I was reading one of those excellent 2000 AD reprint books (available at Central Library and well worth reading*) about an artist-writer team who worked during the ’80s and were constantly having their titles cancelled, despite coming up with several cult cartoon characters. Their most popular creation was a Star Wars parody about a finicky space pilot called Han Solenoid. They also created a ground-breaking stroppy princess character, later becoming involved in a copyright dispute which was settled when the artist found a childhood drawing which proved the character to be based on his little sister. They also created a spinoff cartoon starring the depressive character Bunky Bill (who looks very similar to Homestar Runner’s Strong Sad), who travels through seven layers of Hell (complaining all the way) in a famous three-part story arc.
It was an excellent book, but I can’t remember the names of the artist/writer team. That’s because I dreamt the entire thing. I can remember reading these pages as clearly as I can remember the pages of a real book, except my little brain invented the entire thing.
The Salient cartoon page is looking really good, and there are plenty of other cartoons filling up stray quarter-pages. It’s the sort of thing I would’ve loved to have done last year if the [imaginary purple waterbuffalo] had had any sort of vision or interest in the cartoons at all. I also laughed out loud at my own cartoon, which is probably unforgivable. People have been criticising the Henry Ball, PI strip, but I like it, even though it takes up an entire half page. That’s probably the most obvious criticism of the cartoons – Robbie and I have been doing it for so long we know what we can fit into a small size, whereas the newbies are much too large.
*Even though they’re in black and white.
