Morty the Dog

Friday, May 27, 2011

Phone photo 447

One of the Knights of Veritas in armor mode

Bezango: Life Lessons From Roosevelt Elementary

Olympia Power & Light, Dec. 16-29, 2009. The school building shown on OP&L's webpage is the recent incarnation of Roosevelt. I have yet to find an online image of the Roosevelt I attended.

When the school celebrated it's centennial a few years ago, a nice history was assembled, including this bit:

Over the years, Roosevelt School has had a number of building additions to make room for its expanding student population. In 1949 Roosevelt received the first new elementary school building in Olympia's modernization program. The new school was made out of brick and had one floor with no steps or ramps. The classrooms were painted pastel shades to give "a cheerful and homelike atmosphere". The district boasted that it was the safest type of building being planned. Families rapidly built houses in the neighborhood so they could send their children to the new school. Roosevelt's student population increased 32% between 1948 and 1949. When the new school opened in 1949 there were 395 students enrolled. Although the school had the most modern facilities, it lacked a public address system. Roosevelt's innovative principal Wilfred Reeves would go down the hall on roller skates to notify teachers or students when they had a phone call. Luckily the PTA was able to raise sufficient funds to install a public address system. Forty years later in 1989, Roosevelt opened another new school using a special floor plan where grades were clustered into three pods; one for kindergarten and first grade, one for second and third grade, and one for fourth and fifth grade.

I bolded the roller skate part. That sentence not only demonstrates how long the halls were, but also Mr. Reeves' playfulness. Of course, when I remember the principal he was quite old and finishing his career, but I can easily imagine him skating down the hall in his younger years.

A real-life, official Roosevelt School beanie!

Phone photo 446

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Bezango: Olympia Memories

Olympia Power & Light is a biweekly newspaper serving the Oly area. My Bezango column has been an irregular feature since the first issue. Here's my introductory piece.

The editors usually decide what the headline will be, as well as the illustration. Generally they leave my text alone. And guess what? They actually pay me!

As a result of my participation in OlyBlog as a contributor and moderator, I figured more Olympia readers would know me as stevenl than my real name, so there it is.

I believe I did request an image of Morty the Dog to accompany the logo, which is now a regular icon for the column. Co-Editor Meta Hogan found this one online and it really fits! It was originally drawn for the cover of The Almost Complete Collected Morty Comix (1984)

The main illustration for this debut essay was by an artist named Edward Lange (1846-1912), who drew urban panoramas and frequently filled the borders of his art with little advertisements, like this one.

Phone photo 445

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Washington Songs and Lore

I have the Abridged Edition of Washington Songs and Lore.

If I suspend this monograph over a plastic tub holding stagnant water it soothes my nerves.

Like abridged over tub old water, it will ease my mind.

Phone photo 444

Yakima, Washington, the city with vanity manhole covers

The Movie That Made Vincent Price a Horror Star

Here we see Vincent Price at the door of a structure built entirely of the Washington Administrative Code, known by the acronym WAC in Washington State circles of government.

And it was here Price made his breakthrough film in 1953, The House of WACs.

Phone photo 443

Two Minute Interview

Bill Donahue of the Oregonian gave some ink to the Bil Keane Watch back in 1992.

Phone photo 442

A restaurant, cigars, sports center, tuxedo shop, and tattoo parlor! All conveniently next to each other for one stop shopping!

Yakima, Washington

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

New Jam Comic Still Alive, Honest

As some of you might recall, last February I compiled and published a Morty the Dog blog jam called We Rode With the Clowns. Shortly after that I sounded a call for contributions for a second book.

Yes, that book is still alive. The script is now finished and I'm hoping to get it into print in the next month or so. The contributors are: Anvil (she created the above image), Harry Bell, Bob Vojtko, Dan W. Taylor, Steve Stwalley, Ed DeVore, Roldo, Marc Myers, Bruce Chrislip, Chad Woody and Brad Foster. Is that a great lineup or what? Hopefully my script will do these wonderful artists justice. I still have to create my linking illustration and captions.

In the meantime, any graphics that arrive from this point on will find their way into a third jam book. Basically, just send me an image, any drawing that I can present before a mixed audience, and than I'll link the randomness together into a story like the Clowns book. This next one has a tighter story than the first. So stay tuned.

Phone photo 441

El Taco Loco
Yakima, Washington

I love the window art

Lynn Hansen's Beatles Collection

Lynn Hansen didn't just collect undergound and Newave comix, he also acquired anything to do with the Beatles.

This article isn't really quite accurate:

First, Lynn didn't leave a will regarding his estate, so far as I know. The earthly possessions he left behind were distributed by his father, Ralph. It so happened that Ralph and I had met independent of Lynn at a librarian conference in Eugene, Oregon about ten years before Lynn died. By 1995 Ralph was retired. I think he had been Head of Technical Services at Boise State University.

Being not all that familiar with Lynn's comix and music collections, Ralph approached a few of us who were Lynn's friends and asked our advice. That Lynn's comix would go to Washington State University seemed a natural choice, since he had been a generous donor when I worked at WSU and was building the collection.

But the Beatles collection was a different kind of problem. Lynn had a zillion bootlegs, which would've made selling the stuff problematic for those of us not as schooled in the nuances of the trade. WSU seemed like a good home for the Fabs material, and the school accepted them.

An inventory of the collection can be found online at the WSU website.

A couple years after acquiring the collection, WSU held an exhibit of some of the material.

Secondly, Lynn and I did not meet at comics convention. Rather he first contacted me in 1981/82 when I was living in Seattle and he was in Idaho Falls. We quickly became regular correspondents as he ordered copies of every comic I published. We first met in person around 1983-1985 in Idaho Falls at his place. Over the years he was our house guest here in McCleary several times.

OK, I've set the record straight now. And even after all these years I still miss the guy and continue to wonder about many of the little mysteries he left behind.

Phone photo 440

Monday, May 23, 2011

Brian Rainville on the "Wild World of Obscuro Comix"

Olympian writer Brian Rainville tried to prepare the unsuspecting citizens of Olympia for the lecture I was soon to unleash upon them, entitled "The Wild World of Obscuro Comix" in 1993. Note the little "Willisy" detail about my brother, Bryan, and I in the final piece.