September 1979 - pt. 3

The tasteless blind joke was later used in a comic in 1981 or 1982. And yes, that is my self-portrait on the last image.

The Rutherford B. Hayes Song

His friends, they called him "Ruddy"
But he got his hands all muddy
When he stole the election from Tilden
And we almost had Civil War 2 instead of nation buildin'

But Ruddy Hayes
You weren't so bad
You were the best President from Ohio that we had
Now I realize that's not sayin' a lot
But sometimes you've got to work with what you've got

He promised to serve only one term
Healing the nation's epiderm
He didn't drink booze, he had a big beard
And his relationship with his sister was kinda weird
 
But Ruddy Hayes
You weren't so bad
You were the best President from Ohio that we had
Now I realize that's not sayin' a lot
But sometimes you've got to work with what you've got

He had progressive views on race
As an ex-president he was not a waste of space
He helped the disadvantaged, what do you think of that?
If he were here today he'd be a Democrat

But Ruddy Hayes
You weren't so bad
You were the best President from Ohio that we had
Now I realize that's not sayin' a lot
But sometimes you've got to work with what you've got

Morty Comix # 2494

Morty Comix # 2494 looked like the kind of comic art that needed to travel, so I turned to my online card deck to help me decide where to send it.

The 5 of diamonds. Five. Our 5th President was James Monroe, the first of the subset of Obscure Presidents. Since this blog is basically an online Obscuro Comix, Monroe was the perfect choice Fate decided to use.

There are 17 counties in the United States named Monroe County, and I am guessing each one is named after the President. I whittled the list down to the counties residing in states I have visited: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia. I've been in Missouri, but only in the St. Louis airport changing planes and I won't count that.

Next card, 6 of hearts. Six. Ohio was the 6th state I listed. Hearts starts with "H" so I searched for a place in Monroe County, Ohio that starts with that letter and found the small settlement of Hannibal, on the Ohio River across from West Virginia.

I've actually been within about 40 miles or less of Hannibal in 1999 when I was driving north on I-77. Nearby Cambridge, Ohio was the home of Henry McCleary, who founded McCleary, Washington. The McCleary family farm now sits under an artificial lake created in the 1950s and is part of an Ohio state park.

Hannibal is nestled in some nice country.

I also visited Ohio during SPACE 2011, with my friends Bruce and Joan Chrislip as my hosts. In both visits I was impressed by how welcoming the natives of the Buckeye State were. My own ancestors lived for a generation or two in the northeast and southeast corners of pioneer Ohio on their way West.

Anyway, it turns out Hannibal is unincorporated and about a quarter of the size of McCleary (we have a bit over 1600 people here). So I simply searched for Hannibal online and chose the first place that popped up with an address, which turned out to be a vacant place of business up for sale. So I'm sending it care of the "Art Director," with a brief note, and hope whoever receives it has a sense of humor and an appreciation for the unexpected.

I submit that there will be no other comic art title harder to collect than Morty Comix. In March this serial will be 30 years old. And in a weird twist, it is the later issues that will be much harder to find. I am sure most of them have been thrown away since I have created this art form of Obscuro random distribution.

Morty Comix # 2463

Morty Comix # 2463 was tossed in as an added bonus as I packaged an order from a fellow Scorpio in Ohio for original art and a comic. It just so happened I took today off from work, so I was able to package the material immediately, drive Nadine down to the friendly folks at the old McCleary Post Office on this rainy morning, and send it off toot sweet!

Reminded me a bit of the Newave days when I did this sort of thing almost every day.

Mini-Comics Day in McCleary, pt. 6

Although he unfortunately no longer resides in Washington State, our old pal Bruce Chrislip in McCleary's sister-city of goetta-rich Cincinnati (Henry McCleary was from Ohio, so it isn't so far fetched. Plus, I have actually met and shook hands with the mayors of both cities. Who else can say that?) participated in McCleary Mini-Comics Day from afar! We love you Bruce!

Unsuccessful Vice-Presidential Candidates in the Year 1875 : a Date With Undestiny

Ohio is the mother of unsuccessful vice-presidential candidates, at least it was in 1991. This work had a rather limited distribution.

SPACE 2011 Report, pt. 17

Before leaving Columbus, Bruce and I paid a visit to the Thurber House, once home to one of America's great cartoonists and humorists, James Thurber.

Naturally on a Sunday it was closed, but I enjoyed the Thurberesque dog art in the yard.

What a nice way to end a day of celebrating comic art.


Back in Cincinnati we viewed old photo albums and laughed at pictures of ourselves from the old Seattle days running around the sunny slopes of yesterday.

Many thanks to Bruce and Joan, and Bob Corby for hosting this visit.

SPACE 2011 Report, pt. 2

One of the big factors in my decision to accept the invitation to attend SPACE 2011 was the opportunity to finally meet so many people who had I known for 1, 2, even 3 decades only through correspondence. The recent passing of several of our comix comrades like Jamie Alder, Mike Roden, Steve Fiorilla, Jay Kennedy hit me hard. These were people I was hoping to meet in person some day, and I figured eventually our paths would cross. I waited too long for "eventually" to happen.

But we are not getting any younger. To put it diplomatically, I knew I needed to do this while so many of us are still above ground. And what better place to see so many comix people from our old Newave/Obscuro network at one time than SPACE?

Bruce Chrislip and I loaded up his car and headed north to Columbus on Saturday morning.

Above: on the trip to Columbus.

Upon arrival we were issued and assigned a table which we shared with Mike Hill and Maximum Traffic/Buzz B./Borpo Deets.

One of our neighbors, I'm happy to say, was Colin Upton, who came all the way from Vancouver, B.C.. Together we constituted the only Pacific Northwest presence at the expo. He is a good conversationalist with an understated, wry way of observing life's foibles.

Another person I got to meet right off the bat was Morty the Dog regular reader D. Blake Werts, who helped me make an emergency run to the closest available computer so I could print out a script for the next day's reading. I really appreciated his company and it gave us a chance to visit a little.

If there is any down side to events like this, it is that I don't get to really spend a lot of time with any one person. But names do get associated with a face, a voice, a personality in person. A human connection is made. And that's worth a lot.

Above: Bruce, Colin, Blake.

Colin's new book, The Collected Diabetes Funnies, is a good example of how technology has made it possible for us photocopy comix artists to graduate to a more sophisticated format. I was astounded over and over at what high production values I was seeing in the physical publications. As you can see, Colin has not fallen into the lure of life beyond black and white. "Color," he told me, "Is for the weak"-- a quote I enjoyed so much I asked him to repeat it a couple times.