Back-to-School/Happy New Year
School days, school days
THIS WEEK:
Back-to-School comics
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Back to the pandemic
BEHIND THE PAY WALL: Buddy doll progress update
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“Back-to-school” is like a second New Year. Another defined chance in the calendar year for a fresh start or a reinvention. Who will you be from now on?
This is one of my favorite comics in the series.
Those were all my actual goals, although not in that order (the real order was 1. Find a wife; 2. Zip up my coat; 3. Make a friend). This was one of the first Buddy and Romeo comics to be drawn, which is evident in the characters’ softer, clumsier renderings.
I still remember that day in 8th grade. Real Buddy and I were alone at the cafeteria table — not because we had no other friends but because our friends had either a.) not gotten to the table yet; b.) left to take their trays up; c.) went up to the a’ la carte line to get pretzel rods so we could all pretend we were smoking cigars; or d.) run up to the utensil table to get more salt packets that we could tear open and dump into each others’ hair to pretend it was dandruff. We weren’t sitting alone; we weren’t losers! — and we realized everyone else in our grade was now wearing cargo pants. We made a point of asking our respective parents to get us cargo pants for Christmas that very afternoon. Upon our return to school in January 1999, we were indeed both wearing beige cargo pants. Followers!
Fast forward to 2013 when Frega agreed to marry me and officially took over my wardrobe and finally eliminated cargo shorts from my closet (I’d already ditched cargo pants five years prior). At least all those cargo pants and shorts were able to carry me through college.
Meanwhile, here’s one of our back-to-school cartoons from the pandemic…
Enjoy more Frega DiPerri magazine cartoons here.
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