$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 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.