Saturday, October 31, 2020
CALENDAR PAGE
It starts out as a page in a monthly planner book. Then I write down things I need to do. Then when I do the thing, I scribble it out. Or when I don't do the thing, I scribble it out and write it down for the next day (and the next day, and the next day). When a day is done I cross it out with an "X." As the month wears on I add colors out of boredom, using pens, markers, and watercolor brush pens. At the end of the month I tear out the page, rip it into small pieces, and throw the pieces away. This time I scanned a page before destroying it and discovered, too late, that the art is worthy of the Louvre, and I've foolishly thrown away hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.
OUT OF THE PAST
The second cartoon from the left above is from many years ago when I did a guest week of Bizarro. For some reason Funny Times just ran it with the color removed.
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Well, this is a little weird.
I just came across this clipping from 17 years ago in the Detroit News., featuring a comic strip I did from 2000 until 2005. The strip's ORIGINAL title was indeed Go Figure, but it turned out there was another strip (in Hawaii only) with that same name that neither I nor United Features Syndicate found in our Google searches. Either right before launch or shortly after launch, the woman who did that strip threatened to sue us unless we either stopped using the name or paid her $15,000. (I believe) and agreed not to run my strip in Hawaii.
My syndicate and I decided to change the name. It was an easy decision. I came up with Go Fish.
Apparently the Detroit News never got the memo, and the woman in Hawaii never visited Detroit and picked up a newspaper.
