Street scenes, part 1

I seem to gravitate to things happening on the street in my pun cartoons. This week, I'll trot those out, starting with this one.

Stilwell frogs -- still more Stilwell

Since this is my blog and I can do what I want, I'm attempting to post all of my old Cleveland State University cartoons from 40 or more years ago. Once I get them all digitized and online, I can finally throw away all the crusty, yellowing originals and get on with my life. Here are a few more. Explanations: The feminist movement was in full force then. I have always been a supporter, but back then I felt that ALL men were being villified by the movement. Still, I probably should not have drawn that cartoon. The comic about calling a dial-a-prayer number seems so dated now. And the pathetic attempt to meet a girl is the story of my sorry social life on campus. The reference to "Fat Chance" on the wall in the background was a play on "Fat Glenn's," the name of the campus night spot that opened while I was attending. It was launched in the basement of what formerly was a building occupied by the AAA, the Auto Club. Thanks to a 2002 posting for The Cleveland Stater, a laboratory newspaper put out by students of classes in CSU's Department of Communications, I can tell you that Fat Glenn's opened on April 13, 1969, while I was attending school, and I remember that opening. It was a big deal at the time because, as I recall, although there were a number of bars and night spots near the campus, this was the first place where you could actually buy and drink a beer on the actual campus. At the time, I don't recall knowing this, but The Cleveland Stater says Fat Glenn's was run by a mock fraternity called Tappa Kegga Dae. This amuses me, because a group of my friends on campus formed a mock fraternity as well. Because we had both men and women in our group, we called it a "frasority." We called it "Mei Kong Delta." We had a small plastic King Kong toy that we would bring along to social events, a couple of informal picnics, actually. But I digress majorly. Fat Glenn's, I have learned, thanks to The Cleveland Stater, was named after Glenn Arthur Esch, a CSU grad who I believe actually was an assistant dean of student affairs at the time the bar opened. I vaguely remember what he looks like. Kind of ruddy complexioned and, yes, a bit chubby.

Baseball parking

And this will empty my coffers of baseball-themed kartoon puns. For now.

Lucy and this guy

Continuing the baseball theme started two days ago and concluding tomorrow.

More baseball

Continuing the baseball theme

Safe at the plate

It's baseball season, so allow me to unload the handful of baseball-related cartoon puns. I'll do it torturously, one pun per day.

Sheepish

Rob Krier gave me the idea. I drew it. Some of you will go "baa!"

Stilwell frogs and change

This was published in The Cauldron, Cleveland State University's student newspaper, on Feb. 1, 1972, just a tad over 40 years ago. It's newly restored and, as of today, digitally published. What popped out at me after seeing this cartoon after so many years is how much cheaper vending machine food was back then, even with the vending company mark-up, as alluded to on the candy machine. I found it aggravating that the cafeteria cashier genuinely did give people a hard time if they asked for change for the machines. The cafeteria management probably had nothing to do with those machines, but, come on, how about helping out a few starving college students, for crying out loud? There were no change-making machines, by the way. If you didn't have coinage, tough.

I smell bacon

Some people, mostly younger ones, don't get this. It is a somewhat dated reference, in origin. As in, in 1960s protests, police officers were labeled "pigs." I don't generally think of law enforcement personnel that way, but it is a reference that is still out there, so I felt it was fair game for this cartoon.

Ahead of lettuce

Idea credited to my son Alex.

Algorithms

Someday, I would like to be good at charicature drawing. This is pretty much where my skill level is today. In a totally unrelated experiment, I had a couple of T-shirts made with this image, using the beefed-up, colored text font shown in the second illo below.

In Court

This is a recent favorite.

That one was my second court scene in this series. I try not to repeat themes because it looks like I'm milking the same idea over and over, but these were truly different gag lines. In the first one, shown below, you have to be an "American Idol" fan, or at least be aware of William Hung's infamous 2004 audition during the show's third season, to get it. Another good reason to avoid any more court scenes in the future: You have to draw so much dang furniture!

Banjos

Another Rob Krier idea. I checked the Internet and saw that some people were already all over this pun, but I decided to put my own take on it.

The 'no fly' list

Stilwell frogs

While I've been doodling comically since I was a kid, the origin of my cartoon art is "Stilwell," the comic strip I drew for the weekly student newspaper at Cleveland State University, circa 1971-73. I tried to satirize campus life, using little froggy characters. Some of the things I targeted, such as the crabby cafeteria lady who used to work in the eatery in Stilwell Hall, in the center of the campus, resonated, and the strip had a bit of a following.

The strip died when I graduated, but the characters stayed with me, and about 40 years later, fairly recently, I began to toy with the idea of reviving the strip for a general audience. Here's what I consider a successful effort.

But it just didn't go very far from there, so I kind of put that idea back on the shelf, in favor of the generic visual puns I've been doing for the past 15 months. However, I did tackle one major Stilwell frog exercise that I had a burning curiosity about. I wondered if I could do a Stilwell frog parody of the character-jammed cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album. It took many hours over many weeks, but the result stands as one of my favorite images. Which is why I'm injecting it here.

Larry, curling and Moe

I thought I'd toss this one in now, while "The Three Stooges" movie is in theaters. I kinda rushed through this and messed up Moe's right arm when I first posted it. It's a little better now after a another round of Photoshopping.