The Mysterious Brownies: Calling All Comic Art Historians!

This Christmas I was given an unusual gift by my Brother's partner, Lauren. It was a framed color drawing of odd little people helping children learn how to read. A fitting gift for a librarian! Apparently it had been in Lauren's family for awhile, and she said her Mother told her those little people were Brownies.

I saw that some backing tape was eating at the paper, and could tell the drawing was from out of a book. So I removed the frame and found on the reverse side that the little guys were indeed Brownies, just like Lauren said:

When to the seaside off you go

The Brownies will come too, I know;

They'll take you in the sea, no doubt,

And laugh to see you splash about.

On the color page, note that two Brownies have numbers attached to their hats.

I'd love to know the source book for this. Is this by Palmer Cox? Somehow it looks too primitive to be his work, but I could be wrong. One could argue that the two images are by different illustrators, the line drawing being much less polished.

Hopefully I am giving you comic art scholars out there a nice mystery to solve.

Brownies, along with elves, trolls, and fairies, were part of the mythology I grew up hearing stories about. But we knew it was all make believe. Sasquatch, however, was another matter.

Phone photo 2898

1965 Chevy pickup. I remember the day when this thing was brand new and it became a working farm truck on our place. My brother has been slowly restoring it.

Morty Comix # 2631

Morty Comix # 2631 was left in a strange sort of place. I discovered the booth seats in this excellent Olympia, Washington area restaurant had a slit that opened into a hollow space between booths. This particular restaurant looks out to Budd Inlet and I was afforded a view of the old St. Pete's Hospital on Oly's Westside where my brother was born.

Morty Comix # 2488

We had our family holiday gift exchange a couple days before Christmas. Susan gave me a potato gun with two spuds to use as ammo.

It does NOT shoot up to 50 feet, as we shall see. However, I am looking forward to years of service. We'll get back to this gift in a bit, but let's move on to ...

... a somewhat revolting present from Bryan and Zach. These dismembered plastic monkey parts are in a bag. And as if that wasn't creepy enough, the monkey's eyes on the severed monkey head BLINK!
 

Stay with me now. All will be be revealed by the end. I made a grid with 50 little squares on a sheet of cardboard.

Then I arranged the disgusting monkey parts on a TV tray. 

The grid was placed under and behind the tray.

I shot several potato pellets at the monkey parts, which were precariously balanced at the edge of the tray. Although the little spud bullets hit the targets, they lack the required velocity to knock them to the floor. So when the label declared "Shoots Harmless Potato Pellets," they meant it.

So it was time to haul out a more advanced technology to achieve my goal. I went to the toybox and extracted the gyroscope.

 You can tell the monkey's expression is politely apprehensive at this juncture.

 I let the gyroscope rip

It did not fail me as it knocked over two revolting monkey parts. A foot landed on numbers 27, 28, and 32.

 

Now it was time for the next phase, but I knew the potato gun would not be able to do the job. Mr. Spud himself told me this was all a half-baked idea anyway, and he took his leave. But I thanked him for helping me with the initial parts of this project.

  

So I made a much simpler grid, narrowing the field to three.

And this time I brought out the heavy artillery,  foam darts!

 

It took a few tries, but in less than 3 minutes I knocked a repulsive monkey hand into the grid. It landed on number 32.
 

32. That means Minnesota, the 32nd state, admitted to the Union in 1858. I've been over Minnesota in a passenger airline but have never set foot there, but hopefully someday I'll be able to pay a visit.

None of my ancestors parked there on their way West in the pioneer era (but a few were next door in Wisconsin in the 1850s-1860s).

Minnesota has a great tradition of creative comic art, was one of the hotspots in the Newave era, and today remains a prominent place for our brand of comix. Meeting Matt Feazell at SPACE 2011 was a real honor and even though he now lives in Michigan, I nominate him for Minnesota's Cartoonist Laureate for his amazing past contributions.

 Anyway, I rolled the dice the for the next step. As you can see, the number was 7. That's lucky!

And the 7th largest city in Minnesota is Plymouth. I consulted a map of that city and decided to just pick a street name I liked, and Cheshire was my choice. A co-worker calls me the Cheshire Cat and I admire that character.

So I randomly selected an address on that street, which turns out to be home to a business enterprise. I'm mailing it tomorrow morning. This issue of Morty Comix will probably be tossed in the trash or recycling, but I hope you readers enjoyed the narrative. Actually, in many ways, these blogposts are the real Morty Comix, the hardcopy product is residue.

Obscuro comix in action!

Phone photo 2113

Bryan's trailer had a Madonna and Day of the Dead theme

Sou'wester, Seaview, Washington

Morty Comix # 2472

Morty Comix # 2472 was drawn on the morning window condensation of the trailer where my brother Bryan and nephew Zach were staying at the Sou'wester in Seaview, Washington.

Too bad most of the image is lost in the photo. I guess this issue of Morty Comix is mostly lost to history as well. I realize that my current distribution of this title on the face might seem crazy, but on another level I have an audience who reads the Morty the Blog documentation of this artistic communication, although it garners very few responses from the finders. So the comic alone isn't as important as the conceptual placement and documentation, which in itself has become my new art form.

