She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

Uncredited illustration for this 1935 sheet music. And yowza, yowza, yowza! Here's the Old Maestro, Ben Bernie!

Regular Morty the Dog readers know this is really the tune for that hit song, "I Haven't Seen My Underpants in Weeks."

Retreads # 6

1st edition, April 1986, 50 copies, green cover, enlarged digest size.

1st Danger Room Reprint edition, July 2005, 5 copies, blue cover, enlarged digest size.

Trivia:

Pages 16-19: A piece as maudlin as "The Karmakazi Pilot From the Deep Blue Sky" in Cranium Frenzy # 2. But there it is, so what can I do? I had a job for awhile in 1975 as a nurse's aide in a Tacoma area rest home for former patients of Western State Hospital. Many of the residents had been victims of Western's big lobotomy wave in the 1940s-1950s. I'm sure that job experience somehow worked it's way into this little essay.

Teaching Comix

Some time during my stay in Pullman, Washington (1983-1986) I was asked to give a class for junior high school (now called middle school) pupils about comic art. That started a whole sub-career for me of presenting lessons on comix technique and/or history to students from Kindergarten to college.

My favorite classes are for children from preschool to about 2nd grade. Generally speaking, the magic of comic art is still captivating for them. We cartoonists can communicate so well with this group of kids in classroom settings because we ourselves have never fully surrendered the kid within us to the outside world. Look at all the Oldwavers who are still active. We are now in the 55+ crowd, making us Senior Citizens in the eyes of Burger King and the Pre-Paid Cremation Services folks who send me junk mail (how do they find me? It's rather unsettling) , yet we still put a lot of energy into drawing funny pictures and being playful with lines on paper.

It probably helps that we are also the Boomers, the generation with the never ending adolescence.

I notice that around 3rd grade the children begin to ask about how to make a living at the cartoon game. The practical considerations begin early.

My most memorable presentation was to my daughter's 4th grade class. This is a very small town and most of the kids already knew me. At the end of the talk one little boy asked me to sing my underpants song, which of course I sang loud and proud. It has the tune of "She'll Comin' "Round the Mountain" and goes like this:

Oh, I haven't seen my underpants in weeks
Oh, I haven't seen my underpants in weeks
Oh, I haven't seen my underpants
Haven't seen my underpants
I haven't seen my underpants in weeeeeeeks!

All the girls covered their ears, except for my daughter, who crawled under her desk.

I don't know how many classes I've given over the years, but quite a few, including some at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, where I sometimes would print out special editions of As I Recall the 'Sixties not only as an example of how to make your own comix, but also for a couple history classes.

If you haven't already, I'd encourage my cartoonist comrades out there to take any opportunity you can to teach or talk about comix to your community. It's been my experience that people are predisposed to have fun when they know cartoons will be the topic presented, and who knows, you might awaken the sleeping cartoonist within one of the attendees.

The photo attached here is from a video of a cartoon class I gave at Lincoln Elementary, Olympia, Washington, April 17, 1987. That's Odd Dog on the easel.

Cranium Frenzy # 9

1st edition, February 1998, 65 copies, grey cover. All editions are regular digest size.

2nd edition, February 1998, 60 copies, pink cover.

3rd edition, May 1998, 30 copies, salmon cover.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies, yellow cover.

I'm pretty sure at least 95% of this comic was drawn with #1 lead pencils. I might've used felt tip for the solids. The original art, I think, fell between one of my filing cabinets and the wall several years ago. Right now my studio is in disarray from flooding (long story), so perhaps I'll be forced to find this art again as I put things back together in the next month or so.

Trivia:

Page 1+: This "what if" question later became part of a series of one weird conundrum after another that was published in Seattle's The Stranger and also in OlyBlog. In the latter case there is audio.

Page 5: It took a lot of out loud practice, much to the consternation of my family and friends, to finally nail down how to spell out these laughs in comic form.

Page 8-10: Room 237 has a special place is cinema.

Librarians and comix never used to mix much. But in the last decade or so people in our profession have decided it's OK to laugh at ourselves instead of being so defensive.

Yes, that's my 1998 self-portrait.

Page 12, panel 1: Oh how I long to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "I Haven't Seen My Underpants In Weeks."

Page 13+: Perry Como died a few years after this story was published, so of course we'd have to find a substitute person for this terrific movie script. Wayne Newton, perhaps.

Page 16: The Worst Cat in the World was actually a half Siamese/half Manx named Snowy.

Page 19-20: I actually really like Oregon, but we Pacific Northwest siblings like to have our little teasing jokes. Portland has a vibrant comix scene, by the way.

Cranium Frenzy # 7

1st edition, March 1994, 100 copies, orchid cover. All editions are regular digest size.

2nd edition, May 1994, 50 copies, goldenrod cover.

Special Micky Saunders edition, October 17, 1999, 4 copies entirely in blue.

1st Danger Room Reprint Edition, June 2005, 5 copies, red cover.

If you have been following this blog since the start, you should be able to pick out the trivia with ease. The one difference here is that I think I have arranged all my usual touches with a slightly more complex storyline. Obviously I was preparing Morty for his 1999 McCleary Mayor run.