Morty Comix # 2409

 Before

 After

Placed in the kitty litter section of an Olympia store

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Bridge over the Chehalis River with the Asian Haze approaching

Aberdeen, Washington

Morty Comix # 2409 - # 2415 Watercolor Series

Morty Comix # 2409 through # 2415 can be called the Watercolor Series. Before I post these things, they will require some explanation since the final products came out even weirder than normal, and even I will admit that is saying a lot.

Last year when Colin Upton told me "Color is for the weak," I really knew what he meant. So call this a moment of weakness while I was on a staycation.

First, I tied a string between a young elm that is sharing some kind of leaf disease with all the other elms in my yard, and a tree from the Southeast called, I think, the Devil's Walking Stick. This was a tree my Dad, may he rest in peace, gave me to plant. When a guy from Alabama fixed my garage roof a few years ago, he asked why I had this big weed in my yard on purpose.

Then, using some of the very same clothespins I employed in the Bezango WA 985 art exhibit at Batdorf and Bronson in Olympia several years ago, I hung up seven blank sheets of letter size typing paper.

What I was about to do has been on my mind for quite some time. A year ago, maybe more, maybe less, I had purchased a cheap watercolor set and a suction-cup toy gun. I laid them out with a styrofoam cup filled with water on an issue of our local weekly newspaper, the East County News.

I dipped the suction cup end in water and after that in the watercolor set. Then I took aim and fired at close range. I did this over and over, for about 30 minutes.

Yes, here's a case where a gun is really a tool for something good. The "gun is a tool" argument is frequently repeated by the gun crazies. In my situation, I was making something fun. But the real gun is a tool for one thing: wounding or killing someone. And that is not good. 

Here's the ironic part. I dislike guns and think the National Rifle Association is full of paranoid rightwing nutjobs with a penis complex. Oops, I was being quadruple redundant there. My review of Bowling for Columbine in Cheaper by the Dozen 6 pretty much summarizes my mixed feelings on firearms.

Anyway, here's an example of the results of my efforts. This sheet of paper eventually became Morty Comix # 2410 after I finished with it. You'll see.

Sarah happened to be here when I was performing this act of art, wondering what the Hell I was doing as I failed to explain what I was up to while she was visiting. So she took this photo since she is a journalist. I apparently did not inherit my Willis grandfather's deadeye aim when he had his famous 1931 shootout, killing two people and taking three bullets himself and living through it. Even at this close range, I still missed several times.

When this orgy of watercolor violence was over the toy gun was no longer functional. I'm sure members of the NRA can appreciate how Freudian that is. I had to throw all the supplies away.


At any rate, now you have the background on the next round of Morty Comix.

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Oldsmobile Futuramic

Favorite Movie Quotes: In the Line of Fire

"It doesn't work, Frank. God doesn't punish the wicked and reward the righteous. Everyone dies. Some die because they deserve to, others die simply because they come from Minneapolis. It's random and it's meaningless."

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Hoquiam, Washington

Asian Haze

Cliff Mass tells us the haze we are seeing here in Western Washington for the last few days is not from one of the area forest fires but instead traces back to Asia.

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Tidelands Resort sign with Sasquatch figure

Near Copalis Beach, Washington

The Sasquatch icon is a very popular one throughout Grays Harbor County.

Favorite Movie Quotes: Last Man Standing

"My fear is my curse. What's yours?"

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Dreamer celebrates Independence Day on my front porch

Favorite Movie Quotes: Who Framed Roger Rabbit

"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

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Buster and Hettie

Morty Comix # 2408

Morty Comix # 2408 was left under a loose floor tile found in a business in Aberdeen, Washington. This tile was next to a door. And the door was on the second floor and led to nowhere but a long fall.

I am sure there is an allegory or omen there if I invented hard enough.

The scene in the background is the Chehalis River.

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Charlie and Dreamer

Favorite Movie Quotes: All in a Night's Work

"But Harry, you don 't understand, it's not just tears. I mean I CRY. At weddings, at funerals, once I even cried at a hockey match. I don't know what it is or why I do it, but I'm very emotional."

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The Fab Furry Four

Has "Mostly Butter" become a reality?

My nephew Zach took this photo at the airport and asked if someone had swiped the "Mostly Butter" business concept I cooked up long ago. I first came up with the "Mostly Butter" idea back in the 1980s, but didn't communicate it in print, so far as I can recall, until 2002 in Bezango WA 985 #5.

(Click on second image to enlarge and read the scenario)

As it turns out, the "Butter London" business is apparently for nail polish. Perhaps they should change their name to "Mostly Nail Polish"? Or, "Butter Fingers"?

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Favorite Movie Quotes: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

McCoy overhears a discussion from two 20th century medical professionals in a hospital: "Sounds like the Goddamn Spanish Inquisition!"

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McCleary, Washington

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This Shelton, Washington scene reminds me of the weirdest TV ad jingle I ever heard. It was in the mid to late 1970s:

Fred and Barney are enthusiastically singing these lyrics in an ad for Pebbles cereal:

"When you put sweet Pebbles in your mouth
You'll never have rocks in your head!"

Morty Comix # 2407

Morty Comix # 2407 was a new experience. I placed an order at an Italian restaurant at the mall on Oly's Westside. Then I wandered outside while waiting. And I saw an empty alcove where there was once a cash machine, but now all it displays is an empty display frame.

So I place the Morty Comix, am served my food, and then get in the car to leave. But while in the car something new happened. For the very first time I actually witness someone discovering my cartoon bomb. He was a young, large security guy. He did a double take when seeing the comic. He picked it up, flipped through it, and smiled. He carried it for a couple hundred feet and kept examining it. Then he vanished behind a door on the other end of the building.

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A property owner of mountain timberland in Mason County, Washington decided the way to keep those thoughtless, selfish and destructive ATV and ORV riders out of his road was to block it with an old motorboat. 

Most original.

Morty Comix # 2406

Morty Comix # 2406 was a bit unusual. I had purchased a DVD of the 2005 movie Sahara at a library book sale, but the copy was too defective to watch. Which was too bad, because I enjoyed the 30 minutes or so I got to see before the disc freaked out. Give me VHS every time.

Anyway.

I flipped the paper wrapping and drew the front and back cover for the plastic container, and then included two more drawings in the package drawn on the vast supply of 1990s discarded Gaylord circulation cards from the library at South Puget Sound Community College I rescued from the recycle tub way back when. They were placed inside the container.

Then I placed the whole thing in one of those groady real estate brochure outlet booths in a very funky part of Tumwater, Washington. I have come to realize no one ever opens up one of these sad dispensaries, and putting a Morty Comix in there is equal to placing it in a time capsule, where someone will find it after the rest of us have been dead for a few decades.

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