Morty Comix # 2533

OK, so I check to see if Morty Comix # 2527 is where I left it. Sometimes these Morty Comix sit for months before anyone finds them. The spot is at a phone booth in a gas station/minimart in Tumwater, Washington. Actually various places on this retail space have served as a depository for Morty Comix for awhile. I think I have left at least half a dozen in this general vicinity in the last year or so.

But wait, I see an interloper.

What should I find at the place where I left Morty Comix # 2527 but a Jack T. Chick weirdo minicomic! This one is called The Contract! and it is the second Chick publication I have found on this retail space this week. How deliciously bizarre.

So is this how the game is played? Two anonymous comix droppers in a turf war? One Obscuro the other Fanatically Religious? Then so be it. I accept the challenge with a sense of fun. It so happens I like Chick publications (for reasons the publisher doesn't intend, I'm sure) and send all I find to the Washington State University Comix Collection.

Morty Comix # 2533 has taken the game up a notch as I replaced the Chick comic with my own work at the phone booth the next morning. Perhaps this is just a brief conflict. Or perhaps not.

Phone photo 2281

"Hot Dogs! CORN ON THE BARBIE!"

Residue from last summer/fall flat on the ground

Tumwater, Washington

Billy Fugate 1954-2013

http://themoreheadnews.com/obituarieslanding/x503851768/William-Joseph-Billy-Fugate

Billy's profile can be found in the 2nd volume of the Newave Comics Survey.

Postcard - Everett, Washington

"Boeing Company, World's Largest Building, Everett, Washington. Nestled in the shadows of magnificent Mt. Baker and the Cascade Mountains is this 205,000,000 cu. ft. (volume) assembly building for the BOEING 747 -- World's Largest Commercial Jet Liner. It is 115 ft. high (ten stories), covers 42.8 acres under one roof and measures more than 1/4 mile in either direction. Each door shown in front wall is 87 ft. x 300 ft. -- nearly half the surface of a city block."

From 1979.

Everett native and presidential candidate Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, who served as a powerful U.S. Senator had a reputation as a Vietnam War hawk but was liberal on social issues. Locally we called him "The Senator from Boeing." 

Morty Comix # 2532

Morty Comix # 2532 was drawn on a piece of cardboard that had once been part of a container for a cat scratching pad. It was deposited in yet another abandoned telephone booth.

Tumwater, Washington.

Phone photo 2280

Tumwater, Washington

Favorite Movie Quotes - Last Orders

"Where's the luck, Amy? It's all down to luck."

Phone photo 2279

Heart Trouble?

When I was pumping gas this morning I looked up and spied this soggy Jack T. Chick publication waiting for me. What a thrill! I used to find these little guys all over the place in the 1970s, but these days they are far and few between.

Although I consider these little comics to be absolutely paranoid and insane, I do enjoy reading them. And I especially like the happy way I feel when I discover one. I am sure the way they are distributed was a big influence on my current method of releasing Morty Comix on the world.

Phone photo 2278

A Bad Apple in the Mac Store

Das Kapital Mall, Olympia, Washington

Postcard - Ellensburg, Washington

"Ellensburg, Washington. Aerial view of the 'Rodeo City' and Central Washington State College."

Definitely pre-1977.

Phone photo 2277

Morty Comix # 2531

Morty Comix # 2531 was placed behind a No Smoking sign in the commons area of a housing complex in McCleary, Washington

Phone photo 2276

Strike a Post

Das Kapital Mall, Olympia, Washington

Is it

A: A typo

B: A clever pun

C: Some kind of online lingo I have not caught up to yet since I am an old hermit and am not part of the Facebook universe

Favorite Movie Quotes: How the West Was Won

Mountain Man (Henry Fonda) hears a train whistle:

"That blamed whistle is like the crack of doom for all that's natural."

Phone photo 2275

Postcard - Ellensburg, Washington

"Bird's-eye view of the world famous 'Rodeo City'."

1970s?

Phone photo 2274

Morty Comix # 2530

 The distribution of Morty Comix # 2530 needs some explaining.

