THE SCHOOL SHOOTING STORY

I receive from time to time requests to see the first actual story arc I drew in "9 Chickweed Lane," which began on August 25th, 1997.  The idea for it began as a reverie on how Juliette would react upon hearing that her daughter had been accidentally shot as school.  The idea generated from there.  I considered and reconsidered it a lot, because "9 Chickweed Lane" had always been pretty much a gag-a-day strip, and never particularly dramatic.  This idea was a definite departure.  It was not intended as a social polemic or a political diatribe, but as soon as it hatched in the papers it was taken as both, and it made a lot of readers mad at me.  Most of their ire was caused by where they thought I was going to go with the story (not where I ultimately went), and I asked them to reserve their anger until the story had played out, then tell me what they thought.  I did not ask my editor at the time (not to be confused with my editor now or my editor previously) for permission to draw these strips.  The answer would have been "no."

You will see, of course, as you would with any strip that goes through an evolution over the course of years, that Edda, Amos, Juliette, et al., have changed in appearance.  You will also see Sister Aramus, who has since become Diane, wife of Francis Durly.  You will also see Amos and Edda's first definitely serious kiss.  They were 15 at the time.

Anyway, here are the strips.  If you click them, you should see a larger view.  I hope.

ON THE RETURN OF THE LOONS

It is the most understandable of reactions, when you tread in a mass of excrement, to look at the sole of your shoe and mutter, "Aw sh...!" It is a statement that, in all brevity, identifies and simultaneously offers critical assessment.

The same thing happens when you come upon a cartoon (for instance) that you truly deplore. You scrape it off your metaphorical shoe, offer your brief appraisal, and depart in disgust. That is the sane and appropriate response. Consider, however, the miscreant who returns again and again just to step back into the excrement and rail about it. This raises severe questions regarding his mental state, to wit that he is bonkers and wishes to draw attention to his condition without let or hindrance. We know these people. On my comics sites, the regular readers call them "trolls."

Tilting at trolls, I feel, does little more than to egg them on by blessing them with the attention they so desire; and although rising in defense of the cartoon seems only right and loyal, one wonders if insanity can be combated by talking to it. Perhaps it is just as well the insane take pot shots at a cartoon, rather than mete out their frustrations by urinating on people in bus queues or seeking public office.

If my little drawings can entice the repeated focus and ire of the seething wacko, perhaps I have not only entertained the loyal who enjoy my work, but given purpose and containment to citizens who might otherwise foam publicly at the mouth and screw around with tax legislation, or run Merrill Lynch. Call it my public service.

Brooke (not a candidate, and I pay my taxes)

Inquiring minds want to know.  What was the piece Edda and Amos played at the Concours Forrestier International in Brussels?  I have to admit, all the way through illustrating the actual performance, I heard the cello version of César Franck's Violin Sonata (which Franck offered as an alternative to the violin).  It wasn't deliberate.  I just couldn't get it out of my head.

I have drawn cartoons during which I couldn't expel "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island" from my mind, so I consider myself lucky.

Anyway, that's the poop.  In the drawing to the left, Edda and Amos are playing the final A.

THE UNCORRUPTED

A reader wrote to alert me that two Chickweed cartoons are corrupted online, one in the Houston Chroinicle archive, the other at comics.com. I exhumed the originals from my own cache, and post them here.

From 1998, the December 5 daily.

And from 2004, the number for December 24th.

THE KREUTZER SONATA

In today's cartoon (12/5), I pay homage to what I knew in my formative years as "The Tabu Ad," in the New Yorker (among other publications). It is, of course, not just a Tabu ad. The artist's name is René François Xavier Prinet.  He painted the work in 1901, and it went on to an illustrious career of shilling musk-laced scent.

Ignoring the fact that the gentleman with the fiddle is standing around the end of the piano, leaning over precariously to plant a smooch on his accompanist's scarlet wound of a mouth, while she begins to topple backwards, promising a scene but two seconds hence of both sprawled upon the floor amidst shards of violin and broken teeth – a moment worthy of Mack Sennett – there's still some mighty heavy breathing available in the image. I couldn't resist invoking it.

Really, to make it perfect, we just need the Keystone Cops, Stan and Ollie, and Ben Turpin waiting offstage, but, perhaps, another day.

Meanwhile, the question has been posed: Is the piano lid open in the last panel of the cartoon? Yes it is. It wasn't in Prinet's work, but I reached in and opened it. It may not be quite as open as it was in the first panel, but it's open.

THAT BALLOON IN BRUSSELS

PIBGORN REP: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Starting to think about Christmas?

Write to Pibpress@verizon.net

(with zip or location, number of books, which books)