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For a while now I have been contemplating Clarissa’s story, and where it will lead. My preference would be that it not even continue.
The trouble is that Clarissa wasn’t supposed to have a story to begin with. She was the star of a tasteless, one-off joke that couldn’t possibly be topped. And then Stuffed Friend unearthed a vein of gold hidden inside the premise, and then the goddamn Internet got a hold of Clarissa and started making its demands, and then she got her own page on TvTropes and, well… now I’m stuck with her.
If that sounds disrespectful, believe me: Clarissa wishes she was rid of me as well. But here we are: a critical mass of people want to find out how Clarissa’s story ends, heedless of the fact that it could well end in a far worse place than poor Clarissa already finds herself.
And so, as they say, “once more unto the breech.” But if I am going to toss Clarissa into the grief blender yet again, the least she is owed is the promise that I will set the damn thing on purée and let it run.
I’ve had new characters, scenes and moments bouncing around in my head for years now, but no coherent thoughts on what they all add up to. It will only be as I sit to write the story that they will, hopefully, fall into their natural slots. The interesting thing I’ve found about writing is that if the story is good, you do not so much write it as un-write it; slowing the tornado of your mind and letting the parts settle where they will, like bricks building a house on their own, with me there only to trowel on the mortar.
Part of what has delayed my progress on continuing the story is trying to figure out what to do with the rest of Clarissa’s family– her mother and two brothers, who are as much he victims of Clarissa’s father as she is. There characters came to life in vivid detail for me in Family Portrait, and I have been intimidated at the possibly of having to write the long, time-consuming arcs that their own stories might demand. I would not want to begin exploring their own characters and not finish the job, as I have a tendency to underestimate the burden of the stories I begin. (see Weapon Brown.)
I think I will solve this problem, at least for the interim, by stepping away from Clarissa’s well-established nightmare home life to explore Clarissa’s inner life. You might be surprised to find out that after all these years, I still do not have a clear idea of what Clarissa makes of all that is happening to her. I probably haven’t examined this aspect of her story simply because Clarissa’s circumstances being what they are, I don’t know yet how to give her agency.
As I explore this new territory, I have also been contemplating the terrifying prospect of giving Clarissa… a friend.
This subject is more fraught then you might imagine. The potential for undercutting my own tone and causing the story to take a turn for the cutsey (to say nothing of the “wootsy”) is very real.
Even as I write this, different notions of where such a development could lead are swirling like debris in my tornado brain. But in all that clutter, one idea is still entirely absent, that being probably the most critical thing needed to bring Clarissa’s story to its conclusion: I have absolutely no idea how things will finally play out between Clarissa and her father, especially since having him to freeze to death in a hedge maze (my original idea) was apparently already done in some movie.
All this emotional freight, and I still have to make Clarissa’s story–the topic of which makes a visit to the dentist seem like a weekend at Disney World in comparison–somehow funny. Can you blame me for dragging my feet?
Well, even dragging feet will make progress if they drag long enough. In October, Clarissa’s next chapter begins whether or not either of us wants it to. Hopefully someone does.
You think I have forgotten all my mothballed projects, but you are wrong! I dust those mothballs every day so they stay nice and fresh and can do their job of preserving the projects they have been sprinkled upon.
One such project is obviously Kobayashi Maru, which I halted three-quarters of the way through its first storyline when I realized that I was tackling too many projects at once. But it is hardly gone for good! I will be debuting the conclusion of the story soon after Deep Fried’s ”Kiss & Makeup’ storyline wraps, and (knock duranium) Kobayashi Maru will return in glory in 2020.
Here’s some fresh sketchbookery from the project. This is “Herbert”, a character who will be introduced in the next storyline. The first person who correctly identifies the Star Trek reference I am employing here (no fair running to Memory Alpha!) will win my coveted “brownie points” award.
A good magician always gives away his secrets! At least, that’s what my penniless uncle, The Great Floppo, told me!
(If you were a subscriber, you’d get to see flotsam like this every week!)
