The Height of Stupidity
End Quote
Thus far, the titles of these weekly posts have been non-praise from readers. Well, no more! The only quotes we have left are actual praise and, though appreciated, it doesn’t make for funny titles. While the quote archive is exhausted, our newspaper archive is still yet to be explored! So this week, let’s look through it…
In the morning hours of 2020 (it might have been January 2nd or 3rd), we received an email to join CartoonStock Ltd. This was a big deal for us since it’s owner, Bob Mankoff, was the cartoon editor at The New Yorker for 20 years, worked a stint at Esquire (also as cartoon editor), and has been with AirMail magazine since its founding (as — you guessed it — the cartoon editor). He’s a cartoonist in his own right too. At any rate, we were thrilled to join his company. We’d only produced 40 or 50 single panel cartoons at that point so to increase our initial offerings, we converted some of the Mates and Dates comics to single panel format. Like this one!
It was also a nice to find another avenue that would enable Buddy and Romeo to live on. Speaking of “nice to be able to live on…”
Playing around with the shapes of character irises opened up a world of possibility for expressions. Romeo’s iris becomes an exclamation point in panel one and it emphasizes the blankness of his stare and how stunned he is by Buddy’s suggestion.
Get it? In rediscovering this strip as a reader last night, it took me a minute to get it too.
“I’m going to treat myself to sleeping on my stomach tonight.” We’ve said this to each other on more than one occasion. It’s a strange “treat” since sleeping on your stomach is actually terrible for your body (tough on your neck and heart). The best way to sleep? On your back with your palms rotated up so that your shoulders are externally rotated. But don’t take my word for it.
Seinfeld remains one of the most influential television shows in my life — both creative and personal. The strip above may not seem connected but when I read the first panel, it’s with a Seinfeld cadence. Specifically:
“Jerry, it’s Frank Costanza; Mr. Steinbrenner’s here; George is dead; call me back!”
- Jerry Stiller as Frank Costanza, leaving a message on Jerry’s answering machine.
Remember answering machines? Like the actual device with the cassette tape in it that would fill up and you’d have to rewind? I can still hear the sound of my parents’ 1980s answer machine rewinding and beeping when it was done.
If you’re enjoying yourself at Buddy and Romeo’s expense so far, please subscribe and share this Substack with your friends. As always, thanks for reading!