| …and appropriately so. Mell Lazarus’s genius was waiting to shine; the Alabama kid needed seasoning.
But what a thrill it was for a twenty-year-old to have a newspaper syndicate interested enough just to ask for a second set of samples. |
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Odd Things You Come Across During Home Renovation
Nobody under, I dunno, 40 will know what this sketchbook drawing from 1982 is talking about. Sorry about that, kids. I’ll cater to the Youth Vote another time. |
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Two quick notes to my blog readers
1. Sincere thanks from Eddie and me for the condolence notes left in the blog’s comments section last week, as well as for similar messages that have reached us by other routes. 2. I’ve lost so much time due to Evelyn’s death (and pressing work that got sidetracked because of her passing) that I may not be able to compose blog entries of any substance for a week or two. To avoid leaving a dreaded BlogVoid during this period, I’ll probably throw up raw, obscure artwork from my past for your amusement occasionally—like the sketchbook drawing above. ‘Bye for now. |
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| About this drawing: The picture above was drawn and printed in black-&-white for my personal Christmas card back in 1983. It’s been a favorite image of mine ever since, so this year I decided to give the old drawing a new full-color treatment. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for stopping by! |
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| I have no answer to that perfectly valid challenge. Clearly my impulse to get silly with the Spanish master’s signature facial deconstructions was insufficently sated by my use of them for my recent Open Studios promo art. | ||||
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| Hence my second Picasso spoof in a month (the drawing at right), which was my contribution to the annual $99 Sale benefitting the Soap Factory in Minneapolis.
I know, I know; I’m letting myself go wild in cheap-shot city! But having scavenged the Internet for Picasso reference in preparation for my Open Studios design, I couldn’t help myself. Once a cartoonist starts getting goofy with cubism, it’s damned hard to stop. |
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| Meanwhile, I’m still juggling all those tasks I’ve told you about, plus a couple more I forgot to mention. But bit by bit I’m chipping away at them. I’ve taught three of my night classes in cartooning at MCLA now and the fourth meets tomorrow (Tuesday). We had a bustling few days of Rosh Hashonah doings with family members from New York and Florida last week (yes, the indefatigable Evelyn was back up from West Palm Beach for a visit, this time with Eddie’s sister Susan at her side, and Eddie’s niece Jen drove over from Albany with her boyfriend Mike). Everyone pitched in devour a tableful of brisket, chicken soup, apples with honey, kasha, tsimmis, and chalah in celebration of the new year. Not that other new year with the paper horns in Times Square; I’m talking about the one that rolls around in September and marks the passing of five-plus millenia instead of a mere two!
And on top of everything else that’s been going on, I managed to get the first issue of the Cruse Art Newsletter completed and into the hands of my early subscribers on Sunday. |
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| See the cool Certificate of Appreciation they’ll receive to hang on a wall or refrigerator door as evidence of their support for the arts and for my personal morale? And believe it or not, I sold three pieces of original art showcased in the newsletter before the Sun rose on Monday!
America! Wotta country! |
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| NOTE: This is the last of my six Trev episodes from 1982. To read all of them in sequence, scroll down to my June 21 blog entry and then scroll upwards to this one. | |||
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| And so, with the prospect of "new revelations" lurking ominously like the sinister fellow diners at Tony Soprano’s last meal, we take our leave of Trev.
Had the Voice picked up the feature when I submitted it a quarter-century ago, this strip might have continued for years, possibly setting a world’s record for perpetual irresolution. Instead, I moved on to Wendel. |
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| NOTE: This is the fifth of six Trev episodes. To read them in sequence, scroll down to my June 21 blog entry and then scroll upwards to this one. | ||||
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| Discussing one’s future is best left for the future. Meanwhile, having a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band close at hand in one’s fifth panel is always comforting. | ||||
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| Two Arkansas brothers, one dead and one living. Hmm. Is this comic strip’s cast burgeoning or what?! (The last Trev episode is coming soon.) | ||||
| NOTE: This is the fourth of six Trev episodes. To read them in sequence, scroll down to my June 21 blog entry and then scroll upwards to this one. | ||
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| In Trev you can see some recurring Howard Cruse motifs that would soon be surfacing in Wendel, which began appearing in the Advocate less than a year after my abortive Trev experiment. Like, f’rinstance, the lingering grip that old ’60s acid adventures had on the self-images of Cliff and Trev (and me) well into the 1980s.
Woodstock was only thirteen years in the past when I drew these coming strips, after all. That’s only a couple of weeks in LSD years! Soon I’d be drawing Ollie and Sterno instead of Cliff and Trev gnawing on those old Sixties bones. Listen, folks, the heady utopianism of that era had a big impact on me, and I had a lot of stuff to work through even after a decade’s passage, what with Reaganism in the ascendancy and cynicism fast rotting the soul of our republic. |
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| Near-fatal traffic accidents are great for sparking gentle memories of childhood malfeasance, aren’t they? But who’s the chick talking suicide? (The remaining two Trev episodes are coming soon.) | ||
| NOTE: This is the third of six Trev episodes. To read them in sequence, scroll down to my June 21 blog entry and then scroll upwards to this one. | ||||||
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| I came up with this proposed feature at a time when there was something of a welcome mat for me at the Village Voice, thanks to the interest shown in my work by the Voice’s then art director (presently viewable on YouTube, I only yesterday discovered) George Delmerico.
In those days the surreal drawings of Walter Gurbo regularly appeared on the paper’s back cover, which lured me into fantasizing that some decision-makers in the Voice’s editorial hierarchy might tune into the sneaky way that Trev toyed with reader expectations. George graciously sent my feature up the chain of command, but it failed to spark any interest. It was a pretty oddball experiment, I have to admit—partly because on the surface it looked so normal. (The ol’ Barefootz syndrome strikes again!) |
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| Is there a plot thickening…or is just the tartar sauce? (The remaining three Trev episodes are coming soon.) | ||||||
| NOTE: This is the second of six Trev episodes. To read them in sequence, scroll down to yesterday’s blog entry and then scroll upwards to this one. | |||
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| Those of you who pay attention to the evolution of my drawing style will notice that we’re in Jerry Mack territory here. | |||
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| Beginning to spot a narrative arc? (The remaining four Trev episodes are coming soon.) | |||
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| Twenty-five years ago a young cartoonist drew six episodes of a projected comic strip named Trev. They never saw the light of day. | ||
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| What in the world was this cartoonist up to? (The remaining five Trev episodes will appear here in due course.) | ||