The Comix Files: Rick "Ricko" Bradford

 Drawn by Dave Tosh

 Looks like a jam from a comix convention

Rick Bradford of Texas first contacted me in 1992 during the City Limits Gazette days. Although his comix art is wonderful and sparky, we all know Rick as the genius behind Poopsheet, at first a hardcopy resource but it evolved into one of THE most important online resources for creators and collectors of Newave, homemade, zine-like comix. Such energy. The guy must be a strange visitor from another planet with powers above and beyond that of mortal men.

Check out these links:

Poopsheet Foundation

Poopsheet Shop

Mortymail 5/9/12

OK, I admit I have become a terrible correspondent to those of you who contact me via USPS. And I have been for a number of years. Burnout is liberating yet guilt-inducing.

Anyway. It is not my intention to make this a regular feature of Morty the Blog, but I thought I would report on some of the stuff I get in the mail before I send it off the to the Washington State University comix collection. In no way is this making up for Richard Krauss basically suspending Midnight Fiction, and I am not reviewing. If you are looking for a networking place, send your comix to Rick Bradford at Poopsheet.

I let my mail pile up quite a bit before I even look at it. Then I get out the jack-knife, slice those babies open after they have collected dust for a week or more, and mostly pay bills while some old movie is in the VCR. Yes, you heard me, I said VCR. Occasionally some comix stuff slips in there.

Here's what arrived this week:

Kel Crum sent me his latest, Scribbles. I'd like to know how he found legal sized paper to print this work in the classic enlarged digest size which I loved. I finally got to meet Kel at SPACE last year and admired his performance skills during the comix reading show.

Bruce Chrislip sent me a big packet of material. Included were copies of a couple jams from SPACE 2011. I found his reprint (20 years later) of Thurber of Ohio to be especially wonderful. Before Bruce and I left SPACE in Columbus last year to head for Cincinnati, we visited the Thurber House. I really enjoyed visiting the home of one great Ohio cartoonist while accompanied by another great Ohio cartoonist.

I hope one day Bruce and Joan Chrislip return to Washington State.

And finally, our old Newave comrade, Gary Fields, sent this great version of Morty the Dog! 

I love it!

Retreads 9

1st edition, November 2005, 25 copies, white cover, regular digest size.

Trivia:

Pages 1-3: Yes, I really did interview J.P. Patches.

Pages 7-11: It is safe to say I did not enjoy the graduate school experience. But then again, I wasn't supposed to. The first panel portrays Lee Norton (who, for reasons I don't want to even begin to guess at, wore a duck decoy on her cranium once) interviewing Morty for an article entitled "Morty Dog, Come Home." This was originally in the Cooper Point Journal and reprinted in Retreads 4.

Pages 23-24: This particular teacher died last Fall at the age of 101. She was a sweetie. I hated algebra and used to draw cartoons on the margins. She would return my papers with the grade: "Math - D, Art -A." As you can see, I attended a pretty wild junior high during the Vietnam War era.

This is the only issue of Retreads still available at Poopsheet.

State of the Morty Blog 12/2010

So far so good.

Today I'm putting my studio back together after the double interruption of a gas heater that flooded and having my incredible wonderful daughter paint the inside of the house.

In the meantime Sarah has been setting up a way for us to start making some reprinted comix available. I've identified a couple titles I'd like to start with. Thanks to our patrons of the comix arts, making the first print run should be no problem.

The blog has gained a small but regular audience, not unlike my comix. We're averaging about 1500 hits a month from all over the world. We're still in a little subculture secret corner, even online.

At some point I had to make a decision whether or not to put more focus on networking. But I've been there before when I edited City Limits Gazette. Also, there are already some great websites covering us obscuro comix artists, notable among them are Poopsheet and Midnight Fiction.

The current phase of this website, scanning and posting old comix, has a finite life. Eventually I'll cram everything in here. I admit there are a few comix I'm still debating whether or not to post since they are so bad, and there are cartoonists I've jammed with that I can't locate for permission to post, but aside from that this website should be as about a complete portfolio of my published work as possible.

Then what? We'll see.

Yeah, But Where Is It?

The following email was discovered in our inbox this morning:

Hi Steve,

With a couple of coincidental happenings, I came across your name/artwork in a couple of places while learning what I could about mini comics. First on Richard Krauss's Midnight Fiction site and then in Michael Dower's Newave! book that came out earlier this year. I really enjoy your work and would love to purchase up anything that you may have available today, old or new, comics or zines. I've gotten a couple of older pieces from Rick at Poopsheet.

Richard made me aware that you have started a new blog which is how I'm contacting you now.

Thanks very much for your consideration,
D. B. W.

Thanks for asking, D.B.W. Life is sorta slow out here in the sticks of Grays Harbor County, Washington. The Fabulous Sarah has more or less coaxed my comix persona into the online world. Somehow the Muse had her fuse lit and now here I am. We are planning on getting the vintage stuff on the block, probably through eBay or something like that. I also have, I think, all the original artwork to one of the Cranium Frenzy comix (maybe #8 or #9) I'll put up for sale, just as soon as I fish it out of the place it fell between the filing cabinet and wall about a decade ago. Hopefully it is still in good shape.

We are still coming up with a plan on reprinting the over 120 solo titles I can re-release without special permissions. Quite frankly, the older I get the less I like collating, stapling, and folding. Michael Dowers has told me he gets an almost Zen like state of bliss in that activity, but I have grown to hate it.

I recently revived Morty Comix and have been working, slowly, like syrup, on a new Cranium Frenzy. Not sure if I'll ever finish the latter, or where the former will go.

In the meantime, Rick Bradford's Poopsheet is the outlet where you'll find most of my work available. Other older comix (and new stuff) have been scanned and appeared in OlyBlog under "Steve's Comix."

Stay tuned.