Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Morty Comix # 2497

Morty Comix # 2497 needed to be sent somewhere out of the routine, and at random. So here's what I did.

 I took a long piece of wood out of the carport and set it up as a ramp in my living room.

  Then I went back to the studio and blew dust off my old World Book Encyclopedias.

This is the 1961 set. I purchased these for 4 bucks at a garage sale here in McCleary about 20 years ago, I think. 

Since I rarely go in my studio, Charlie timidly tried to enter the room-- a place he knows he isn't supposed to be.

Then I located an old toy car of mine, dating back to the late 1950s. A rare survivor of our 1965 house fire. I used this car as a model for Morty the Dog's vehicle in a few pages of Cranium Frenzy # 1 (1981)





The encyclopedias were arranged at the bottom of the ramp according to the thickness of the volume so all together they sloped down.

 I let go of the car at the top of the ramp.


 In an exciting moment it raced down, and came to rest on four different volumes.

And those volumes were H, J-K, L, and Q-R. That means Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky,  Louisiana, and Rhode Island.

  
So I suspended the ramp above the floor a few inches and placed the four volumes underneath. Then I situated wooden blocks on the top, two above each book.

 The contraption was seasoned with catnip. Yes, I was going to enlist the help of the Fabs.

Dreamer was first, and actually he quickly chose the winner by knocking the blocks on one of the tomes right away.

 Then Buster had to have a turn, but the blocks he knocked over missed all books.

 Charlie came over and just enjoyed the catnip.

Hettie, meanwhile, just watched the whole exercise, regarding it as a silly waste of time. In many ways she is the smartest one in this house.

 The winner was Rhode Island!

Rhode Island is our 13th state. So I picked the 13th largest city there, North Kingstown. In looking at a map I liked the sound of Spink St., but had to settle for a nearby address I could verify, which turned out to be a bank on a street with a much more boring name. So I am sending this Morty Comix to that bank, care of the "Art Director."

This February will mark the 30th anniversary of Morty Comix. I have sent them all over the world. But this might be the first time one has landed in Rhode Island.

Phone photo 2186


Morty the Dog Animation

Our long-time colleague from the Newave era, John Eades, is the first person I am aware of to completely animate a Morty the Dog story.

Check out his take on the 1984 minicomic, Lordy, Lordy, Where's Mr. Morty?

Phone photo 2185


Monday, January 7, 2013

Morty Comix # 2496





Morty Comix # 2496 was wedged under a chair in a fast food dining establishment in Tumwater, Washington

Phone photo 2184


Favorite Movie Quotes: Thirteen Days

"If the sun comes up tomorrow, it is only because of men of good will. And that's, that's all that's between us and the Devil."

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Phone photo 2183

Hettie and Buster are now 12 years old

Buttons - Librarianship - 2012

Federal Depository Library
GPO

GPO’s Superintendent of Documents and Assistant Public Printer brought a bunch of these to a recent meeting I attended.

Phone photo 2182

McCleary, Washington

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Favorite Movie Quotes: Pollock

"I don't use 'The Accident' because I deny 'The Accident.'"


Phone photo 2181

Cedarville area, Washington

Buttons - Misc. - 1990s

Here's my guess: This button might've belonged to my daughter, Rose, who attended school here in McCleary. The school's mascot is the Wildcat. Other than that I cannot begin to guess why this button is here.

Phone photo 2180

Cedarville area, Washington

Buttons - Misc. - 1989

Volunteer

On reverse:  (c) Fundwares, 1989

Phone photo 2179

Chehalis River Valley, Cedarville area

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

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