So I'm watching this super-epic film from 1962 called How the West Was Won. I have a Random House book that was released with the movie. Picked this monograph up long ago at some sale.

As I was viewing this Space Age celebration of Manifest Destiny (the movie ends with freeway traffic and urban sprawl portrayed as a good thing), I told myself I would send the next Morty Comix to the first city uttered by any character in the story.
 

And that city turned out to be Pittsburgh. Jimmy Stewart, in the role Linus Rawlings, Mountain Man, utters, "I kinda itch to get to Pittsburgh. I ain't seen a city for a long time. I aim to whoop it up a little."

Pittsburgh. Home to the amazing Wayno. A city that has been showing the art of Maximum Traffic. and a hop and schlep from the home of one of my favorite artists of the Newave Comix era, Mike Hill.

I am not a big fan of Stewart, but there have been a few movies where I could tolerate him. The Shootist, Shenandoah, Rope. I think I like him in those since he wasn't playing his normal Jimmy Stewart character. The guy could act if the studios gave him a chance.

Since his given name was James I sought out James Street in Pittsburgh. And once again Google's street view assisted me in finding a good home for a Morty Comix. Since they produce a product using more creativity than most, I selected a trophy store as the next random art recipient.

I have a lot of ancestors on both sides who lived in, are buried in, passed through the colony/state of Pennsylvania on their generational trek out here to the West Coast. One of my ancestors was supposedly converted to the Quaker faith by Penn himself. His grandson, another forefather of mine, ran off and wed a Shawnee woman, and became a frontiersman in Virginia. So the Quaker strain in my family was short-lived.
 

Off to the Keystone State for you, little one. I've been to Philadelphia but one day I'd love to visit Pittsburgh.

Phone photo 2273

Buster contemplates my battered 40-year old paperback dictionary, wondering if the word "Catholic" is pronounced "Cat-holic," which he interprets to be a cat-crazy religious corporation full of people addicted to domestic felines. And as such he expects all those old men in Vatican City will finally give the world Pope Buster! As you can see, he is striking a dramatic pose exuding leadership and grace. Frankly, I think they should appoint him.

Postcard - Ellensburg, Washington

"Ellensburg, Washington, Rodeo City. Part of the 'New Look' in Ellensburg is this modern Banking Facility. Ellensburg is also the home of Central Washington State College."

From ca. 1969, judging by the vehicles. CWSC was renamed Central Washington University in 1977.

The Liberty Theater, that white building in the center, was the subject of Phone photo 453 a couple years back.

Phone photo 2272

Morty Comix # 2529

Morty Comix # 2529 was slipped behind a poster in a defunct phone booth in the back hallway of a restaurant in Montesano, Washington. Note the surveillance camera in the final photo. I am sure that many of my adventures in distributing Morty Comix have been recorded by these grainy little devils.

Phone photo 2271

Favorite Movie Quotes: Seconds

"He was a quiet man. I think the thing I most remember him for were his silences. It was as if he was always listening to something inside, some voice. He never talked about it so I never knew what it was. Oh, he was a good man, he lived as if he was a stranger here, I mean, he never let anything touch him. Became absorbed in things, his job, mostly. He worked hard, he became more detached. There was a look around his eyes as if he was trying to say something, I don't know what. Protest against what he'd surrendered his life to? I never knew what he wanted, and I don't think he ever knew. He fought so hard for what he'd been taught to want. And when he got it he just grew more and more confused. The silences grew longer."

Phone photo 2270

Pacific Northwest Art Deco streetlight

Abandoned Olympia Brewery in background

Tumwater, Washington

Postcard - Deception Pass, Washington

"Canoe and Deception Pass bridges. Much of the tidal waters behind the islands of North Puget Sound rush back and forth twice a day through this narrow passage. Deception Pass State Park displays scenic beauty with the help of Mount Baker visible on the horizon."

In the 1970s, which is when I'm betting this postcard was created, we always figured that out of the five volcanoes in our state Mount Baker was the most likely to explode, since it seemed to be frequently steaming and shaking. The 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens was a bit of a surprise, relatively speaking.

Phone photo 2269

Art Deco totem 

Tumwater, Washington