Morty Comix # 2656 - Update!

Morty Comix # 2656 was sent to Butler, Pennsylvania, where Buzz Buzzizyk copied it and made a practice run of enhancement, creating the bootleg above. Then he made a finished copy and sent it to the most excellent cartoonist, Jim Siergey in the Chicago area!

Once again, Borpo Deets' name appears mysteriously.

"Borpo Deets. Borpo Deets. Borpo Borpo Borpo Deets."

Chant that over and over. When I do I begin to see the gate to enlightenment.

A Morty Comix Twisted Conundrum

OK, so you and I are having lunch in sort of a weird new restaurant that includes a guy in a clown suit who entertains the customers by playing seriously romantic tunes on a violin as he roams the dining room floor. He doesn't smile even though his makeup indicates that he is supposed to be happy happy. Somehow the strange combination is meant to be ironic, but it just doesn't work.

We go to eat there for the first time mainly to watch this failed attempt at being hip, which we heard about from friends. We order and as we wait for our meals the clown plays "Let's Face the Music and Dance."

But then you notice that my eyes and the clowns eyes lock. You hear me utter, "Oh crap!" I turn pale, shove the table back as I pull out and run. You never knew my aging, portly out-of-shape self could move so fast. I'm out the door.

The clown yells, "Willis! Stop!" And from out his absurdly puffy costume he produces a sophisticated looking firearm. He bolts out the door in pursuit, pistol held high over his head. His comic oversize shoes prevent him from running too fast.

For about 15 seconds not a sound is heard in this eating establishment, but then the slow murmurs start and build to a sound like that of an air hose in action with nothing to fill, and you realize all eyes are on you.

About five minutes later the clown returns, empty handed. His fake nose, fake ears, hat, and wig have all fallen off. Streaks of sweat are traced on his facial greasepaint. He looks like our worst hideous nightmares of what clowns can be. He is panting, and pissed off.

The clown resets the chair I tipped over, plops down in it, crosses his arms with his elbows on the table, leans close and stares at you. In the distance you hear sirens. He presents you with some sort of official looking credentials and badge, representing some kind of national security agency you've never heard of with an acronym like the NSGV or something like that.

Then he reaches in his clown pocket, pulls out about a half dozen Morty Comix, and carefully arranges them on the table so you can see each one. "We intercepted these in odd places, like in gas stations, cafe menus, dead phone booths, you know, the usual place lowlife scum spies pass coded messages. Which is, in fact, what these are."

Meanwhile, the local police arrive and they appear normal except they are all wearing styrofoam Abraham Lincoln stovepipe hats. They see the clown and become very agitated and hesitant. None of them come close to him, but instead the one who seems to be in charge whispers into a radio communication device. Before you know it a man who looks exactly like Richard Nixon, dressed in an old-fashioned gangster pinstripe suit, complete with fedora, walks in the room and says to the clown in a commanding voice, "I'll have those Morty Comix now, Mister."

The clown starts to reach for his gun, but before he even touches it he is surrounded by officers who quickly draw their weapons and in an unified precision aim right at his heart. So he slowly rises and calmly announces, "You win. Let Hercules himself do what he may. The cat will mew and dog will have his day." 

There is always a bigger fish.

The styrofoam hat law enforcement officers allow the clown the leave quietly, but seconds later another set of sirens are heard in the distance, coming closer. The uniformed guys look at each other and the Nixon guy says, "Jeez, it's the REAL cops!" and they all run away, forgetting the original purpose of their mission.

So you are left sitting at a table with six Morty Comix and the sirens are getting closer. You have about 2 or 3 minutes to either cut and run or stay and deal with the authorities. What would you do, and what happens to the comix? 










 

Buster Brown Ad, 1908

Advertisement by Richard F. Outcault featuring Buster Brown, 1908. The lobster on Buster's costume is a beautiful off-the-wall touch.

Phone photo 2741

Hettie

$200 - Original Art - Xenophobic Knives and Other Love Songs, Pt. 2

Original art for Xenophobic Knives and Other Love Songs, Pt. 2
 
Drawn in 1990 and published in 1991, even though the publication date states 1990.

12 p., nonphoto blue and felt-tip on lighter bond stock. Unevenly cut pages, roughly 8.25 x 6 in.

