Often Thursday night, the night before deadline,
finds my colleague Emily Flake and myself lying on the floors of our respective
homes, in the dark and on the phone, despairing of ever thinking up anything
funny again and begging each other for inspiration. For over a year now we've
been talking about swapping cartoons someday--she drawing an installation
of The Pain one week while I draw her Lulu Eightball. As
we only overlap in one paper this would be puzzling to most readers, but it
is our perogative as artists to say, on occasion,audience comprehension be
damned and have a little self-referential fun. However, Emily pays little
attention to current events and, like me, also suffers a chronic drought of
inspiration until the last possible minute and seemed unlikely ever to come
through with her end of the bargain. I, meanwhile, actually drew my Lulu
Eightball cartoon during idle moments on vacation in Idaho this July,
so I was all ready to go. This week I had 1.) a dearth of any good ideas for
political cartoons and 2.) houseguests all week, so I asked Emily whether
she might be ready to do the Ol' Switcheroo. She finally confessed: "I
am woefully under-equipped in the brain department for political matters.
You're talking to a lady who has lost her passport, even though she is supposed
to go to Canada tonight." So, since I spent Friday running around buying
seafood and beer and fixing a flat, even, I decided to go ahead to run this
and call it an homage to Emily to honor the release of her first
collection of cartoons, Lulu Eightball, available at http://www.atomicbooks.com/.
But now that her book's been named #1 on Entertainment
Weekly's "Must" list and I rue the day I ever gave her
any free publicity, the impudent little upstart punk.
Jim's cardiologist really was named Dr. Fury. Once when a bunch of Jim's friends
were visiting him in his hospital room Dr. Fury stopped in for a brief consultation,
and after he left we all commented:
"He seems really nice."
"He's tall."
"Good-looking guy."
Finally our friend Myra exclaimed, "What the hell? You guys all have
crushes on Dr. Fury?"
All kidding aside, my cat may well be the most attractive cat in the world.
A friend of mine once called her "a supermodel cat." She has black
cat mascara outlining her green eyes. A little pink nose with exquisitely
fine-pebbled nose leather. O so languorous. So sleek. So plush and soft and
pleasant to touch. Who is the pozzle? Who is the pumalu? O mu. Mu. What? Ha,
ha!. Nothing.
About the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D, I think, the less said the better.
The last panel was drawn from life in Idaho. I don't think it would behoove
me to identify the models. They know who they are.
Back to politics next week, everyone. Summer's almost over.