30 years ago I started a comix series. It was called
Morty Comix and little did I know where it would take me. In 1983 it was a comix sideshow, and today it is my main venue for artistic expression on several levels.
Here's the guide I wrote for
Morty Comix as it appeared on
OlyBlog, July 17, 2007:
[Warning, unless you are into alternative and obscuro comix, the
following essay will contain references that might seem esoteric and
remote. This article (now slightly revised, 12-1-07) was originally
written in Apr. 2002 for the
White Buffalo Gazette (WGB):]
Morty Comix
started in Feb. 1983 with several motives in mind. First, it gave me a
way to loosen up my drawing hand. Second, it was a way to drive
completist collectors crazy. The basic
Morty Comix was a blank
index card folded in half with four original drawings. They were
numbered in sequence, dated and signed. I attempted to include an issue
in each piece of correspondence. Here are some answers to questions
you probably didn't want to ask about this series:
The first issue
was drawn in Feb. 1983 in Olympia, Wash. It was sent to the now
legendary Ron "Gato" Vicens in Hawaii. I won't call #2195 the final
issue, since I consider this title to merely be in stasis, but this
was drawn in late 1999 and sent to Jeff Zenick in Florida. It was
reprinted in WBG in June 2000.
There are four distinct subsets.
#1-1000 (Feb. 1983-Mar. 1984), #1001-1225 (Jan.-June 1985), #1226-1760
(Sept. 1985-Sept. 1986), and #1761-2195 (Apr. 1, 1989-Nov./Dec. 1999).
In
addition to the blank index card format, other issues were drawn on
library waste cards, large sheets of butcher paper, cardboard, foam,
styrofoam, and wood. Some issues were produced as puzzles, #1446 and
#1500 are 80 pages thick. One issue (sent to Tim Corrigan), was burned
into a large sheet of plexiglass. Another (sent to Bob X), was drawn
in the sand at Ocean Shores, Wash. and sent as a photo. #1641-1690 were
drawn on the inside covers of copies of
Starhead Presents #1
Other
artists participated in a few issues. Bruce Chrislip jammed on a few,
although the exact numbers have been lost. Marc Myers jammed on
#1430-31, 1439. Clint Hollingsworth and Myers and I drew #1432. John E.
(John Eberly) with #1467, and #1730 was a 4-way effort, which included
Ted Bolman, Michael and Keenan Dowers. #1433 was a Marc Myers solo.
Chris
Bors took his copy of #1025 and (with my permission) reproduced it as
a minicomic with a 50 copy run. #1882 and #2173 were drawn to be
published, the first from Starhead Comix and the second by myself (50
copies). #2058 and #2114 have been "published" online at minicomic.com
[2007 note, the URL is now dead].
Morty Comix have been
sent all over the world. They have found their way to at least 4
libraries (NY State Library, Michigan State U., Washington State U., and
Wis. State Historical Society). #1702 was attached to a string on a
helium balloon in 1986 and was last seen high in the sky heading west
from McCleary, Wash. Five issues were sent at random to other guys
named Steve Willis. Lynn Hansen held the record for having been sent the
most issues (70). He died in 1995 and when his comix collection was
donated to WSU, it can be assumed the
Morty Comix were in there as well. Other major
Morty holders were John Eberly, Michael Dowers, Brad Foster, and
Jay Kennedy.
Minnesota collector Joe Schnide, by my reckoning, has managed to
accumulate the largest collection of any living collector [2007 note,
eBay bidder Albert Law seems to usually win the auctions when
Morty Comix
show up, so he must be up there as well by now], although WSU is
where you'll still find the highest concentration. There are 13 issues I
sent but cannot account for.
In 1984 Brad Foster published a large collection of this series in
The Almost Complete Collected Morty Comix, culling from the 1983 and early 1984 issues. Somehow Brad managed to talk several people into loaning him their copies.
Morty Comix have also been published in:
Inside
Joke, Acme Subheroes, Mini Haha Komix, Monthly Independent ...,
Scratchez, Misc. Comics, City Limits Gazette, American Leather, Over the
Wall, Small Press Comics Fanola, Mashuga, Small Press Comics
Explosion, Morty the Dog, Upperground, Industrial Toilet Paper, Maximum
Traffic, Bezango Obscuro, Damn Weird Comix, White Buffalo Gazette, and,
Cartoon Loonacy.
Although
Morty Comix
didn't exactly start a genre, it did inspire a number of short-lived
responses from other artists such as: Par Holman, Paul Cartmill,
Richard Wayne, Roldo, Chester Brown, Jim Ryan, Clint Hollingsworth,
Maximum Traffic, George Erling, Marc Myers, Hank Arakelian, Gary
Usher, Larry Weir, Jamie Alder, Jim Waltman, and Bruce Chrislip. They
had titles like:
Dawg'on'it Comix, Jimix, Le Morte Comix, Maori
Comix, More "Tea"? Comix, Morfy Comix, Mormony Comix, Neon Paisley Dino
Attack on Morty Comix, Nivlem Comix, Non-comic Comix, Nonmorty Comix,
Psuedo-Morty Comix, Puppy Chewed Comix, Shorty Comix, and
Ytrom.
The only other artist I am aware of to seriously undertake creating
multiple issues of an original hand-drawn series was Ted Bolman, who
started
Nauga Comix in, if I'm not mistaken, Jan. 1986. I'm not
sure if Ted is still drawing this title, but he was up to #294 last I
saw. Most of the
Nauga Comix I have seen appear to have more of a storyline and are drawn with more planning and care than my dash-offs.
Morty Comix was sort of a statement that original art (at least
my
original art) is not some sacred collectible thing, but merely the
residue of a compulsion that is freely sent to anyone who I was in
contact with. In the last decade it was harder to keep up, and I
didn't always have issues to send. They were messages in a bottle. It is
fun to track them and see where they wind up. So it is with
considerable irony I have seen them sell for as much as $50 each on
eBay. Sure, it is out of my control now, but Jeez, what will these
things be worth after I croak? Will I ever bring this thing out of
stasis and start subset 5? Not for awhile, if ever. The 21st century and
I are not really getting along too well so far, and somehow I feel
I'm protecting
Morty Comix by keeping it forever in the amber of the 20th century.
Now to the Update:
In the summer of 2010 an insidious co-worker named Shawn Moriarty convinced me to produce some more
Morty Comix as a benefit for the Olympia Film Society. And so the disease was reborn.
Morty Comix # 2258 was really the first of my online random versions.
Morty Comix # 2279 was the point where I started leaving them as art bombs on a regular basis.
Morty Comix # 2403, I think, is when I began sporadically using random methods of choosing where to send an issue to spontaneous addresses via the U.S. Postal Service.
And now, for you unfortunate souls who want to collect this series, here is my list of
Morty Comix distribution. Note that I originally kept track by name, then by number. Then I just stopped recording the info since they were tracked right here on Morty the Blog. I love the fact the most recent issues will be the most difficult to collect! Obscuro Comix Forever!
There are many notes made in non-photo blue on these sheets as I attempted to track the location before I gave up due to the hopelessness of it:
