Morty the Dog in the Shadow of the Rainbow

This was a reprint of Starhead Presents # 1 (1986). Starhead published this one in 1992 under a new title, called it "second edition," and released it as a regular digest size book. The color cover was mounted and the inside covers were blank. The full wraparound color cover of the original was absent here. One of the more unusual physical specimens in the world of comix.

1st Danger Room Reprint edition, July 2005, 5 copies, green cover. In this one I included the original Starhead Presents # 1 info on the inside front cover, and note about the history of the comic on the inside back cover.

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Newave! + Morty Comix in Mortyshop

Today we have listed our second item in Mortyshop, the Newave! book with a bonus. Each one contains a Morty Comix drawn on the 1st preliminary page.

We are hoping to reprint another comic from the classic Newave era soon, some original art, and I'm currently investigating the possibility of having the Tragedy of Morty Prince of Denmarke republished in one book. At almost 200 pages it is the closest I've come to drawing what is now popularly called a graphic novel.

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just when you thought it was safe

Back a few years ago I witnessed a bright yellow fireball meteor streak across the sky overhead late one November night in Olympia, Washington. Never saw the like before or after.

Steve kindly drew up a sketch of what I reported, though I don't recall saying anything about a caiman. Here is his sketch on notebook paper, I've cropped out some of that meteor tail to focus on his sketch and not on my text notes.

Being chased by a fireball meteor is one thing but imagine being chased by a caiman driven fireball meteor! Chilling thought.

Teaching Comix

Some time during my stay in Pullman, Washington (1983-1986) I was asked to give a class for junior high school (now called middle school) pupils about comic art. That started a whole sub-career for me of presenting lessons on comix technique and/or history to students from Kindergarten to college.

My favorite classes are for children from preschool to about 2nd grade. Generally speaking, the magic of comic art is still captivating for them. We cartoonists can communicate so well with this group of kids in classroom settings because we ourselves have never fully surrendered the kid within us to the outside world. Look at all the Oldwavers who are still active. We are now in the 55+ crowd, making us Senior Citizens in the eyes of Burger King and the Pre-Paid Cremation Services folks who send me junk mail (how do they find me? It's rather unsettling) , yet we still put a lot of energy into drawing funny pictures and being playful with lines on paper.

It probably helps that we are also the Boomers, the generation with the never ending adolescence.

I notice that around 3rd grade the children begin to ask about how to make a living at the cartoon game. The practical considerations begin early.

My most memorable presentation was to my daughter's 4th grade class. This is a very small town and most of the kids already knew me. At the end of the talk one little boy asked me to sing my underpants song, which of course I sang loud and proud. It has the tune of "She'll Comin' "Round the Mountain" and goes like this:

Oh, I haven't seen my underpants in weeks
Oh, I haven't seen my underpants in weeks
Oh, I haven't seen my underpants
Haven't seen my underpants
I haven't seen my underpants in weeeeeeeks!

All the girls covered their ears, except for my daughter, who crawled under her desk.

I don't know how many classes I've given over the years, but quite a few, including some at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, where I sometimes would print out special editions of As I Recall the 'Sixties not only as an example of how to make your own comix, but also for a couple history classes.

If you haven't already, I'd encourage my cartoonist comrades out there to take any opportunity you can to teach or talk about comix to your community. It's been my experience that people are predisposed to have fun when they know cartoons will be the topic presented, and who knows, you might awaken the sleeping cartoonist within one of the attendees.

The photo attached here is from a video of a cartoon class I gave at Lincoln Elementary, Olympia, Washington, April 17, 1987. That's Odd Dog on the easel.

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Centralia, Washington

The Wild World of Obscuro Comix

This is a VHS videorecording of a lecture I gave at a community event in Olympia, Washington, December 1993, sponsored by South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC). It is not on YouTube, and I'm sort of a klutz with the online video-to-computer graphics, so you are stuck with still shots taken by my phone while the thing is playing on my bulbous antique television set.

Actually I'm scheduled to give another local presentation much like this one in April except the focus will be more on Puget Sound artists in the prehistoric era of self-publishing, when we used to make our drawings on clay tablets and send them to each other via the Woolly Mammoth Express.

