City Limits Gazette # Overwhelming sadness of the monkey trapped in the garage (Sept. 1992)

Logo by Mark Campos, Bil Keane Watch by Maximum Traffic, San Diego Con report by Ryan Eifert, Bruce Sweeney's Underground Station with logo by Bruce Bolinger, Comics and Wrestling by Jerry Riddle, comix reviews by Lynn Hansen, Yet another Bil Keane Watch by Ben Adams (of Minneapolis), Bob Richart likes Wow Cool and the work of Sam Henderson.

This issue included: State of beings # 13. Idaho.

City Limits Gazette # Mermaid, mermaid, have you ever seen blood? (Sept. 1992)

Logo by Chad Woody, the number for this issue came from a song my innocent little daughter just made up while playing on the swingset, Bob Richart on Wayno and Wow Cool!, Gary Usher joins us, not buying Comics F/X, comix reviews by Lynn Hansen, Edward Martin III compares Morty and Garfield, Michael Neno on the Fred question, CLG reader profile of Lynn Hansen, Bil Keane Watch by Mike Lee, CLG reader profile of Michael Dowers.

I'm including the Morty/Garfield strips Ed is talking about. The Morty strip was drawn in 1986 for The Cooper Point Journal and reprinted in Morty Without Tears ; and, Planet of the Bobs (1989)

City Limits Gazette # ... (June 1992)

Logo by Maximum Traffic, Jamie Alder-Hank Arakelian-Jim Ryan World War, Randy Reynaldo news, Michael Stengl signs up, Bob Richart gives a long answer to the Fred Flintstone question while Jane Oliver gives a brief one, The Pizz on TV, State of beings # 11. Georgia written by my nephew Tristan Sill, comix reviews by Lynn Hansen, Brad Foster on selling out, The Bil Keane Watch by Bruce Chrislip, Mary Longo joins CLG.

City Limits Gazette # dead porcupine icebox (Oct. 1991)

The Bil Keane Watch with input from Bob Richart, Mark Campos, and Ted Bolman, Bruce Chrislip gives a nice report on Shary Flenniken's talk to Cartoonists Northwest in Seattle, we say goodbye to the great Dr. Seuss, bad cover versions of Hey Jude.

State of Beings # 2. Alaska came with this one.

The Man in the Morty the Dog Suit

Yes, that's me a long time ago with a full grown citizen, taxpayer, parent, two-grad degreed, white collar professional, homeowning responsible adult wearing a Morty the Dog suit.

The frightening part is that whenever anyone met this man while he was in civilian garb, he convincingly came across as a mild-mannered sane person.

The occasion was a surprise birthday bash. One of the attendees put together a collage of the event (which included Chrislip and Campos!) and that is the source for these photos.

Dog of Dawn, Dog of Dusk

Another one of the delayed comix I created and printed in 1985 (like Cranium Frenzy #5), but held off from releasing until early 1986.

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

2nd edition, 1986, 30 copies, salmon cover, enlarged digest size.

Print-on-demand, 1994, regular digest size. I don't know how many of these are out there, but I imagine they outnumber the first two editions combined.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies (4 red cover, 1 green cover), regular digest size.

I'm not sure what this means, but of all my works this was a favorite for Jay Kennedy and Lynn Hansen, and both of these gentlemen are no longer in the world of the living. Jay liked "The Maze" so much he included it as the concluding piece in Giant-Size Mini Comics #3 (Eclipse Comics, Dec. 1986). "The Maze" is a very simple tale, perhaps too simple, but the message it packs still rings true to me.

Page 17 has a nod to the dog characters of my Newave comrades Steve Lafler and Bruce Chrislip.

The face on page 18, panel 1 was, I think, burned into the paper with a soldering gun. Panel 5 was a recognition that my friend Bob Richart (a fellow librarian who I worked with at WSU and later at WLN) introduced me to the history of dog butting, a very real sport played in Medieval France.

Page 19: Notice in panel 2 Bob Richartolovskii says "Hot Damn! A Morty Dog!" I believe this pretty much confirms Jim Ryan's theory that Morty is species, not an individual-- like a collie, a beagle, a poodle, a Morty Dog. This would explain why he seems to always come back from the dead after being killed.

Page 20+: I was laughing pretty hard when I was drawing the Cosmo Bear portion of the story. At the time, it seemed cute bears with balloons and rainbows were all the rage, as popularized by the Care Bears. I was probably laughing the hardest at page 23, panel 1 as I was drawing. OK, OK, so I have a sick sense of humor.

The final page on the back cover is a quintessential Morty ending, incorporating several devices I liked to employ: A Shakespeare quote, a metamorphosis (the hands), Morty surviving an attempt at being offed by his creator, and the main character drifting away as the viewer remains stationary.