Monsters and Mutants #7

One of the side benefits of being involved with this invisible college of obscuro comix for such a long time is that some of the artists you jam with go on to be very well known, and then you can say you knew them when. Such is the case with Jeff Gaither, who went on to earn considerable recognition as a cartoonist in the tradition of Basil Wolverton and Big Daddy Roth.

Monsters and Mutants was a series Jeff published in Louisville, Kentucky and served as his early calling card. As you can see by the art, our styles are poles apart. That center spread really tells it all. Like Jamie Alder's work, Gaither's art is in the visuals. Amazing line work, and this was when he was just getting started! In the meantime, I'm a story guy with minimal graphic detail. So we sort kept bumping into each other on this one, but I particularly enjoyed Jeff's back cover illo of Morty.

This was published in 1986. In that same year we also collaborated on a digest-sized comic which I hope to scan and post later.

Posted with permission from Jeff Gaither.

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Pals

Morty Comix #1025

These little Morty Comix were drawn as one-of-kind originals and I tossed them as freebies into many pieces of correspondence I had back in the 1980s.

Chris Bors (One Man Studio, Ithaca, New York) took one of the copies I sent him and printed up 50 numbered and hand colored copies in 1985. Although Morty Comix were frequently reprinted as a part of larger books, this is the only case I know of where someone printed a Morty Comix intended as an original art giveaway and made it into a published stand-alone minicomic.

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. in June 2005 had 1 white and five pink copies. They were not colored, but Bors' shadings were reproduced.

I have no idea where the writing from the last page came from. Perhaps it was a line someone was saying on television while I was drawing.

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The coffee table I bought in Uniontown

Morning Hair

A whopping 16 copies were printed in Feb. 1998 (4 orange, 12 yellow).

Five red copies on cardstock in June 2005 made up the entire 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed.

I wish I could give some inside gossip on the background of this thing, but honestly I don't really remember drawing and publishing it! Maybe I was just waking up when I produced the whole book. February is a pretty dark month around here where we tend to hibernate.

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Double Trouble

Monogamy

Originally published June 16, 2001. 22 copies on yellow cardstock.

1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. had a 5 copy run, all green cardstock, June 2005.

Drawn with #1 lead pencil.

Sometimes romanticism needs a little reality check.

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Life With Skippy

An entry in the reassembled reprint of a reprint! Most of these drawings were created in the late 1970s, but not published until 1982 (Apr. 8 and Apr. 15) in the Cooper Point Journal, the campus newspaper for the Evergroove State College, where I had left them a big stack before I graduated. In fact, they published more of my comix in the years after than I left than when I was a student.

So I eventually reprinted these in a digest-sized series I occasionally run called Retreads, collecting miscellaneous and scattered work under one volume. These ran in the first issue of Retreads in 1983.

Starhead (Michael Dowers) then reprinted these reprints into a minicomic and called it Life With Skippy. As you can see, there are some very early Morty drawings, and some of the pages confirm cartoonist Jim Ryan's suspicion that a Morty Dog is not an individual but a breed populated by many canines. Who can say? Not me.

The comic is printed sideways from the traditional minicomic format.

Found Loose in the Mail

Wash up! We're gonna worship the warship!

There's sort of a sub-genre of minicomix: Artwork previously published in other works and then reassembled and reprinted in the mini format.

Found Loose in the Mail was originally presented as a story in the digest-sized Limbolympia in 1983. The last four pages, Morty Comix #1629, had never seen print before, as with most of the Morty Comix series.

Hal Hargit (Dallas, Texas : Ozone Press) printed 100 of these things Jan. 3, 1987 under the series "Ozone Classic Reprint Series ; No. 1" and a second series "OZP ; no. 13."

An odd size, this comic is only 11 cm. at the spine.

I had the pleasure of meeting Hal around the same year as this comic was released, during a MU Press party in Seattle. Back in those days when we Newavers chiefly communicated through the US Postal Service, it was always great to have an opportunity to connect a real person with the pritned name.

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Hey, a fire extinguisher!

Damn Weird Jam Comix #2

I don't remember the story behind this 1993 jam, but for being only four pages it was pretty damn weird!

This was Maximum Traffic's series and he drew the cover and opening thesis. I drew the rest. The comic was printed on one letter sized sheet of paper and folded twice. Then we both published it. I don't know how many Max published in Butler, Pennsylvania. Out here in the Wild West I printed 25 copies on yellow paper.

Ever since high school I have drawn people with pie-slice shaped parts of their craniums disengaging and doing unlikely things. In college my friend Kevin Wildermuth called these frequent creations "wedgies." If you haven't noticed by now, I have a "thing" about the word "cranium." It is probably no accident that an important part of our anatomy in the brain neighborhood is called the "Circle of Willis."

Max used the image on the last page many times in his later collage comix work, so if you collectors count those in your bibliographies of my work, have fun tracking them down!

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Morty Coins by Buzz Buzzizyk

Some of you might remember him from almost 20 years ago when he created very high energy comix under the name Maximum Traffic. His massive comix anthology Truth Be Known was published under his imprint in 1997. He flattered me by including some of my work in the book. But he changed his tag to Buzz Buzzizyk quite some time ago and has expanded his artistic talent to other mediums-- including producing coins out of clay.

Not too long ago he asked if he could use Morty the Dog's image on this coin of the obscuro realm and of course I was thrilled. Here we see a sampling of this very loose change, along with an image of the reverse sides.

Also-- talk about pushing someone's buttons!

When I basically went underground and practically vanished from the comix radar for a few years, Max (as I still call him) never gave up writing and sending me art.

He recently granted permission for me to scan and post our jams, so there will be some pretty wild work in posts to come. His stuff will wake you up.

If you want to contact Buzz and ask about his coins, or any of his other work, he can be reached at: 130 Short St., Butler, PA 16001

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Help! There's a big fish filling up the next room!

Monkey Trap

My, my my, I sure didn't have big printruns in the early part of Century 21. A whopping 15 copies of Monkey Trap chugged out of my little copier on Feb. 20, 2001 (3 blue, 3 yellow, 3 pink, 3 red, 3 green).

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. in June 2005 had 5 copies (4 blue, 1 yellow).

This was my last comic before the big earthquake on Feb. 28, 2001. Perhaps it was an omen?

The original art might still be hidden somewhere in my cluttered studio, but who knows? Perhaps I'll don a pith helmet and explore the place this year. Anyway, I think the comic was drawn with a mixture of #1 lead pencil and felt tip. I'm guessing all the printed images were enlarged from very tiny originals.

The idea of just starting right into the story, without a traditional comic cover, appealed to me. And having the title added as an afterthought made it almost seem like a punchline.

I still have wait several more years before I know what this comic is about. But I still like it.

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