Woof Comix

I published this jam with Steve Lafler and Max Haynes while I was living in Pullman, Washington in 1985, probably in February or March. 101 copies were printed on salmon colored paper. It has never been reprinted.

The three of us were all associated with dog cartoons at the time, and, come to think of it, we still are! Steve Lafler's Dog Boy was one of the more commercially successful series to come out of the Newave in the 1980s, being nationally distributed and gaining a following for his wild, high-energy stories and drawings. Max Haynes had a comic called Dog Slobber, as I recall, that had a subtle, quiet humor and nice brain tickler illustrations. And then there was Morty.

We had very different approaches to comic art, and this mini was more typical of the anarchy frequently associated with free form jam comix of the era. From start to end this was one spicy meatball, and I love Max Haynes' ending line, "Will you marry me?"

Phone photo 65

The "It's the Water" fountain at the old Olympia Brewery entrance in Tumwater has seen better days.

Tulpa

First published in 1990 by Starhead Comix in Seattle. My guess I had 4 pages left over from Raining Quills pt. 3 and this was used to fill the space.

The June 2005 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. had 5 pink cardstock copies and 1 regular white paper copy.

I'm not sure where this story came from. Maybe it was a dream. Black bears are all over the place around here. In fact, McCleary has an annual bear festival where bear stew is served. Seriously.

The tulpa first came to my attention when I learned about Alexandra David-Néel, an adventurer a century ago who wrote of her travels in Tibet and India. In short, she said a tulpa was a fictional character you could visualize until it became real, but they always turned bad and then they became extremely difficult to destroy. She claimed to have actually done this.

After my experience with Morty the Dog, I know how she must've felt.

Phone photo 64

What th--- ?!

This was mailed from Marrickville, NSW, Australia. It was addressed to the corporation above, in Hillarys, Western Australia.

So how did it wind up being delivered in McCleary, Washington, USA 98557?

To Touch the Face of Larry

First published in 1998, probably in August or September, 35 copies on cardstock (19 green, 16 yellow).

The 2nd ed., which was published a month or so later, had 15 copies on cardstock (14 grey, 1 blue). There is no edition statement.

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. of June 2005 consisted of 5 blue cardstock copies.

In 2006 the story was posted both on OlyBlog and Loafers Magazine.

It was drawn with a #1 lead pencil.

I'm very fond of this one. The concept came from Ann Hartman, a fellow McClearyite who told me her sister Ruth always imagined God to look like her Larry Fine (of the Three Stooges) hand puppet. So I took it from there and brought that idea to it's natural conclusion.

And just so you know, I like Curly but Shemp rules, man. Shemp smoked cigars and had a son named Morty.

Phone photo 63

If you look at the "patron bricks" on the walkway in front of the public library in McCleary, Washington, you'll find this name among the donors. It's in front the park bench, a place where you can sit and observe the parade of characters in this eccentric little town.

Throwback

21 copies were printed July 1, 1998 (10 blue, 11 pink). The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. of June 2005 had 5 blue copies. All printings were on cardstock.

This is not one of my favorites. I sort of based the bad guy on George Bush I and the hoity toit, tired, gutless and boring genealogical snobbery I have occasionally encountered. For the record, I had two ancestors aboard the Mayflower, and a ton of folks in Jamestown before that, as well as Shawnee forebears-- but I always liked that quote from political comedian Pat Paulsen (who was a native of Pacific County, Washington, right next door), "All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."

Anyway, I don't think this minicomic really worked. But the last page does suggest Morty is indeed not an individual but an entire breed.

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This Barbie boot has been on that hook on my kitchen ceiling for several years. I don't know how or why it is there. But I guess there it will remain until fate dictates otherwise.

Ted

This was my memorial for my neighbor, a World War II vet, logger, former mayor, and a big civic volunteer. I think this minicomic was the result of a dream, but I can't remember.

It was drawn with a #1 lead pencil.

Ted had a 15 copy print run on Mar. 25, 2001, 3 cardstock copies each on blue, yellow, pink, red, green.

The 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed. in June 2005 had 5 green copies.

Phone photo 61

One of the Ames brothers, created 30 years ago or so by Seattle artists Kevin Wildermuth and Stevie Webb. No, I don't which brother this is. He's in my garage and watches over my workbench projects. It's a long story and I still have to get ready to go to work this morning.

The Tall Elf

One of my favorites. Whatever happened to Ross Perot, anyway? That little guy brought a lot of entertainment to the world. I voted for Clinton in '92 and '96, but I enjoyed the way Ross stirred things up.

