Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Sunday, February 2, 2014

OK My Town Is Going Nuts Right Now


The Seahawks won and about half of the 1600 souls in my little town are honking horns, firing guns, lighting fireworks, yelling in the streets. The last time I saw this much public celebration around here was when Obama got Osama. It is really something to witness.

Well, good. Washington, my home, deserves to finally have some national win of any sort in the sports world. I am not a football fan, but I like the way this has generated a lift in morale for folks around here. Sort of like Christmas has been extended up here in our Far Left corner of the USA.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

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.








Friday, December 27, 2013

Phone photo 3094


Manger scene figures held up with metal farm fenceposts

Montesano, Washington

The big sheep looks like Harold, the most dangerous of animals, the clever sheep


Phone photo 3093


The other side of Santa and the reindeer

Montesano, Washington

Phone photo 3092

Weird Siamese Twin Reindeer

Montesano, Washington

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Loyal S. Kincaid


Loyal S. Kincaid

Printed: Marvin, Grand Ledge, Michigan

On verso: To Aunt Melissa, a Merry Xmas
Age 3 mo., 23 days
Height 2 1/2 ft.
Weight 17 lbs.

Loyal Kincaid was born July 30, 1890 in Michigan, died June 1, 1968. He served as a private in World War I.

Aunt Melissa was my great-great grandmother, Lydia Melissa Reeves, who would've been living in Centralia, Washington in 1890.

Interesting to read this early use of "Xmas." A little digging shows the term has actually been around a lot longer than I suspected.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Phone photo 3038

An army of chocolate Christmas bears
Aberdeen, Washington

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Missing Inflatable Snow People


A local poster from last year. I never heard if the case was solved.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Belmonts Sing Bacharach


Doo-wop meets Bacharach at Christmas in someone's living room. 

And you know, in a weird way, it works.


Saturday, January 19, 2013

Mort Drucker


This year for Christmas my Mom gave me a book of selections from the pen of Mad cartoonist Mort Drucker. When I asked her how she knew I was a fan, she replied, "Are you kidding? I remember how you loved his work when you were growing up!"

It's true. I started reading Mad during the JFK years, and two of the magazine's artists in particular were a major influence for me, Don Martin and Mort Drucker.

A master of caricature, Drucker has a gift for capturing the character of celebrities and politicians like no one else. Widely imitated but always without equal, I have yet to see a would-be Drucker who doesn't look forced. The work of the original Mort looks effortless and graceful. And fearless.

Drucker was the one who usually drew the movie parodies that included songs "sung to the tune of ...," a device I loved when I was a regular Mad reader and later employed frequently in my own comix.

I do not believe Mort Drucker was a factor in the naming of Morty the Dog, unless it was subliminal.

Anyway, this a great book and well worth tracking down. Published 2012 by Running Press.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

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!


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

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.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Buttons - Holidays - 1990s?

Made out of wood and shaped like a mitten, this Christmas season button looks home crafted. No clue who made it, or when, or where, or how I happen to have it.