Bezango: Um ... The Computer Just Broke

Olympia Power & Light, January 13-26, 2010

The great computer crash of December 2009. It would be 8 or 9 months before I got a new one, so my OP&L columns in the first half of 2010 had to be written in longhand. In a lot of ways I discovered not having a computer is like not having a car, my mobility was severely hampered in a society built around certain technologies.

Editor Meta Hogan drew the sad and tragic scene of the dead elves.

And I really did draw a Morty the Dog story. It's a few pages long and is in the possession of a certain crazyman Back East who might turn it into a jam.

Bezango: Olympia Memories

Olympia Power & Light is a biweekly newspaper serving the Oly area. My Bezango column has been an irregular feature since the first issue. Here's my introductory piece.

The editors usually decide what the headline will be, as well as the illustration. Generally they leave my text alone. And guess what? They actually pay me!

As a result of my participation in OlyBlog as a contributor and moderator, I figured more Olympia readers would know me as stevenl than my real name, so there it is.

I believe I did request an image of Morty the Dog to accompany the logo, which is now a regular icon for the column. Co-Editor Meta Hogan found this one online and it really fits! It was originally drawn for the cover of The Almost Complete Collected Morty Comix (1984)

The main illustration for this debut essay was by an artist named Edward Lange (1846-1912), who drew urban panoramas and frequently filled the borders of his art with little advertisements, like this one.

Bezango "On Comics"

Olympia Power & Light is a biweekly paper in Olympia, Washington. It started up last December. I have an irregular column in there called "Bezango." If you look closely at the logo, you'll see a picture of Morty the Dog running. Editor Meta Hogan supplied that one. I could never place the source until I scanned and posted The Almost Complete Collected Morty Comix, and now I realize she found that image from the cover of that monograph. It works.

Since I had to haul out this newspaper to check the graphic, I might as well scan and post it. OP&L issue #14 (June 2-15, 2010) was the special comics issue, published in conjunction with the Olympia Comics festival. This column about cartooning was actually written about 6 months before. Olympia cartoonist Chelsea Baker convinced me to contribute a new 2010 work ("4 Panel Breakup") and Meta, I think, gave readers a sneak peek of page 2 or 3 of a new Morty story that may or may not ever get finished and/or published.