Buttons - Comic Art - 2013

A Morty image from Flying, button produced by Max Traffic

Obscuro Bezango Show 1

The printed promo material

Note the artwork by Chad Woody and Jim Siergey

Fifteen Heart Attacks, p. 13-17

The Fifteen Heart Attacks jam is now online. I've set up a special page for it. The most recent contribution is by our friend in Chicago, Jim Siergey, who followed the setup created by Max Traffic.

My immediate goal before leaving for the Obscuro Bezango show next week is to add one more page to this ongoing effort.

Obscuro Bezango Exhibition, Aug. 2-Sept. 1, Pittsburgh PA

Poster created by the amazing Jim Siergey

Obscuro Bezango Show!

The following press release was found in my email this morning about an art exhibit opening in Pittsburgh, PA that will be something of a landmark in the history of the Obscuro genre. I am very excited about attending this event!

Obscuro Bezango!

Curated by Thomas Rehm

At Future Tenant 819 Penn Avenue

Opening reception Friday August 2, 2013 | 7-10 PM

On display from August 2 to September 1, 2013

Free Admission

(June 18, 213) Future Tenant presents Obscuro Bezango!, a body of work by three creators in a little known arena of art called Obscuro Culture. This four-week visual arts exhibit will feature traditional sculpture, outsider sculpture, and Obscuro art and comics all unified by their singularity of vision. In addition to curating the show, Thomas Rehm will display work alongside Maximum Traffic- the assumed name of a prolific artist- and Elmore “Buzz” Buzzizyk. These three unlikely gallery-mates help carry on the underground culture of self published artists and cartoonists that arose in the advent of widely available, inexpensive photocopying, today known as Obscuro art.

Meet the curator and enjoy complimentary drinks at the opening reception FRIDAY AUGUST 2 FROM 7-10 PM. This event is free and open to the public.

City Limits Gazette at The Evergreen State College

Not very many academic libraries have a near complete set of City Limits Gazette 1991-1993,  and those that do probably don't have copies out on open stacks-- except for The Evergreen State College Library. 

Notice how the staff used logos by Max Traffic and Bruce Bolinger to decorate the holding box.

I'm happy to note that on the shelves CLG is neighbors with Vital Speeches of the Day and American Literary History. Hoit-de-la-Toit company!

As an added bit of trivia, CLG is shelved at about the same point where the TESC Library ghost was spotted walking into an invisible door in 1988.

WBG! Max Traffic! Andy Nukes!

Two news items here. First, our old friend Buzz Buzzizyk has just published the latest White Buffalo Gazette. 44 p., enlarged digest format. Includes work by Jim Siergey (nice cover, Jim!), Max Clotfelter, Clark Dissmeyer, Paul Krassner, Steve Willis, O'Ryan, Suzanne Baumann, Chad Woody, Mike Hill, Matt Feazell, Andy Nukes, Tom Brinkmann, Jeff Zenick, Kelly Froh, Delaine Derry Green, Joel Orff, Brad Foster, Mariana Weflen, George Erling, Billy McKay, Jerry Sims, Edward Bolman, Sean Bieri, Tom Motley, Buzz Buzzizyk, John Porcellino,  Blair Wilson, and Andrew Goldfarb.

Buzz can be contacted at 130 Short St., Butler, PA 16001

Secondly, our comrade Maximum Traffic, apparently while visiting Florida, met with the amazing Andy Nukes! Max is the one in the hat.

Morty Comix # 2530

 The distribution of Morty Comix # 2530 needs some explaining.

So I'm watching this super-epic film from 1962 called How the West Was Won. I have a Random House book that was released with the movie. Picked this monograph up long ago at some sale.

As I was viewing this Space Age celebration of Manifest Destiny (the movie ends with freeway traffic and urban sprawl portrayed as a good thing), I told myself I would send the next Morty Comix to the first city uttered by any character in the story.
 

And that city turned out to be Pittsburgh. Jimmy Stewart, in the role Linus Rawlings, Mountain Man, utters, "I kinda itch to get to Pittsburgh. I ain't seen a city for a long time. I aim to whoop it up a little."

Pittsburgh. Home to the amazing Wayno. A city that has been showing the art of Maximum Traffic. and a hop and schlep from the home of one of my favorite artists of the Newave Comix era, Mike Hill.

I am not a big fan of Stewart, but there have been a few movies where I could tolerate him. The Shootist, Shenandoah, Rope. I think I like him in those since he wasn't playing his normal Jimmy Stewart character. The guy could act if the studios gave him a chance.

