Comix Wave Index 1983-1993 / compiled by Gary Usher

Another work by Gary Usher, one of the great bibliographers of Obscuro comix.

This title was one of my print-on-demand offerings 1994-1996, so there is no telling how many copies exist. I'd hazard a guess at somewhere between 50 to 100.

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Jackson Brewery Building
aka Jax
New Orleans

Steve Willis and Morty the Dog : Sometimes You Feel Like a Mutt / by Bruce Chrislip

An article Bruce Chrislip wrote for The Comics Journal # 219 (January 2000).

A nice way to say goodbye to the 20th Century.

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Mississippi River
New Orleans

The Old School / by Robert Boyd

As part of his "Minimalism" column in The Comics Journal # 183 (Jan. 1996), Robert Boyd covered a couple of my books as well as some comix librarianship activity.

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Mississippi River
New Orleans

Groening on Evergreen

Recently reread this part of Matt Groening's Comics Journal interview in April 1991 where he talks about his time at The Evergreen State College. He's pretty dead on when describing then place back in the 1970s.

I actually recall copies of Arcade sitting around the office of The Cooper Point Journal, the student newspaper Matt edited. Now that I think about it, they probably belonged to Matt!

Matt is being modest here. I was acquainted with Matt and Lynda before they knew each other, and although Matt's chief ambition was to be a writer, he was already into cartooning. Lynda was multi-talented in drawing and writing with a desire to be an art teacher, and Matt, I believe, encouraged and promoted her entry into cartooning. But they did provide each other with a lot of creative spark and energy.

I was some local rural hayseed with barbed wire holes still in my jeans, dazzled by their banter. But they were nice to me anyway.

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Mississippi River off the Moon Walk
New Orleans

The Comics Journal Reading List

I was asked to contribute to The Comics Journal Reading List for three years in a row, 1990-1992, and for three years in a row I was a smartass jerk about it. Then they stopped asking me. I wonder why?

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Comic Art Collection

One of the publications that made me feel right at home and not so isolated when I began organizing the Washington State University comix collection in the early 1980s was a periodical called Comic Art Collection.

Edited by my fellow librarian Randy Scott, this was "a newsletter from the Russel B. Nye Popular Culture Collection" at Michigan State University. I was able to point to the existence of this serial as confirmation to my nervous WSU fellow faculty as proof comix were a valuable part of the human experience and worth preserving.

MSU was a real beacon of hope for me back then, and Randy, whether he knew it or not, was something of a professional role model for me.

The publication ran from 1979 to 1992, then changed title to Comic Art Studies. I drew Morty for the Feb. 2, 1985 issue, and wrote a short piece for the August 1988 issue.

Randy, also known as Randall W. Scott, has written several books about comic art librarianship and cataloging.

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Bourbon St.
New Orleans

50 issues of City Limits Gazette in Mortyshop!

And none of them are creased in the middle. Check it out at Mortyshop.

SOLD!!

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Jackson Square
New Orleans

Morty goes Kindle

Someone out there in the wonderful web world has formatted four of Steve's comix for Kindle e-reader use.

If you don't have a Kindle you can still view these books with Kindle for PC.

I grabbed copies and stashed them in our Google Docs, follow links here and feel free to download and enjoy.

Storm Warnings
Morty, the Dog Who Walks Like a Man
Lordy, Lordy, Where's Mr. Morty
Eternities of Darkness

The Collected Bil Keane Watch vol. 5

Initially released in a print run of 50 copies in 1994, mainly for the contributors. After that it was available as a print-on-demand title, 1994-1996. Frankly, I'm not sure if one can the difference between these two versions.

Also published in a 20 copy run in 1994 as a Special Fandom House edition.

Contributors to this volume include: Michael Drummond, Ken Clinger, Wayno, Bil Keane, Kel Crum, Randy H. Crawford, William Dockery, Maximum Traffic, Jeff Zenick, Mike Lee, Gary Usher, Greg Stomberg, Mark Campos, Bruce Sweeney, Ricardo Nancy McJacksonstein.

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St. Louis Cathedral
New Orleans

The Collected Bil Keane Watch vol. 4

Initially released in a print run of 50 copies in 1994, mainly for the contributors. After that it was available as a print-on-demand title, 1994-1996. Frankly, I'm not sure if one can the difference between these two versions.

Also published in a 20 copy run in 1994 as a Special Fandom House edition.

Contributors to this volume include: Dusty Rhodes, "Harvey," Jeffrey Kipper, Andrew Roller, Jeremy Pinkham, Maximum Traffic, Ted Delorme, Ben Adams, Mike Lee, Ted Bolman, Jeff Zenick, Tom Jansson, Asa Sparks, Ken Clinger, Randy H. Crawford.

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Jackson Square
New Orleans