When I was a kid harboring dreams of someday creating a nationally syndicated newspaper strip of my own, I was forewarned by the Famous Artists Cartooning Course (a 24-lesson correspondence course I took while in high school) about the liberties individual newspapers would feel entitled to take with my future comic strip, no matter how well I were to write or draw it.

I was instructed to make certain panels — and even whole tiers of panels — expendable in the case of Sunday strips because editors would want the freedom to chop them up, rearrange the panels, and omit whole sections of the strip to save space. Succinct humor would be impossible; there had to be extraneous padding so that the jokes would still make sense after editorial amputations were completed.

I was told to make sure nothing important to a gag or storyline was placed in the bottom quarter-inch of a daily strip, since that section was routinely shaved off by editors who wanted to squeeze more features onto a page even if it cramped the effectiveness of each individual strip.

Then came the demand from editors for wholesale shrinkage of all syndicated comic strips all the time. No more Mr. Nice Editor. Page space was money.

Expertly drawn strips like Apartment 3G and Li’l Abner had to begin skimping on dynamic action and/or physical comedy. Atmospheric vistas of Manhattan and Dogpatch had to give way to endless close-ups of characters hunching awkwardly downward in their frames so that their expressive eyebrows would remain in view underneath word balloons that hogged more and more pictorial real estate (since you can’t shrink text too much or it will become illegible).

The whole mass diminutivization requirement was grossly insulting to a creatively transcendent art form that in its heyday had spawned timeless classics like Krazy Kat and Little Nemo in Slumberland — strips whose beautifully crafted imagery invited rapt contemplation whether they the pictures were spare or elaborate.

And the disrespect was made even more humiliating by the industry’s requirement that cartoonists cooperate in making the children of their imaginations ever more chop-uppable, rearrangeable, and ready to be mashed tightly into whichever jammed corners of their newspapers could be spared for such frivolous fare

Now of course, everything has been made easier by the digital revolution. Charles M. Schulz needn’t be involved at all in the mutilation of his honored offspring. All that’s required is some art department underling who knows how to mash a masterwork flat with Photoshop.

But maybe this kind of thing doesn’t happen in your local newspaper, just mine.

The opening reception starts this afternoon at 5.

But when I lived in Birmingham it was two cats named Flower and Thumper who helped me survive the breakup with my first love Don and achieve reasonable serenity on the Magic City’s southside.

To be the cartoonist I wanted to be, I eventually had to abandon Alabama to settle in New York City, where there were publishers aplenty if not decent barbeque establishments. It broke my heart to leave my cats in the care of others, but it had to be done.

I recently happened upon this flier, composed in December of 1976, and memories came flooding back.

CIRCUMSTANCES REQUIRE that I find a new home for my two female cats, Thumper and Flower. Sisters from the same litter, they are accustomed to an indoor existence complete with lots of affection, which they return lavishly once they have determined its sincerity.

Though they would consider it indelicate to mention themselves, they have both been SPAYED! Despite this they remain graced with a larger share of femininity and sensuality than many human beings who have never been under a surgical knife.

Thumper is a slender, sensitive calico, predominantly gray with washes of orange and white. Flower is a robust (might we say chubby?) black-and-white of gregarious temperament, with an Oliver Hardy black "moustache" on her white muzzle.

They both enjoy stalking any cockroaches that invade their domain, evidently inducing fatal heart attacks in the bugs through a process of terrorization that I have never witnessed first-hand.

They are very loyal to their litter box as long as the Hartz brand is prominantly displayed. They are ambivalent about Litter Green and make no promises.

They are accustomed to roaming freely about their home at velocities that vary accordiung to their moods and the time of day. They consider the sofa to be their furniture, too, very good for sleeping. Tops of refrigerators, obscure bookcases, closet shelves and window ledges are also employed regularly for siestas.

They are no strangers to the conjugal bed, though it is recommended that they not remain there while anyone is conjugating.

They do not like to be lifted. Sometimes Flower likes laps. Thumper, on the other hand, rides around on shoulders sometimes. Though Thumper is the more timid of the two, they are both excellent conversationalists when the impulse strikes (which is practically never) and both are unusually knowledgable about cartooning and comic books.

I am aware that many people are open only to the idea of raising cats from kittenhood. Yes, friskiness is fun. There is something to be said, though, for the more mature companionship of cats with already formed personalities and a certain graceful reserve.

If you think you might like to adopt Thumper and Flower, please contact me.

[EPILOGUE: A friend did take my kitties to live in her home in a forested suburban development on Birmingham’s outskirts. Thumper adjusted well, but Flower was soon seized with wanderlust and escaped into the trees, never to be seen again. My friend was distressed, but it was not her fault.

By the time of Flower’s disappearance I was far away in New York, soon to be art directing Starlog magazine.]