In very good condition. Some dabs of whiteout on cover, p. 4, 8.

The cast of characters include Morty the Dog, Pablo Picasso, Mukey the Mutant Membrane in his childhood, a deformed cow, and an evil clown.

200 bucks and it is yours!

$200 ppd.
Check or money order to
Steve Willis
PO Box 390
McCleary, WA 98557-0390

Or order through PayPal

Buttons - Events - 1990

Lakefair '90

Buttons - Events - 1982

Seattle Seafair Clowns 1982

Phone photo 1448

Buster on the toy chest that survived The 1965 Fire.

Weird Gifts From My Brother

I try to weed these things out every once in awhile, but for years my brother Bryan has exhibited a strange taste in holiday and birthday gifts. Some examples:


Bad albums are a staple (yes, I still play vinyl). This one is right up there among the worst, Come On In! by the New Hope Singers International, "A musical collage from Jamaican calypso to the sounds of ancient Scotland to American rock." This group was sponsored by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.


That's a picture of little Stevie sitting on a kiddie potty in Spokane, Washington back in the 1950s. The potty is adorned the head of some kind of poultry. I guess that makes it partly poultry. Get enough of these together and you can throw a partly poultry potty party.

Anyway, why is this photo encapsulated in a Kellogg's Corn Flakes place mat?


When I almost threw out this papier-mâché model of planet Earth (made by my brother when he was in grade school) as we were cleaning out the family farm in order to sell it a few years ago, Bryan stopped me and made a big deal of presenting it to me as a precious relic. And I, perhaps foolishly, accepted it.

My own name plate! How thoughtful.


Hey! Look! What every household needs, a concave Jesus face!

I think this is supposed to be something you can use in creating an illusion with light, either that or it is a really freaky gelatin mold.


My phone camera is not the greatest when it comes to close-ups. This amputee Leprechaun wasn't so lucky, apparently. Note the bloody stump. Maybe he was a leper, thus making him a Leperchaun. Also, leaving the tag with an obviously doctored inflated price is another frequent theme in these gifts as a demonstration of how "priceless" they are. In this case the cheap piece of crap was supposedly purchased for at least 22 bucks.

Ruth loved clowns so much she kept one in a jar!

Where does he get this stuff?

Santa has an array of little finishing nails in his beard. I think this is supposed to be an advent calendar, but the effect is quite creepy.


There has been much, much more over the years. I do look forward to receiving these fine items and perhaps I should start cruising garage sales now in order to return the favor next holiday season.

Cranium Station DMZ

This was the first of a trilogy including Eternities of Darkness and Hungry Stairs to Heaven. It is a circular story and can be picked up anywhere in the narrative without worry or anxiety about missing out on the "plot."

The first edition was published in 1984 by Dada Gumbo Press in Tucson, Arizona both in minicomic and digest-sized formats. I had been using the comic metamorphosis technique since the early 1970s, but Dada Gumbo's publisher Dale Luciano really gave me an encouraging venue to explore this method with some more detail.

Starhead published the 2nd ed. in 1992, during a time when they were briefly housed at Ocean Shores, Washington on the other end of Grays Harbor County from McCleary! The cover included red highlights.

When I had my print-on-demand catalog in 1994, this trilogy was not included. This was due to fact I was also selling unsold inventory for Clay Geerdes and Dale Luciano. And Dale still had copies of the set left over and available at that time.

The 1st Danger Room ed. in June 2005 had 5 copies with green covers and yellow and white guts.

The entire trilogy was finally published in a form it which it was meant to be presented in 2010 as part of Newave! The Underground Mini Comix of the 1980s, published by Fantagraphics and edited by Michael Dowers.

Some points of trivia. The comic has a not so subtle secret message, the influence of my friend Lynn Hansen (1958-1995), who was obsessed with the hidden messages in Beatles' songs and images. The bottle of Wildermuth on p. 3 is reference to my old college pal and conceptual artist Kevin Wildermuth. The guy with the glasses on p. 5 is me. Page 7: clowns have long been a source of sordid fascination for me. In the early 1970s I had a seedy clown character named Jobbo Bonobo, which grew into a rather disturbing cult a few years later at The Evergroove State College in Olympia.