And for the record, this minicomic was around a good half decade before Will Ferrell's hit movie, Elf, which basically used the same premise or so I gather since I never saw it. I'm betting they didn't use the Joe Stalin/Karen Carpenter idea in the film, though.

So far as I know, all editions of this comic have been published right here in little old McCleary, Washington.

The 1st ed. was on yellow paper, 28 copies, in 1998, probably in May.

2nd ed. on creme cardstock, 23 copies, May 1998. No edition statement.

3rd ed., grey cardstock, 10 copies, 1998 probably in August. This is the one I've scanned and posted. No edition statement.

4th ed., 17 copies (12 blue, 5 green cardstock), 1998 probably in September. No edition statement.

5th ed., 26 copies (7 red, 16 blue, 3 yellow cardstock), March 5, 2000. The cover has a hastily written "Special SPSCC Ed." This was my last comic handout at South Puget Sound Community College during a class lecture (this one for an art class taught by Jane Stone and Bill Swanson) before I voluntarily left the safe and secure world of tenure in order to get some real life experience. It was a decision that might seem crazy on the face of it, but I've never regretted it.

The 6th ed. was the 1st Danger Room Reprint Ed., June 2005, 5 copies on pink cardstock.

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Raining Quills, pt. 3

I miss Bruce Chrislip. When Bruce and Joan lived in Seattle it was easy to get together and enjoy socializing. Bruce hosted several cartoonist get togethers and it was through these parties I got to meet many of the local comix people during an exciting period when Seattle was being discovered by the rest of the country and Fantagraphics had moved up here. At the start of the 1980s I felt quite alone as an obscuro self-publisher living in Seattle. By the end 1980s, there was a cartoonist on every block.

But then this funny, nice guy with the encyclopedic brain for comix trivia had to go and leave us for his native Ohio. Seattle has never been the same.

Mark Campos has become something of Seattle cartoonist icon. I personally don't feel any cartoonist gathering is complete without him. During the days when I edited City Limits Gazette (1991-1993) I realized Mark was one the greatest writers among us Newave/Obscuro cartoonists.

Mark, Bruce and I have similar simple drawing styles and sense of space, so our work blends together in this jam. Horst, comes from a different school, and his visuals really give the story an energetic shift. He has a gift for really packing a lot of info in a small area! And nice work it is too.

Published by Starhead Comix in Seattle in 1990.

Phone photo 59

This little stand was built by a guy who was the previous resident of a house I owned here in McCleary from 1986 to 1994. He was a World War I veteran and had lived here many years.

By the early 1980s he was a long time widower and had apparently been included in a circle of old fellows who had been befriended by a white supremacist nutjob. This young fellow must've thought McCleary was a nice place to hide out and do whatever sort of illegal thing he was doing. They say he made himself useful to several oldtimers by doing carpentry oddjobs.

The story goes that this young racist left town in order to stay at some compound filled with others of his ilk out in Missouri or Arkansas. But before he left he asked if our old guy would let him use his upstairs as a storage unit. So the elderly vet agreed.

Shortly after this junior Nazi departed town, the old fellow went to the Post Office and fell dead as the result of a heart attack. His nephew inherited the house and found some interesting things upstairs, chiefly explosives, firearms, napalm detonators, etc. The FBI and Fort Lewis came and cleaned the place out. The neighbors told me Feds told them that if that house had caught fire half of McCleary would've turned into a crater. I assume the guilty party was apprehended.

Anyway, the explosives storage area later became the same place where I conducted all my comix business, including editing City Limits Gazette, from mid 1986 to mid 1994.

So as a token of that local lore, I still have the old fellow's little homemade stand and his homemade fishing pole.

Raining Quills pt. 2

It's those damn porcupines again!

This series was a different kind of jam. I drew the the first page with Augustus in a wheeled bathtub trapped under a rainfall of dead porcupine quills. Then I copied it five times and sent it to five different artists around the country. My aim was to have 5 minicomic jams, each with 5 artists, but all of them starting with the same premise.

Four of them made it back. And so far I have permissions from all the artists in two of those issues. I am grateful those cartoonists could be found after 20 years.

All four of the minicomix that made it back home were published by Starhead Comix in Seattle.

This one, part 2, was initially sent to David Tosh in Texas. He sent it up to Pittsburgh, where the incredible Wayno got his hands on it. And from there comic went to his fellow Pittsburgh area cartoonists the single named Stanley, and Mark Daniel.

This issue also has a rare accidental edition. I don't know how many copies exist, but apparently some of them included Morty Comix #1882 in the final pages. I've scanned one of those here.