This video was included in my Cheaper by the Dozen reviews on OlyBlog. Here's what I wrote about it on September 7, 2008:

The Wild World of Obscuro Comix (Piece of My Mind) / directed by Steve Whalen (1993, VHS). Steve Willis. Originally presented as part of SPSCC's Piece of My Mind series. When I played this the cats left the room, my companion claimed she was, er, "tired" and needed to sleep, the house itself snored and even I got drowsy. This was me 15 years ago giving a lecture about the evolution of comic art leading to "Newave" or "Obscuro" comix. I was a college faculty at the time, so it is very lectury. I'm using an overhead projector, which gives you an idea of how exciting this is. When I gave this talk at the Olympia Community Center I had no idea it would be broadcast over and over on TCTV for a year. Otherwise I would've combed my hair. Only the most esoteric of comix historians would be interested in this presentation. I say "Um" a lot, which I tend to do in front of cameras. This video might still be available at SPSCC, otherwise, you are out of luck. Heh-heh. Bil Keane, City Limits Gazette, and Morty the Dog get a special mention. The first thing I noticed when viewing this was back then I had thick hair and a thin body. Now I have thin hair and a thick body.

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Alan Fiore-- Patron of the Morty Arts!

Once again we thank Morty the Blog reader Alan Fiore for dropping some smackeroos into the "Kibble & Cigars For Morty" donation box, enabling us to get closer to putting another comic in print-- and earning him the second book in a row where he'll be recorded in the publishing info as sort of a producer.

Dog of Dawn, Dog of Dusk was the first comic we have listed in the Mortyshop. I have found the master copies in enlarged digest size to some other comix from the 1980s and hope to have more items listed in the shop soon.

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Olympia, Washington

The Human Beings

1st edition, 1985, Garfield heights, Ohio : Joe Zabel. Published in two versions. One was on unfolded yellow letter size slightly heavy paper and stapled on the margins, another in enlarged digest size, white paper.

2nd edition, 1994, McCleary, Washington, published in regular digest form and available as a print-on-demand title for a couple years.

Special Fandom House edition, 20 copies were printed for Fandom House in 1994.

In going through my correspondence to get some background on this book, I was reminded that Joe Zabel was one of the most thoughtful of my correspondents when it came to the process of comic art creation. When he asked me to draw his story I was at first hesitant. Our styles of writing and drawing seemed too different to really blend well. He appeared to work from the cranium, I work from the gut. Also he was disciplined and I, well, let's face it, am sort of slovenly at the drawing board.

But he talked me into it.

This was a much different situation than the later writing/art collaboration I had with Maximum Traffic in Flying. In that book, the tone was already playful in the script, and Max had a good idea of how the thing should be laid out.

In The Human Beings, Joe gave me a serious and dramatic story. The actual script, which I apparently returned to him, was written like a play as I recall. He gave me a comix carte blanche and asked that I ad-lib some corn into the tale and could lay it out any way I wanted.

The result was one of the more unusual comix I've drawn. I can't say I've ever felt comfortable about how this book turned out, but working Joe himself was fun.

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Here we go again!

Another item I unearthed while engaged in studio excavation-- a few of these address change notices from June or July 1983 when I moved from Olympia to Pullman, Washington.

As you can see my inventory of available works wasn't all that much. I didn't keep titles in print very long in those days.

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Morning in Budd Inlet with the Olympic Mountains in the background
Olympia, Washington

Step Right Up!

Almost there. I need two more volunteers from the audience to contribute to the minicomic idea I first posed on December 15, and then was given a big shot in the arm by Brad Foster promoting it last week.

Here's the lineup of great contributions so far: Brad Foster, Roldo, Bob Vojtko, Harry Bell, Chelsea Baker, and Bruce Chrislip.

