Morty Comix # 2478

Morty Comix # 2478 is being sent to Maximum Traffic in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Here's the story: Back in the 1980s and the pre-Internet 1990s I was right on top of my postal mail. The US Postal Service was my lifeline to my comix comrades. But that was then.

Today I check my PO box infrequently, and even then I just pile up the mail and look at it once a week. Sometimes I throw it in a stack and don't get to it for months.

On this rainy weekend I started excavating through my studio and found several long forgotten documents dating back to the Stone Age. This included a SASE from one of my all time favorite artists, Maximum Traffic.

So, here's to you, Max. My buddy Charlie helped me stuff the envelope.

This issue of Morty Comix is a bit unusual. Many of the 5 x 3 in. versions are made of old discarded Gaylord circulation cards with WLN labels, originating from South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington.

But a few of them, like Morty Comix # 2478, are drawn on the reverse of discarded shelflist cards that were used as a springboard for recataloging, also from the WLN era.

I miss WLN. It was a great organization and the contribution to the field of librarianship in the Pacific Northwest has not been matched since their demise over a decade ago.

Buttons - Libraries - 1980s

WLN

A button promoting WLN's LaserCat product, back when CD-ROM was cutting edge.

Buttons - Libraries - 1980s

Going Places

WLN

Online Interlibrary Loan

Buttons - Libraries - 1990s

WLN

WLN initially was an acronym for the Washington Library Network, then it became the Western Library Network, and finally in 1990 the name settled into being just an acronym as a private nonprofit, WLN, Inc.

Buttons - Libraries - 1980s

 

Ready, WLN & Able

Western Library Network

Buttons - Libraries - 1980s

DISCover LaserCat

WLN on CD-ROM

Buttons - Libraries - 1980s

WLN - Western Library Network

Meeting Notes, July 1990-Sept. 1991

Today I've been weeding through my books and in the process ran across a notebook I kept of work related meeting notes from July 1990 to September 1991.

This was a time period when the Washington State agency I worked for had converted into a private nonprofit corporation (only the 2nd such instance in the history of Washington). After privatization in July 1990 I was promoted to a position where I managed anywhere between 12 to 20 people at any given time. This was a bibliographic utility called WLN (now extinct since around 1999/2000) and I kept copious notes of every meeting. For anyone interested in the history of online library services in the Pacific Northwest, or in the topic of public to private conversion, this notebook might be a valuable primary document.

WLN (originally called the Washington Library Network, then Western Library Network, and finally just WLN) was a great place to work and we had an excellent set of products and top notch crew of dedicated people. Even so, I was recruited and lured away by South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Washington in September 1991 where I worked as a librarian and member of the faculty. WLN was the hardest job I ever left, but in the long run it turned out to be a good decision.

Anyway, I noticed while looking through these notes that there were a lot of illuminations. Almost all of them in pencil (sorry, I know many are difficult to see). Contrary to being distracted, we cartoonists actually listen and think better while moving our drawing hands around. Non-cartoonists think we're goofing off, but actually we are processing what we are hearing through our special comix-vision. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

During the second half of the time period covered here I revived City Limits Gazette. Some of the drawings seem like the very beginnings of comic ideas that were later fully developed and published, such as Tulpa and State of Beings # 2.