Fish, fossils and really awful puns.

image-1If loving Ray Troll is wrong, I don’t want to be right. The Ketchikan-based artist is best known (up here, anyway) for his fish T-shirts, prints, pins and such. But he’s branched out to sharks, fossils, dinosaurs and evolution, all of it imbued with unmistakeable graphics and some truly atrocious puns.

Three of those mini-masterpieces, in the form of fridge magnets, make up this week’s giveaway.

These aren’t the flimsy kind given away by your local bank or dentist’s office, either. Rigid plastic, measuring 2½ by 3 inches, and emblazoned with pun-derful mottoes:

“Salmon: The Fish That Dies For Love” (see above — fish flinging themselves up a river strewn with hearts)

“Blues in the Key of Sea” (featuring a bass that plays the bass)

“Ain’t No Nooimagekie Like Chinookie” (a man, a woman, a couple of fish — cue that old Alaska love ballad, “Salmon-chanted Evening”)

My six degrees of separation with Mr. Troll comes from my days at the Anchorage Daily News. He designed an enamel pin for the reporters, a takeoff on the motorcycle motto of “Ride hard, die free” (often displayed with a skull).

Troll’s take on it: A skeleton hunched over a computer and the phrase, “Write hard, die free.”

Can’t help lovin’ that man. But not in a chinookie kind of way, of course. imageMy admiration is purely for his art, and his ability to turn almost any fish into a joke. Gotta appreciate a man who can paint a picture of a guy hauling in a barn-door halibut and write under it, “I like big ‘buts.”

To enter:

If you do any (or all!) of these things, please leave separate, additional comments to get credit for each entry.

The deadline is 7 p.m. PDT Tuesday, July 30. If I don’t hear back from the winners by 7 p.m. PDT Wednesday, July 31, I’ll pull another name.

The prize won’t be mailed until the following week, however. I leave Wednesday for the SaveUp13 conference. Maybe I’ll bring back oddments to give away.

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28 thoughts on “Fish, fossils and really awful puns.”

  1. As a transplanted Alaskan now living in California, I enjoy all kinds of Alaskana art, bad puns and truly stupid stuff. I would love to have one of these magnets!
    As we say in Alaska, “Spawn ’til you die!”
    Thanks!

    Reply
  2. I don’t even care about the magnet prize (although I’d love to win it) so much as a big THANK YOU for introducing me to Ray Troll!! Sweetheart and I have been giggling and figuring out how to afford an original ever since I opened your post today.

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  3. Since I have 5 grandkids there is ALWAYS a TON of stuff on my fridge. I know both my DDs would also LOVE to share in these to display their kids stuff.

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  4. Great. Now I can’t get “What I Did For Love” outta my head. “Fish today goodbye, and point me towards some mayo…”

    Sorry – best I could do on a Monday morning.

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  5. These would make a FANTASTIC addition to my fridge magnet collection! Thanks for another great giveaway, and for turning me on to Ray Troll. I will dolphinately check out his website. 😉

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  6. There is no type of humor as reviled and underappreciated as the pun. I’m proud to say I’ve always been a fan and am thrilled to find a new source of wicked funnies!

    Reply

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