Several other artists have indicated an interest (including some amazing Oldwavers I'd love to coax into the project) and if I get more than two additional contributions, that's fine. I'll find a way to change my original plan or I'll just start a second book. Once again here are the specs:

One idea I have is to invite 8 or more artists to send me a page for a minicomic with a random image or images. I'd put all the pages together and form a story. It builds and expands the concept of the minis I drew with Dale Luciano at Dada Gumbo. If you're interested send me a page via email or snail mail. It has to be clean enough so I can show it to my aging mother but crazy enough to make my grown daughter roll her eyes and wonder when her Dad is ever going to grow up.

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Washington to JQ Adams

I found these fellows last week after I started the still-continuing excavation of my studio. I have no idea when they were drawn or what I had in mind during their creation.

Caricature has never been my thing, obviously. I don't think these portraits are particularly good, which is probably why I buried them in a corner of the studio. But they provide a springboard for me to talk a bit about my interest in history in general and presidents in particular. Only natural for someone who lives in a state named after George Washington, one of the greatest presidents.

They are drawn in pencil. The originals to Monroe and JQ Adams have yet to surface, but the photocopies of these two were with the others.

Jefferson was one of those presidents I always found fascinating for his contradictions and complexity. In the few trips I've taken Back East over the years, I count visiting Monticello as one of the highlights.

Here's what I wrote in 2008 when I reviewed Ken Burns' Jefferson documentary as part of my Cheaper by the Dozen film reviews on OlyBlog:

Thomas Jefferson / directed by Ken Burns (1997, VHS off-air). George Will, Gore Vidal, Daniel Boorstin, Garry Wills, Ossie Davis (Narrator), voices by Blythe Danner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Waterston, Julie Harris, Derek Jacobi, Arthur Miller, George Plimpton. A favorite subject for students of paradox, Thomas Jefferson remains one of the most enigmatic of our Founding Fathers. A visionary who was also a captive of his era, he articulated the spirit of American liberty and human rights in the beautiful Declaration of Independence, yet was a total racist when it came to Native Americans and African Americans. He was a champion of small government and states' rights, yet took matters into his own hands as President when ordering an embargo and arranging the Louisiana Purchase. A small army of historians and writers tell us how Jefferson's contradictions reflect the conflicts in the founding and early years of the United States. Such disparate characters as George Will and Gore Vidal share their insight. Ken Burns is one of the few documentarians that has such an indentifiable personal style, raising the sharing of history to an art form. I love the way he'll focus on some inanimate object and through the voiceovers give that item a lot of meaning. He really has a creative gift for telling the story. The choice of Ossie Davis as the narrator, with a voice that is elderly and not smooth, took me off-balance at first. No fault of Burns, but unfortunately I kept associating Ossie's speech with his character in Bubba Ho-tep ("I'm thinking with sand here!"). I've done the Jefferson pilgrimage: visited Monticello, Jefferson's grave, Williamsburg, University of Virginia. It wasn't until later I learned Tom and I share (with thousands of others) immigrant ancestors, Christopher and Mary (Addie) Branch who came to Virginia in the 1620s. So this American Renaissance Man is a distant cousin! Neato. Historians will probably never let the dust settle on Jefferson. Since this was filmed in 1997, DNA tests have concluded that slave Sally Hemings' children were fathered by a member of the Jefferson family. Just one of the many continuing controversies surrounding a man who served as President two centuries ago. I was really struck by Jefferson's radical educational vision in establishing the University of Virginia. I think he would've been right at home during the McCann years at The Evergreen State College when that institution had a more libertarian bent.

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Odegaard Undergraduate Library, University of Washington, Seattle

Self-Guided Tour of Historic McCleary

This is a project that never got beyond the rough draft stage, unlike the McCleary Time Capsule 1943-1963 or the McCleary 2002 Calendar publications.

Constructed with a typewriter and lots of gluestick, I have no memory of why this didn't get finished. It was meant as a blend of the description and the history of McCleary, Washington.

Since June 2000 a few things have changed since this was slapped together. Item # 1 has been torn down and replaced by a big housing development. Item # 14 burned down around 2003. In item # 25, the sign identifying the triangle as Eddie Biers Park was removed years ago. Few people in town today probably know the spot has a name.

You can print this off and still use the narrative as a guide if you like.

McCleary Tour

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