Phone photo 2734

Morty the Dog image (from the comic Flying) used as a birthday cake decoration!

Buttons - Comic Art - 2013

A Morty image from Flying, button produced by Max Traffic

Comix Anniversaries in 2013

 

50 years ago, 1963: President Kennedy is assassinated. Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK's alleged assassin, is shot on live TV by Jack Ruby.  I was in grade school and later documented an eerie follow-up in a 2001 minicomic entitled LHO.

40 years ago, 1973: My first obscuro pre-Newave comic, Gimmie Comics # 1, is cranked out on a mimeograph.

30 years ago, 1983: I publish my first 8 page 14 cm. minicomic, Sasquatch Comix # 1. 1983 also marked the very first issue of Morty Comix, which I believe was sent to Hawaii. Other comix published that year: Limbolympia, Sasquatch Comix # 2-5, Retreads # 1, Bonafide Child Innocence # 1, Cranium Frenzy # 4, The Big Picture Picture Book, Outside In # 1-9, As I Recall the 'Sixties, Tragedy of Morty Prince of Denmarke Act 1. Plus there were a number of reprints (called "editions" by collectors) and contributions to various comix with others.

20 years ago, 1993: Most of the year was taken up with editing City Limits Gazette, where I served as editor from Feb. 1991 to Sept. 1993. Also involved with some exhibits, short contribs, a televised lecture called The Wild World of Obscuro Comix, a jam with Max Traffic called Flying, and another with Pat Moriarity in Big Mouth # 3. Bruce Chrislip records our mutual experience with Robert Crumb in Paper Tales # 1.

10 years ago, 2003: By 2003 this old dog was slowing down considerably. Cranium Frenzy # 10, at 60 pages, remains my most recent full length comic book. Will I ever produce another full-length comic? I don't know the answer to that.

2013, what to expect: I'm working on more creative ways to distribute Morty Comix and documenting the process on this blog. Once Ron and Louise are finished with me in the making of their NW cartoonist documentary Bezango WA it is my intention to fully return to my hermit existence here in the hills of the Washington Coastal Range and begin a new phase of my comix art. I have no idea where the lines will lead me.


The last couple years have seen me out and about as a cartoonist in classrooms, panel discussions, performances, conventions, and I even hosted a Mini-Comics Day here in McCleary (which was quite fun!), but we true Mossbacks can only take so much of the sunlight of attention and social interaction.


However, as we all know, Fate has a way of screwing up our plans and sending us places we never expected to visit. I'm enjoying this blog very much (thanks Sarah for making this possible when you set me up in 2010 with your technical know-how) and for now it remains a fun venue for creative expression and provides a medium where my old prehistoric photocopy work can find a new audience.     

The Human Beings

1st edition, 1985, Garfield heights, Ohio : Joe Zabel. Published in two versions. One was on unfolded yellow letter size slightly heavy paper and stapled on the margins, another in enlarged digest size, white paper.

2nd edition, 1994, McCleary, Washington, published in regular digest form and available as a print-on-demand title for a couple years.

Special Fandom House edition, 20 copies were printed for Fandom House in 1994.

In going through my correspondence to get some background on this book, I was reminded that Joe Zabel was one of the most thoughtful of my correspondents when it came to the process of comic art creation. When he asked me to draw his story I was at first hesitant. Our styles of writing and drawing seemed too different to really blend well. He appeared to work from the cranium, I work from the gut. Also he was disciplined and I, well, let's face it, am sort of slovenly at the drawing board.

But he talked me into it.

This was a much different situation than the later writing/art collaboration I had with Maximum Traffic in Flying. In that book, the tone was already playful in the script, and Max had a good idea of how the thing should be laid out.

In The Human Beings, Joe gave me a serious and dramatic story. The actual script, which I apparently returned to him, was written like a play as I recall. He gave me a comix carte blanche and asked that I ad-lib some corn into the tale and could lay it out any way I wanted.

The result was one of the more unusual comix I've drawn. I can't say I've ever felt comfortable about how this book turned out, but working Joe himself was fun.

Flying

1st edition 1993, published by Maximum Traffic, Butler, Pennsylvania, enlarged digest size.

West Coast edition, 1994, published by Steve Willis, McCleary, Washington, regular digest size, print-on-demand.

There's no telling exactly how many copies of this jam with Maximum Traffic are out there. Max, along with Steve Lafler, Bob X and The Pizz, created some some of the most highly-charged-with-energy comix of the Newave/Obscuro network. Max might've gone crazy and printed zillions for all I know. For every letter I write to Max, he responds with a dozen to my one.

I suppose calling this a jam might be stretching it a bit. For openers, it started off with a script by Max. I provided the visuals and some ad-libs.

The background graphics on page 9 is pure Max Traffic, which is the only page where I can detect his artwork. However, the free flight art style of mine throughout the comic was very inspired by his story.

Given my history of writing stories on the, shall we say, existential side, it was sort of a relief to illustrate this sparkly tale written by someone else, relieving me of any responsibility for where it was heading or compulsion to turn the conclusion into a comic-tragedy.

The edition scanned and posted here is the one published by Max. Publishing it in enlarged digest size was the right choice. I have also provided the inside cover of the West Coast edition.

This was a very fun project and I'm glad I was invited.