Bezango WA, a Work in Progress

The film can be viewed at THIS LINK

Ron Austin and Louise Amandes have released a 25 minute "work in progress" version of their Bezango, WA documentary about cartoonists in the Pacific Northwest. My fellow native Boomers will enjoy seeing that Bob Cram is still in the game! Although this is presented as a draft, the preview can be considered a fine mini-documentary by itself.

Paul Tumey, "Wotta Rube!"

 Paul Tumey with original art by Rube Goldberg

 Paul holds a copy of The Art of Rube Goldberg

Paul in Abrams NYC office working on the book with Goldberg's granddaughter, Jennifer George, and fellow book contributor Carl Linich.

Paul Tumey sends news and photos telling us about the new book The Art of Rube Goldberg, to be released by Abrams in mid-November. Amazon has the ordering information.

Paul is one of a half dozen essayists in this book. For those of you who don't know, Mr. Tumey maintains an excellent website devoted to the art of screwball cartoonists, with Rube Goldberg being the chief screwball.

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Paul in person when he braved the wilds and along with some other screwballs attended the McCleary Mini-Comics Day a couple years ago. Here's part of the group pictured in Elma, where we ate dinner: taken by filmmaker (Bezango, WA) Ron Austin with Jim's camera: L to R: Jim Gill, Morty the Dog, Paul and Reid Tumey, Frank Young.

 

Morty Comix # 2605

Morty Comix # 2605 was hidden in a piano bench in a home in Butler, Pennsylvania. But the residents are wise to me now and have already discovered this one.

Morty Comix  # 2378 was also hidden in a piano bench in Oly last year, and the deed was filmed by the Ron and Louise and used in the Bezango film promo.

Morty Comix # 2528

Morty Comix # 2528 was drawn on the top portion of a letter-size sheet of paper and then cut down to the size of a narrow strip. It was then rolled up into a tight coil and placed inside an empty plastic gumball bubble.

Later, at the McCleary Laundrymat, in McCleary, Washington, I noticed an opening in the metal chair frame that looked just the right size for the ball. So I dropped it in. Sounded like it made quite a journey before it landed to a stop in there.

This is the same laundrymat where Morty Comix # 2482 was deposited last December and recorded on film by Ron Austin and Louise Amandes for the Bezango WA documentary. Not too many weeks after our visit, someone plowed their car through the front doors (maybe the driver was all excited about hunting down another Morty Comix!). Obviously, the place has since been repaired.

Comix Anniversaries in 2013

 

50 years ago, 1963: President Kennedy is assassinated. Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK's alleged assassin, is shot on live TV by Jack Ruby.  I was in grade school and later documented an eerie follow-up in a 2001 minicomic entitled LHO.

40 years ago, 1973: My first obscuro pre-Newave comic, Gimmie Comics # 1, is cranked out on a mimeograph.

30 years ago, 1983: I publish my first 8 page 14 cm. minicomic, Sasquatch Comix # 1. 1983 also marked the very first issue of Morty Comix, which I believe was sent to Hawaii. Other comix published that year: Limbolympia, Sasquatch Comix # 2-5, Retreads # 1, Bonafide Child Innocence # 1, Cranium Frenzy # 4, The Big Picture Picture Book, Outside In # 1-9, As I Recall the 'Sixties, Tragedy of Morty Prince of Denmarke Act 1. Plus there were a number of reprints (called "editions" by collectors) and contributions to various comix with others.

20 years ago, 1993: Most of the year was taken up with editing City Limits Gazette, where I served as editor from Feb. 1991 to Sept. 1993. Also involved with some exhibits, short contribs, a televised lecture called The Wild World of Obscuro Comix, a jam with Max Traffic called Flying, and another with Pat Moriarity in Big Mouth # 3. Bruce Chrislip records our mutual experience with Robert Crumb in Paper Tales # 1.

10 years ago, 2003: By 2003 this old dog was slowing down considerably. Cranium Frenzy # 10, at 60 pages, remains my most recent full length comic book. Will I ever produce another full-length comic? I don't know the answer to that.

2013, what to expect: I'm working on more creative ways to distribute Morty Comix and documenting the process on this blog. Once Ron and Louise are finished with me in the making of their NW cartoonist documentary Bezango WA it is my intention to fully return to my hermit existence here in the hills of the Washington Coastal Range and begin a new phase of my comix art. I have no idea where the lines will lead me.


The last couple years have seen me out and about as a cartoonist in classrooms, panel discussions, performances, conventions, and I even hosted a Mini-Comics Day here in McCleary (which was quite fun!), but we true Mossbacks can only take so much of the sunlight of attention and social interaction.


However, as we all know, Fate has a way of screwing up our plans and sending us places we never expected to visit. I'm enjoying this blog very much (thanks Sarah for making this possible when you set me up in 2010 with your technical know-how) and for now it remains a fun venue for creative expression and provides a medium where my old prehistoric photocopy work can find a new audience.     

Bezango WA Interview with Ron Austin

The TESC blog, The Evergreen Mind recently posted a nice interview with filmmaker Ron Austin about the Bezango WA documentary.

Also included in the post is the entire panel discussion (apparently) starring Matt Groening, Craig Bartlett, Drew Christie, Tommy Thompson, Megan Kelso, Ruth Hayes and yours truly from last May!

Thanks to Louise Amandes for directing me to this great blog.

Morty Comix # 2483

It was getting really cold, wet, and dark. So Ron, Louise and I raced to film this distribution of Morty Comix # 2483 for the Bezango WA documentary before we all froze to death. The target was the display of the ancient horse-drawn fire engine and the second oldest locomotive in Washington exhibited in McCleary's Beerbower Park. In recent years, this park attraction has been enhanced during the holiday season by festive lights.

Here's a phone photo I took last year of the same site at night. It has a sense of fun and I like it.

So I managed to slip Morty Comix # 2483 into a crack of one of the supporting logs holding up the roof. It used to be this display was out in the open, but sometime in the late 1980s/early 1990s this chain link cage was constructed to protect the relics.  Ron and Louise filmed the whole episode.

After this freezing event we returned to the warm and comfy confines of Steve's Acres of Cats. Ron and Louise conducted another interview with me. Well I hope you come and see me in the movies, then I’ll know that you will plainly see the biggest fool that ever hit the big time, and all I gotta do is act naturally.

It looks like Ron and Louise and I will have at least one more caper in the very near future before their filming is complete.

Morty Comix # 2482

Morty Comix # 2482 was left under a pile of freebie ad sheets in a laundrymat in McCleary, Washington. Filmmakers Louise Amandes and Ron Austin recorded the event for possible use in their documentary, Bezango WA. It was a caper.

Bezango, WA Movie Reaches Kickstarter Goal!

68 backers contributed over three grand. The final product is going to be one of those mileposts in the historiography of Pacific Northwest cartooning, a snapshot of who we are 2012-2013.

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1230569287/bezango-wa?ref=live

Morty Comix # 2477

Morty Comix # 2477 will be sent to whoever pledged 60 bucks to the Bezango WA movie kickstarter campaign.

I am putting it in a special envelope with a Morty portrait recognizing the occasion. For you collectors, I should point out the Morty Comix series is rather unusual in that it is not the oldest issues from almost 30 years ago that are super rare, it is the newest set from number 2279 onward that will be the most difficult to track down. This series is Obscuro Comix in action for real. Quite liberating from my point of view.


I'm offering two more issues for the campaign and there are still a couple days left to pledge. Ron and Louise are creating a great project worthy of support for anyone who enjoys the comic art form.