Entering an Ugly Contest

There's a story behind this.

Before we start, Substack wants you to know they have a new feature: direct messaging. Feel free to give it a try.

---

In July 2006, during a particularly low period wherein I grappled with syndication rejection (Boy! Little did I know there’d be more of that to come in the ensuing 12 years!) and the recent (a year and half prior) demise of a relationship, I (DiPerri) was sitting in my grandparents’ summer home listening to Vic Damone (“The best set of pipes in the business” according to Frank Sinatra) and flipping through a free regional newspaper. A photograph of an especially horrifying looking dog caught my attention. I have a history of being frightened by all dogs but this dog’s appearance truly was newsworthy. He had just won an ugly contest for dogs.

“I coulda won that,” I mumbled aloud, miserably.

---

---

The mission for Buddy and Romeo’s comic strip series Mates and Dates was that each strip would standalone, starting fresh with new antics, and there’d be no continuous stories. We mostly adhered to that but there were a few storylines that spanned one week (Monday through Saturday). This is one of them and the strip above was published in the Monday edition. The remaining five strips are behind the paywall, so if you’re interested in seeing how this all pans out, please join us!

If not (but we hope you will), what do you think? If you’re a paid subscriber, please vote before you read and then find out if you were right!

Ready? Grab a bowl of cereal. Here we go…!