The salons of Paris never boasted such a display of wine-sipping snobbery as took place at Rochester’s glamorous Creativ Framing gallery yesterday, where my artwork was the toast of the town!
A big “thanks” to all the friends and fans who stopped by to enjoy my work and nibble tiny carrots (although as you can see, my inner circle of hoity-toity aestheticians were lukewarm on my growth over the past couple of years).
The show will be up for the next two weeks. If you live in or near Rochester, NY, stop on by!
Cartooning should be a crime! If you live in or near Rochester, NY Come see my artwork and become my accomplices! My show (with co-talent Winston Tanner) premiers this Friday at 7 pm in the Creativ Framing gallery at Made on State (510 State St., Rochester NY).
My subscribers receive more sexy weirdness than a decent cartoonist would expose them to!
Behold, a glimpse at next week’s strip! The Hive Mind appears shocked! Shocked at what? AT WHAAAAAT??
Here’s a sneak peek at next week’s streep!
Ohhhh, if you folks who aren’t my subscribers only knew what you were missing!
As many of you who have read the blog post below this one know, MAD magazine is folding like one of Al Jaffee’s trademark fold-ins. Whoops, there goes another rubber tree plant! (Or as MAD themselves would have put it, “ShlaBOINK!! There goes another squamish pritz!!!)
Also, there goes another client for yours truly! So now is the time for me to get serious. I am going to step up my game and get this site updating with two strips a week to keep you coming back! (I want The Hero’s Journey completed almost as much as Roadkill wants to start peeling his quarry like an onion!)
It will take me about a month to get into that groove, as I have to bank some content, but I’m ready if you are! And there’s more: I am going to start putting out even more content on this site with the goal of getting Whatisdeepfried.com self-sufficient by the end of the year. But that will be up to you!
After 67 years, MAD magazine is packing it in.
As a client, MAD was the crown jewel of my very thin resume, and cartooning for them has definitely been the high-water mark of my career. I am proud of the features I created for them, and especially proud of the ones that seemed to really hit the public’s funny bone, such as Scooby Don’t and Detective Slow-On-The-Draw.
I’ve also had the rare distinction of helping pull the plug of both of MAD’s ventilators: appearing in the last New York-era issue published out of their Mad-ison Avenue offices, as well as in the eighth and nearly-final issue of the Burbank, CA relaunch that began last year when parent company Warner Bros. moved the operation across the country (a move which did not include almost any of the editorial talent that had steered the ship for decades.)
But even as MAD kicks the bucket, I still managed to scratch one goal off my own bucket list: dropping cameos of my favorite Internet personalities– Mike, Jay and Rich of Red Letter Media— into the background of “The Preposterous Palpatine Plothole” comic that I crafted with my friend and fellow NY MAD alum Jon Bresman. Talk about good timing!
Now, some might say that the common factor in MAD‘s repeated morbidity was my appearing in it, but we all know who really staked the magazine through the heart: Pete Buttigieg.
Just recently, Mayor Pete, in an effort to zing Donald Trump for comparing him to Alfred E. Neuman, told the press that he didn’t get the reference. “I’ll be honest. I had to Google that,” he said, in what was probably number three of the five daily salats he performs to prove his hipster bona fides to the kids. (The guy is nearly 40– he knows who fucking Alfred E. Neuman is.)
Did Buttigieg hand-wave MAD out of existence? If so, the joke is on him. The only thing worse than being in MAD was not being in it. And for a guy who is so earnest about appealing to the youngins, you’d think he’d have been more interested in showing up in MAD. It might have given his run for the White House some much needed traction.
MAD, you cracked Cracked, whacked Wacko, sicked-up on Sick, and, in a rare moment of generosity, helped Crazy get on the meds that have turned their life around. You were the Alpha and Omega of childhood bad taste. We shall not see your like again.
But by the grace of the Neuman, the Kaputnik and the Holy Klutz, I can say honestly and with pride (plus a little dyspepsia): ME NOT WORRIED!!