Since his given name was James I sought out James Street in Pittsburgh. And once again Google's street view assisted me in finding a good home for a Morty Comix. Since they produce a product using more creativity than most, I selected a trophy store as the next random art recipient.

I have a lot of ancestors on both sides who lived in, are buried in, passed through the colony/state of Pennsylvania on their generational trek out here to the West Coast. One of my ancestors was supposedly converted to the Quaker faith by Penn himself. His grandson, another forefather of mine, ran off and wed a Shawnee woman, and became a frontiersman in Virginia. So the Quaker strain in my family was short-lived.
 

Off to the Keystone State for you, little one. I've been to Philadelphia but one day I'd love to visit Pittsburgh.

Morty Comix # 2516

Morty Comix # 2516 is being sent to my old comix comrade, Max Traffic in Butler, Pennsylvania. I'm sending a page of art for his consideration in the next White Buffalo Gazette and tossed in a Morty Comix as well. Just like the old days.

Morty Comix # 2478

Morty Comix # 2478 is being sent to Maximum Traffic in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Here's the story: Back in the 1980s and the pre-Internet 1990s I was right on top of my postal mail. The US Postal Service was my lifeline to my comix comrades. But that was then.

Today I check my PO box infrequently, and even then I just pile up the mail and look at it once a week. Sometimes I throw it in a stack and don't get to it for months.

On this rainy weekend I started excavating through my studio and found several long forgotten documents dating back to the Stone Age. This included a SASE from one of my all time favorite artists, Maximum Traffic.

So, here's to you, Max. My buddy Charlie helped me stuff the envelope.

This issue of Morty Comix is a bit unusual. Many of the 5 x 3 in. versions are made of old discarded Gaylord circulation cards with WLN labels, originating from South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington.

But a few of them, like Morty Comix # 2478, are drawn on the reverse of discarded shelflist cards that were used as a springboard for recataloging, also from the WLN era.

I miss WLN. It was a great organization and the contribution to the field of librarianship in the Pacific Northwest has not been matched since their demise over a decade ago.

Buttons - Comic Art - 1989

On the curl: Max Traffic (c)1989

On reverse: Badge-A-Minit, LaSalle, Ill 61301

Although the image was drawn in 1989, I think the button itself might have been produced at a later date.

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 12

By Maximum Traffic

This is last page of the unfinished jam for any of you who want to pick up the story from here

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 11

By Maximum Traffic

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 10

By Maximum Traffic

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 9

By Maximum Traffic.

"Fox News is crap-full of lies!" So true. Beautiful.

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 8

By Maximum Traffic

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 7

Page 7 by Maximum Traffic. Max tried to "draw" me into this jam by using some of the characters from my comix, such as the fellow in panel 3. The face came from a page in Brave New Nazis of the Inland Empire.

There's that "Bezango" word again. This morning I have been blurting "beZANG!-o" once in awhile for no apparent reason.

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 5

On page 5 I did the pencil work, lettering, and partially "inked" (felt tip) panel 1. Maximum Traffic completed the inking on panel 1 and entirely inked panel 2.

Fifteen Heart Attacks, page 1

Fifteen Heart Attacks was a story I began, I'm guessing, in 2009 or 2010. But life caught up to me and the project died. But I can present this unfinished piece in stages. Maximum Traffic got in on the act later. You'll see.

Morty the Dog's declaration on the splash page is a direct quote from the amazing Vincent Price in his very best movie, Theatre of Blood. Supposedly I actually uttered these lines when I came out of surgery while under the influence of pain killers on April Fool's Day, 1995.

One time in the late 1970s/early 1980s I woke up after a wild party and found myself behind a couch in the morning. That fond memory inspired this page.

The Dust Settles

This blog is now a year old, and it seems a fitting time to change gears. The frenetic pace at which I have been scanning and posting primary documents of the Newave Comix era as well as my own work will be slowing down.

I want to start getting back in the comix creation game. Thanks to this blog the bulk of my old printed work has been caught up to this online technology, so now I feel reset with this modern a-gogo world and ready to make comix again.

Besides, I still owe art to Maximum Traffic and Dan W. Taylor, and getting the next Morty the Blog jam together.

It has been a singular experience reacquainting myself with all the works that have been posted here in the last year. This blog is only possible because of the efforts of the Fabulous Sarah, who set it up and made it run. Thank you Sarah!

I'll still try to post at least a photo every day, and continue to scan and share odd drawings, articles, etc. as I find them. I'm not stopping, I'm just going to walk instead of run.