The Myth of Sisyphus by Big Al Camus probably explains my motives here better than anything else.

Back in 1965 we lost our big farm home to fire, and that was followed by seven glorious years with four of us in a trailer about the same size as the one pictured above. Our trailer was a third-hand, falling apart Great Lakes. Our Shetlands would scratch their backs on the end of the mobile home, and our whole house would shake.

But we survived intact and emerged the better for it. My own early lesson here was that material possessions are temporary and can be taken away in a flash. And when that happens, what is left?

Another Weird Gift From My Brother

My brother Bryan gave me this generous gift for my birthday. It is a plastic piggy bank. The little swine is on his back and soccer ball is obscenely placed.

To make matters even more utterly delightful, Bryan once again altered the Goodwill price tag in order to elevate the value of his gift. Also, the thing is covered with a fine petina of some gross, oily, sticky substance.

Charming.

But hey, at least I got 14 cents and a slug out of the deal when I opened it up.

Phone photo 1562

Budd Inlet, 4th Ave. Bridge, and on the horizon the old St. Pete's Hospital where my brother was born

Back then in the late 1950s, St. Pete's would not allow child visitors in the hospital. So I remember my uncle and aunt taking shifts watching me in their 1958 Chevy parked in the parking lot while I drew cartoons with my finger on the late November rear car window condensation as my sibling entered the world.

Mini-Comics Day in McCleary, Pt. 1

Yesterday I hosted the McCleary site for National Mini-Comics Day at our local Community Center. During the first hour, from 9-10, I was totally alone, listening to whatever creature it was that was living in the wall or ceiling of the building. Knowing my time might be crunched as the day went on, I used the opportunity to put together my minicomic for the day.

There should be a name for those strands of paper that are a byproduct of trimming newly printed minicomix. When I mentioned this later, I think Jim Gill suggested "mippitts."

So, this is is one the fastest minicomix I have ever produced, exactly 44 minutes from conception to the finished 10 copies. It is untitled.

The greeting table, including promo material for the Olympia Comics Festival, to take place June 2!

The first contingent arrived at about 10 from Seattle! Paul Tumey and his son Reid, Frank Young, and Jim Gill. I was thrilled to finally meet all of them in person and grateful they made the long trek to the hills for this.

All three of the cartoonists above have known each for a long time since they first met in their native Southeast U.S. I loved the way they fit together when they talked. It was like listening to well practiced tag-team comedy with a real mutual respect and affection.

Paul Tumey and I first corresponded back in 1990. Paul can be counted among one of the more thoughtful cartoonists I've known, like Joe Zabel, Scott McCloud, Hank Arakelian, and several others. He has several websites, my favorite being Screwball Comics.

Frank Young is a very funny fellow with a thousand voices. Also, he is a former editor of the Comics Journal and is juggling enough blogs to qualify him as a circus act.

Jim Gill and I have been corresponding since 1996. He was the first person to ever post a Morty Comix on Internet. Plus, and I cannot say this about anyone else I know, he actually knew someone who was eaten by an alligator!

Frank and Jim have a website called The Jim and Frank Podcast, and if you think radio comedy is dead, you need to visit this site first.

As the day progressed more people trickled in. I think we had a grand total of a dozen people in the six hours of the event. In the background of this shot you can see Bothell, Washington cartoonist/filmmaker Ron Austin and his partner Louise setting up as part of a project they have in mind. I met Ron last week at Evergroove's 40th Anniversary.

Bryan and Amy collate and staple a minicomic that was really wonderful. Part of the whole idea of this event was to attract non-comix artists to the art form, and these two created a very nice work entitled This is the Story of Ludwig. My brother's modesty prevents him from giving me permission to post it, but maybe one day he'll relent. I'm serious, I think these two put together an elegant little 8-pager. At least WSU will get it, so it won't be entirely lost.

Hey, if I can sing "I haven't seen my underpants in weeks" in public, which I did in Elma after this event (as Jim Gill can bear witness), certainly this mini can be shared with the world. But, I'll respect Bryan's wishes.

Figuring out the logistics of printing back-to-back pages on my copier can be maddening. I loved how Frank lapsed into one of his comic radio voices while figuring it out.

Jim posted a nice short bit on YouTube where I talk to three brothers about how to construct a minicomic.

On some levels this event was a success since we had a lot of energy from creative artists who also happened to be nice people. Sarah popped in (and traded stories with Jim about being former residents of  Port Townsend), but apart from the two of us, no one else from McCleary showed up. And I have to admit I was disappointed none of the locals bothered to come. But, this is far from the first time I have felt like a literal voice in the wilderness out here, so I can roll with it.

There was some talk as we wrapped up that maybe next year in the 2013 Third Annual National Mini-Comics Day, a happening might take place in Seattle and I could go up there. I would love that! But at least in 2012 the tiny hamlet of McCleary can now officially take a place in the history of Mini-Comics Day!

I'll be posting the comic art results of our creative efforts in the next chapters. Plus, there will be a surprise participant from McCleary's sister city in Ohio-- Cincinnati, home of goetta!