A Town Filled With Characters From Morty Comix

In the last 3 decades I have drawn 2,666 Morty Comix. Usually they average 4 portraits per issue. That means just in this series I have created 10,664 faces.

So

I wondered if all these characters came to life and formed a city, what local place would be close in size? The answer: Sedro-Woolley, Washington.

When I think of Sedro-Woolley, I think of William Morley Bouck, the radical Grange man who lived there. And this is a good thing.

Here was my intro to Bouck in OlyBlog:

When William Morley Bouck ran for Washington State Governor in his final bid for public office [1936], the most colorful part of the old Granger's career was behind him. Carlos A. Schwantes called him, "A complex man who publicly delighted in goading the rich and powerful and clearly hoped to lead American farmers into a brave new world." Farmer, family man, teacher, renegade Grange Master, a radical arrested on conspiracy charges, Congressional and Vice-Presidential candidate, Bouck has attracted the attention of many historians and writers, including Nirvana's Krist Novoselic.

So right now Sedro-Woolley gets to be the honorary Morty Comix town, even though I have never sent or hidden one up there ... yet.

Morty Comix # 2588

 Morty Comix # 2588 had a rather convoluted journey to its distribution point

 

After I drew the thing, I cut it up into strips and used a staple gun to attach the dissected comic onto a stick. This stick was in fact part of a garden stake I had used as part of a 2007 art exhibit of Bezango WA 985

Then I pounded the stake into the ground at the Rock Candy Mountain intersection on SR 8 near Summit Lake. A traffic cam is there. For a few hours this Morty Comix was included in the image, if you can make out that white spot in the right hand corner.

But as the clouds grew darker, I rescued the Morty Comix from rain and put it in an envelope, then in a plastic bag, and sealed it with man's best friend-- duct tape. These are instruments in the dynamics of change

Then I grabbed some clothesline and clothespins (also from that Bezango exhibit) as I formed a new plan.

Nirvana fans might be aware that one of the few tourist attractions here in McCleary is the mileage sign on SR8 where Cobain and Novoselic were photographed highlighting the 666 numbers.

Early this morning I paid a visit to that sign, which has been lowered, planning to somehow tie the Morty Comix to the thing. But to my delight the holes in the posts provided a great opportunity for me to pigeonhole this issue.

The End.

Mini-Comics Day, May 26, 2012, in McCleary

Mini-Comics Day
McCleary Community Center
726 W. Simpson Ave.
McCleary, Washington
9 am-3 pm

 http://www.minicomics.org/

Last year on the first Mini-Comics Day I was inspired to draw one (Beholder of the Eye), so even if no one shows up, at least I'll produce an annual 8-page work.

Holding an event like this in a rural area might seem insane, but on the other hand my county produced painter Robert Motherwell, comic artist John Workman (who I was acquainted with as a fellow hangerouter at Eaton's Bookstall in Aberdeen in the early 1970s), music artists Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, and the wonderful author Angelo Pellegrini. So it is always dangerous to underestimate this obscure edge of the U.S. of A.

Nirvana in McCleary

Then and now.

Just outside the west part of town sits one of the most famous mileage signs in Washington State, thanks to Kurt Cobain and my fellow William Morley Bouck scholar, Krist Novoselic.