September 1979 - pt. 4

While I lived in Burlington, I became acquainted with another cartoonist. He drew fantasy stories. I can't recall his name, but he was a nice, soft-spoken fellow who looked like John Denver and we both lived on Pearl Street. I think I even showed him this notebook among other comix artwork.

Anyway, we had talked about perhaps putting together a book but it never came to be. By 1979 I had already self-published several comix since 1973 and back then it was much more of a hassle than today. Plus, who the Hell would read the things?

September 1979 - pt. 1

This little spiral notebook was filled with drawings in Sept. 1979 when I lived in Burlington, Vermont. These were actually perforated index cards but I created the images on the blank side with various widths of felt tip.

An unnamed Morty the Dog shows up.

April 1980

I have suddenly been gifted with a ton of my own original art from 1979-1980, plus a ton of my old published comix. The original art dates back to when I lived in Burlington, Vermont and in Seattle, Washington.

Your Morty blog will be in public view for a little bit while I scan and post these never before published or posted drawings. Many many more to come and I feel like I am discovering most of them for the first time!

The following three drawings were created in Seattle in April 1980, only a month before the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. These pencil works were obviously using photographs as models.

Postcard - Burlington, Vermont

"Greetings from Burlington, Vermont"

Probably originally created in the 1940s, but I suspect this one is a reproduction, which was sent to me in 1984. I lived in Burlington in 1979 where, among other jobs, I drove a taxicab. I fell in love with Vermont and hope to return there one day to visit.

Buttons - Misc. - 1979

Burlington,

Vermont

Taxi, Driver

License

2414

This was my I.D. button when I drove a taxicab in Burlington

Bezango: Driving

Olympia Power & Light, May 5-19, 2010

As it turned out I was never unemployed. I was indeed "bumped" by someone with more seniority but I had a part-time job the next day. And in a weird twist of fate, I was hired back to my old employer within a month.

The drawing of Morty dates back to 1981, in Cranium Frenzy # 1. Notice I cropped out the "Outta my way, ya peckerheads!" word balloon from the original. They trained us to curse like that when I drove a taxicab in Burlington, Vermont.

Jack's Shoe Repair still exists in the same storefront in Olympia. I often wonder where that little girl is today and if she has any inkling of how she scarred me for life.

No one has taken me up on investing in the thermotropic mood car idea yet. But you'll see. You'll see.

Dogtown Zoo # 1

OK, here's the screwy deal with the first three editions of this title. They all have the same info on page [2] of the cover: "First and final edition of 60 copies printed in Seattle and Olympia, Wash." But that is, in actual fact as we understand it in this plane of existence, not true.

1st edition, June or July 1982, Seattle and Olympia, Washington, 60 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size. This was published during the time I moved from Seattle to Oly. I don't remember where it was printed, but the job was so bad I basically discarded most copies and started over. I think I went down a few streets in Oly and just stuck them in people's mail or newspaper boxes at random. Today this edition is one of the harder-to-find books I've published.

[2nd edition], 1982, Olympia, Washington, 30 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size.

[3rd edition], 1982, Olympia, Washington, 30 copies, white cover, enlarged digest size. Indistinguishable from the 2nd edition.

Print-on-demand, 1996 (reprint series), unknown number of copies, regular digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, July 2005, 5 copies, yellow cover, regular digest size.

Page 5, panel 3: Another reference to Olympia's newspaper, The Daily Olympian. I think they changed their title to just The Olympian about the time I drew this comic. Who knows, maybe one of those blue cover editions found it's way to the owners of the paper and they decided it was time to change their name as a result of this snarky little detail in the story!

Page 9, panel 1: I always loved that leprosy scab joke, ever since I was a kid.

Page 10, panel 5: Based on Albert Camus, The Stranger, I think.

Page 11, panel 1: "Squirmy Eyed Q-Ball" is an insult my brother came up with and I have employed numerous times in my comix.

Page 12, panel 3: "Unga" was a comic sound my old friend (and comic art fan) Rex Munger used frequently.

Page 15, panel 4: Batum and Schrag are two small hamlets in eastern Washington State.

Page 17: If I don't use the long fadeout, then I'm concluding a story with Morty on the sax. Sorta tiresome after awhile if you ask me.

Page 18, panel 3: In addition to the obligatory "NRA" and "Reagan 80" stickers the others say: "We've been to Humptulips, WA," "Falwell for Prez," "Mukey River, Ioway," "Winooski, Vermont" (I used to drive a taxicab in neighboring Burlington. Sometimes I'd take drunks home from a certain bar in Winooksi. A female bartender would assist a few of these patrons to the car. In just a few years, by a weird coincidence, the bartender and I met again in Puget Sound country, where we were both librarians!).

Another bumpersticker, "Wildermuth Caves, Mo." is in honor of Missouri native (now Seattle resident) and conceptual artist Kevin Wildermuth. Speaking of bumper stickers, he made one that declared "I'd rather be masturbating" and proudly placed it on his rear bumper. While this was on his car I rode with him from Oly to Seattle. The response from the other motorists is worth an entire article.

Page 23: Another early version of the Big G.

Page 25: Apparently Prof. Verner Von Vernervon was a character I used a several comix in the early 1980s.

Page 27, panel 1: I think the fellow with the beard is Dean True, a friend from college days. There's probably a story behind his quote, "Avacados are too expensive to mash into your face," but I have no memory of why I included that.

The title of this comic has a little history. Around 1980 I got into a drinking contest with a Scandinavian guy in a Spokane bar. He was a fellow houseguest of some friends. I can only recall that I didn't lose. Anyway, the next morning we both accompanied our hosts on a little field trip, to an area they called Dogtown. And we stopped and looked through the fence at a small private zoo. In my hungover state I mumbled "Dogtown Zoo," but it took a couple years to surface in print.