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.

We Celebrate Marc Myers Week!

We've been down with the flu the last few days. Yesterday I felt so rotten I didn't even make my run to the McCleary Post Office.

But today I'm a little better, so I went to good old PO Box 390. It's near the door on one of the bottom rows in the phone photo.

What I found in there was an amazing package sent as a gift to Sarah by Marc Myers. When I recently contacted Marc to gain his permission to post our jam Little Snowjob, he offered to send me some original art and a bunch of Morty Comix he had been saving all these years. When I read his email out loud, Sarah piped up, "Well, maybe you don't care, but I want them!" And now she has a thick pile original work, thanks to Marc's generosity.

As fate would have it, part of the art he sent included the cover and first story from Cranium Frenzy #5 -- little did I know when I posted that comic this morning I'd be looking the original art later in the day! What are the odds?

Since I have very little of my own original art, especially from the 1980s, this is a real time capsule. It measures 29 x 23 cm., is drawn entirely in various felt tip pens on very crappy paper, the kind that used to aggravate Brad Foster during our comix jams. I used a nonphoto blue pencil, which you might be able to detect in enlargements here, but the pencils are fairly rough and were only outlines.

And, I can't find a single place, not even in the pencils for the panels, where I used a ruler!

Page 10 has a couple notes in the margins in blue pencil. The top left has: "Re-insert through left eye." The lower left corner has: "Freed when balloon goes."

I'll be scanning even more stuff from Marc. This should be declared Marc Myers Week here at the Morty the Blog!

Cranium Frenzy # 5

1st edition, 1985, Pullman, Washington, 70 copies, grey cover, enlarged digest. For some reason I printed these in 1985, but held them for a few months into 1986 before distributing them. If I recall I think I timed it so several new comix were released at the same time. It really wasn't scarlet fever.

2nd edition, February 1986, Pullman, Washington, 30 copies, yellow cover, enlarged digest. I've scanned and posted this edition here, but included the original page [2] from the 1st ed. at the end.

Available as a print-on-demand title, 1994-1996 in regular digest size.

Special Fandom House Edition, 20 copies, September or October 1994, regular digest size. Fandom House put in a special order for hundreds of dollars worth of reprinting many titles. Oddly, none of these have ever subsequently shown up in eBay or Rick Bradford's Poopsheet Shop as far as I know.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies, pink cover, regular digest size.

I wish I could provide some trivia background for this one, but it was drawn during my most prolific period, so it doesn't stand out in my memory. It was during the high tide of Reaganism, when America slipped and fell into the loony pit, and where, as the Tea Baggers have shown us, we remain.

But not to pick just on the Right. I find that vigorous political enthusiasts on both sides have a severe humor deficit. Recently one Olympia activist criticized a rival progressive newspaper in part because it "celebrates frivolity" and was too "lowbrow." Holy elitism, Batman! It appears my quarter century-old comic must have some universals in there that can still be applied today.

Yes, that's my self-portrait on page 22.

The inscription on page [2] still holds true. A free Morty Comic to the first person who translates it!