Hegel & Jekyll Original Art in Mortyshop, ca. 1983-1985

Before

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After

Read all the sordid details in the Mortyshop write-up.

Update: SOLD!

Phone photo 292

Days of Family Past

Retreads 14

1st edition, December 2005, 25 copies, white cover, regular digest size.

The final issue of this series so far.

There is a strong possibility there will be no issues in the near future for couple reasons. First, I have not been very active as a cartoonist in the last few years. Retreads was a place where I gathered up my comix work that has been published hither and yon. Since 2005 my showbiz energy has been more in the text arena: online at OlyBlog and in hardcopy at Olympia Power and Light.

Secondly, I stopped keeping bibliographical track of my work after October 2007. Since I'm a professional catalog librarian by profession, naturally I kept a running list of all my work for decades. But in 2007 I decided to stop in order to present future bibliographers who give a damn the joy of the hunt for locating the work of my senior years as I slide down the back forty toward oblivion. Hint for an obscuro one: toggle on the logo at the online The Jim and Frank Podcast to catch fellow Washingtonian Pat Moriarity and myself.

Phone photo 291

A Visit to the Danger Room

That's Casey on the left, Frank on the right. These are the Danger Room guys. They love comix and have a section of shelves set aside just for us obscuro cartoonists, helping to get our comix out there without permission from the big publishers and distributors. They are both also keen observers of comix as social indicators.

As you can see by the photo, Frank is the chief storyteller, armtwister and Sam-I-Am here. Somehow he talked me into providing the store with Danger Room Reprint editions of over 120 titles in 2005. Actually, he also talked me into finally attending the Oly Comix Fest, and hey, I like green eggs and ham! I do, I like them, Sam-I-Am! So you can thank Frank for reviving all those titles and getting me out on the local comix scene in person.

The 2005 Danger Room Reprint editions are no longer available there, but I do supply them with copies of the recent material I've printed like Dog of Dawn, Dog of Dusk and Natural Functions.

Yesterday I dropped off a couple copies of We Rode With the Clowns and took these photos.

The Danger Room is also where I first met Chelsea Baker, another cartoonist who migrated to Oly in order to attend the Evergroove State College. Not only is she one of the organizers of the Oly Comix Fest, but she also contributed to We Rode With The Clowns. You can find her cartoons in Olympia Power and Light, a local biweekly.

201 4th Avenue West
Olympia, WA 98501-1003
(360) 705-3050

Phone photo 290

Sam's Canal

Retreads 13

1st edition, December 2005, 25 copies, white cover, regular digest size.

Trivia:

Cover, etc.: There are several images here from the final Morty Comix of the 20th century. Some of them were drawn in Kent, Columbus, and Worthington, Ohio during a business trip in November 1999. Interesting these should surface as I prepare to visit the Buckeye State again next month, but this time for fun-- SPACE!

Page 7: This was an unfinished story originally comprised of perhaps 4 pages. After I decided not to complete the thing I turned it into a Morty Comix.

Page 11: The gentleman with the flute is a portrait of John Barcellona and was used on a poster for an Olympia, Washington concert.

Page 12-13: A guide to Morty Comix originally compiled for OlyBlog.

Page 16-17: Clay Geerdes talked me into interviewing myself, but obviously I wasn't really in the mood at the time.

Page 20: In addition to this newspaper ad I also painted a big sign in color for Salt Creek Farm that had the same basic design as this panel. You can find the owners of this farm on pages 21-23 of How Two Ex-Presidents Went Up My Nose.

Pages 22-23: I miss Loafers in hardcopy and enjoyed drawing covers for them.

Phone photo 289

Retreads 12

1st edition, November 2005, 25 copies, white cover, regular digest size.

Trivia:

Page 3: Hey, you draw cartoons! Draw a cartoon for our boss who is leaving. And make it look like Calvin and Hobbes. We need it in 45 minutes.

Page 13: The Mona Lisa rubber stamp was made by Kevin Wildermuth.

Page 17: It appears Maximum Traffic took a Morty Comix drawing and enhanced it into a minicomic cover. He also provided the caption for the white buffalo images I sent him.

Page 20, panel 1: A quote from Bob Dole's speech at the 1996 Republican Convention. The thing I always liked about Dole is that he was a mean-spirited, cranky old S.O.B. who always mentioned himself in the third person. And winning new voters to his base was apparently not important to him as he insulted major chunks of the American demographic with obvious glee. I particularly enjoyed watching Dole and Steve Forbes during the 1996 primary season debates, quite the comedy team.