$25 Sale - Odd Dog

I have copies from three distinct printings of this 1978 book published by the Olympia School District for early readers. Odd Dog can be counted among Morty the Dog's ancestors. This book has not been fully scanned and posted on this blog.

For some reason my memory tells me this was drawn in 1976, but the 1978 date is on all three printings here. 

Mimeograph edition: I have two copies. Mimeo guts, cardstock blue cover.

Light Blue edition: Photocopy. Light blue cover, regular stock

Blue edition: Photocopy. Cardstock blue cover.

All copies are in fair shape. Copies of the Blue ed. have obviously been in the hands of little readers, but they have survived pretty well.

Regular digest size (letter size, folded).

Please specify which edition you would like when ordering.

$25 each, ppd.

Check or money order to
Steve Willis
PO Box 390
McCleary, WA 98557-0390

or order through PayPal

$25 Sale - The Glass Doll

The Glass Doll, Jan. 1979, designed for early readers in the Olympia School District and starring Morty the Dog prototype, Odd Dog.

I have several copies for sale at $25 each. All of them bear markings of having been read, but they are in very good shape.

$25 ppd each
Check or money order to
Steve Willis
PO Box 390
McCleary, WA 98557-0390

or order through PayPal

Odd Dog

One of several books I drew for early readers in the Olympia School District. This one was first published in 1978 and used for many years. And no, you don't get to see any more of this beyond the cover. Odd Dog was indeed a proto Morty the Dog.

The Tragedy of Morty, Prince of Denmarke, Act 4

Tragedy 4

1st edition, 1984, 50 copies, orchid cover, enlarged digest size.

2nd edition, January 1985, 30 copies, orchid cover, enlarged digest size.

3rd edition, February 1985, 30 copies, orchid cover, enlarged digest size.

4th edition, July 1985, 30 copies, orchid cover, enlarged digest size.

5th edition, November 1985, 30 copies, orchid cover, enlarged digest size.

Available as a print-on-demand title, 1994, regular digest size.

1st Danger Room reprint edition, August 2005, 5 copies (3 green, 2 pink) regular digest size.

Page 25, panel 1: A reference to Morty the Dog's prototype, Odd Dog.

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.

The Glass Doll

Another book for early readers published by the Olympia School District. This one was printed in January 1979.

I was given a limited number of words in which to create a story, and obviously "glass" and "doll" were on the list. Once again Odd Dog shows up, the proto-Morty.

The "A Lost Cat" page is my favorite, showing this feline drifting along in existential meaninglessness.

Dogs

Dogs was a regular digest size book designed for the earliest of readers and published by the Olympia School District. The connection was through my mother, Jeanette Willis, who was a teacher and sometimes administrator for OSD.

This was my first published work of the 1980s, printed in either January or February 1980. At the time I was working at Seattle Public Library as a low level clerk. In fact, my desk was way down in the basement, and that's literally low level.

Dogs was also the last of several books I drew for the Olympia School District, all of them constructed for beginning readers. I was given a list of words and letters thought to be the easiest for children to read, and then I used what they gave me to invent a story.

In 1980, this was my only solo book. My other nine published cartoons of that year were all in The Cooper Point Journal, campus newspaper for The Evergreen State College. The weird part about that-- I was no longer a student there. I had bequeathed a huge stack of unpublished comix to the CPJ when I left, and they spent a few years publishing more of my work after I graduated than when I was enrolled. Their August 7, 1980 issue was the first published appearance of "Mortie" the dog, but the panel was probably drawn in 1978.

Anyway, you can see how Odd Dog is a Morty prototype. Odd Dog first showed up in his own Olympia School District book in 1976.