair was able to give me an almost encyclopedic description of goetta. I was very impressed! Obviously he lives in the Cincinnati area.

Above: I watched Colin Upton's table for awhile, and while he was gone I pretended to be him and told everyone how that as a resident of British Columbia I was delighted to have Randy and Evi Quaid as neighbors! Actually, I think Colin was sort of weirded out about how many times I brought up the Quaids, since I'm very fascinated by their case. OK, I'm lying, I didn't pretend to be Colin, but I did watch his table for a brief time and got to meet the guy at the next table, Andrew Fraser. The production values on Andrew's books really knocked me out. The face of small press has really changed. Still, there is something about black and white photocopy that remains magic for me.

Above: I believe this is the first time in my long comic art life that I have had table space to sell comix.


Above: Colin came back with hot tea (hey, he really is Canadian!), and promptly scalded his hand for life after I bumped into him. Here he is recovering while talking with Michelangelo Cicerone. I had the pleasure of having dinner with Michelangelo and his wife Ryan the previous evening.

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Some people just don't know when to stop

SPACE 2011 Report, pt. 15

Bob Corby (left) and Kel Crum (right) invited me to participate in a reading of our comix. The panels were displayed on a screen as we narrated them. I was a little frightened at the prospect but the experience was more fun than I expected.

Kel told me he sometimes feels like an oddball among oddballs, which brought my reply that means he just doubled his odds. A professional in the radio world, Kel did a great job reading his work. Kel's stories lent themselves well to out loud reading. One tale included his main character, Cornelia. My favorite was the comic about the fellow who kept having his head fall off.

Bob Corby was next. Bob is the organizer of SPACE, which must be a very big job. His humor is gentle and personal. He read from his mini, Why I'm Not Musical, a comic with great graphics that really fit the mood of the narrative.

I read from Ambergris, which meant I had to sing a little. I'm sure my local friends and family will cringe when I say that, since I'm known as the second worst singer in the world, after Jim Jarvis (another McCleary guy). Then I read "Edgar Cayce Talks to the Dead," and finally "How Cats Got That Way."

It wasn't until that morning that I figured out exactly how the tune of the Ambergris song went. And I didn't know how Morty the Dog's voice was going to sound until I actually started reading the cats story.

Thanks to Kel for instigating my participation and to Bob for his great patience in guiding me through the technology of sending my work ahead of time. The resulting fun was worth the anticipatory nervousness.