Morty the Dog

Friday, January 4, 2013

Morty Comix # 2495

Morty Comix # 2495 was fed to a couch in the lobby of the Library building at The Evergreen State College.

This room used to have a grand staircase that cascaded down from the west wall when I was student at TESC. You can see where the stairs landed on the floor by the discolored bricks.

This room was where I watched the dedication ceremony for Evergreen over 40 years ago.

It was the room where we as an Evergreen community in 1979 collectively bid farewell to our beloved friend and teacher, Willi Unsoeld.

This is the place I heard Gov. Booth Gardner reveal how much he admired rich pioneers and ignored the common folk. I know Booth is in a bad way these days, and I like him a lot as a person, but he was no Democrat. He always governed against the working man. In the Lockheed lockout he sided with Big Money instead of the workers. Gov. Gardner's record with labor was horrible.

Jane Fonda gave an "art presentation" here in 1975.

I recall coming out here and watching this building being constructed.

And there are many more memories associated at this place.

Being out here today reminds me, before I made Morty Comix my art bombs in Century 21, I actually started this practice at TESC in the 1970s. I drew a whole bunch of comix on sticky address labels and stuck them around campus, plus I drew odd posters and taped or tacked them around this place, and I also left several comix hidden in my apartment near school as I vacated the premises. So this genre of art distribution has a history here.

Phone photo 2178

Chehalis Reservation, Washington

Buttons - Misc. - 1960s

Prunes will set you Free

On the curl: Fargo Rubber Stamp Works, Fargo, N. Dak.

This button was presented to me during the period I drew a comic strip for the junior high newspaper. The central character was a superhero named Norman, The Wonder Prune.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Phone photo 2177

Centralia, Washington

Buttons - Misc. - 21st Century

Fear Me

On the curl: BT698(c)Kalan Made in USA

Phone photo 2176

Centralia, Washington

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Morty Comix # 2494

Morty Comix # 2494 looked like the kind of comic art that needed to travel, so I turned to my online card deck to help me decide where to send it.

The 5 of diamonds. Five. Our 5th President was James Monroe, the first of the subset of Obscure Presidents. Since this blog is basically an online Obscuro Comix, Monroe was the perfect choice Fate decided to use.

There are 17 counties in the United States named Monroe County, and I am guessing each one is named after the President. I whittled the list down to the counties residing in states I have visited: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia. I've been in Missouri, but only in the St. Louis airport changing planes and I won't count that.

Next card, 6 of hearts. Six. Ohio was the 6th state I listed. Hearts starts with "H" so I searched for a place in Monroe County, Ohio that starts with that letter and found the small settlement of Hannibal, on the Ohio River across from West Virginia.

I've actually been within about 40 miles or less of Hannibal in 1999 when I was driving north on I-77. Nearby Cambridge, Ohio was the home of Henry McCleary, who founded McCleary, Washington. The McCleary family farm now sits under an artificial lake created in the 1950s and is part of an Ohio state park.

Hannibal is nestled in some nice country.

I also visited Ohio during SPACE 2011, with my friends Bruce and Joan Chrislip as my hosts. In both visits I was impressed by how welcoming the natives of the Buckeye State were. My own ancestors lived for a generation or two in the northeast and southeast corners of pioneer Ohio on their way West.

Anyway, it turns out Hannibal is unincorporated and about a quarter of the size of McCleary (we have a bit over 1600 people here). So I simply searched for Hannibal online and chose the first place that popped up with an address, which turned out to be a vacant place of business up for sale. So I'm sending it care of the "Art Director," with a brief note, and hope whoever receives it has a sense of humor and an appreciation for the unexpected.

I submit that there will be no other comic art title harder to collect than Morty Comix. In March this serial will be 30 years old. And in a weird twist, it is the later issues that will be much harder to find. I am sure most of them have been thrown away since I have created this art form of Obscuro random distribution.

Phone photo 2175

Hoss Road, in Lewis County near the Thurston County border. The Hoss family were pioneers in Lewis County, and they were my ancestors, who if they could see me now might wonder why I wander the countryside hiding Morty Comix hither and yon. Actually, sometimes I sort of wonder too.

Favorite Movie Quotes: The Missiles of October

"Do you believe that over a month ago I designated this week as National Prayer Week?"

Phone photo 2174

Oakville, Washington

Buttons - Misc. - 21st Century

It isn't easy being weird.

On the curl: BUTR-769307(c)RPP, Inc.

Someone gave this to me. I can't imagine why.

Phone photo 2173

Oakville, Washington

Morty Comix # 2493

Morty Comix # 2493 found a nice little hiding place, making it sort of an under-the-counter culture comic, in the McCleary Post Office.

Phone photo 2172

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Buttons - Misc. - 1970s?

This unusual button in an Arabic(?) language was found, I think, in Seattle in the late 1970s. Any readers out there able to translate this?

Phone photo 2171

Near Summit Lake, Washington

Favorite Movie Quotes: Michael

"You gotta learn to laugh. That's the way to true love."

Phone photo 2170

Legislative Building

Olympia, Washington

Buttons - Misc. - 1979

Burlington,

Vermont

Taxi, Driver

License

2414

This was my I.D. button when I drove a taxicab in Burlington

Phone photo 2169

Morty Comix # 2492

Morty Comix # 2492 found a new home and enhanced a recent issue of Cat Fancy in the Centralia Timberland Library, Centralia, Washington. Outside the library is a memorial honoring the four WWI veterans killed in the Centralia Massacre, Nov. 11, 1919.

I had relatives on both sides of that tragic event where Wobblies and vets clashed. My great-uncle testified at the trial. His mechanic business was next door to the IWW Hall. In the early 1970s I interviewed several people who were involved, including three eyewitnesses to Dale Hubbard's murder and Wesley Everest's capture. I also learned about the prosecutors wiretapping the defense during the trial at Montesano and what they did with the info. All in all, a pretty sordid story, and one day I'll publish it.

Family trivia: My great-great grandfather once lived in a house at the present location of the gray building in the background of the last photo.