A collection of one shots, unfinished projects, projects barely started, a lot of bright ideas gone not very far, abandonments, etc. Failure of imagination? Of Character? Of will? All of the above and then some. But as I look over these comics from years gone by—some tough years, Brothers and Sisters—I believe that their presence is legit. I also wouldn’t place them here if I didn’t think that, however fragmented, a lot of this stuff is pretty good.

After years of thinking about comics primarily in terms of the short story, that is, full page sequential narratives, I got pretty excited about the possibilities of the strip form. Though a fan of Peanuts, Nancy, and some others, I’d long disparaged most strips as tight-ass, low-energy, mainstream crap. But that was some lazy thinking on my part, and I discovered that the form itself, like the sonnet or the haiku, is endlessly applicable. Here are some ideas that followed June Bug Versus Hurricane and True Ghosts.

Out of my depth in four easy steps. This idea came to me when, giving my infant daughter a bath, she would occasionally gaze over my shoulder, amused and enchanted, as if there was some invisible presence behind me, entertaining the child.

I had long wanted to do a baseball comic. Baseball in art doesn’t have much of a batting average and, yes, I’ve struck out plenty. The Old Ballplayer had plenty potential but, what (extend metaphor here), couldn’t hit the curve? The idea came from looking at pictures of some of the great old timers—Honus Wagner, Rogers Hornsby, Ty Cobb, etc.—How worn and weathered they looked—not boys at all but hardened men—coal miners, farmers, steel workers, smokers and drinkers, veterans of wars.

Another bright idea. I was looking at alchemical painting and illustration from centuries gone by. I stole much of its imagery for various paintings of my own. I had no idea what any of it meant, but it was some wild and crazy stuff and I had to have it. This one-shot came out of that period.

I particularly like the title of this strip and that the strip itself has really nothing to do with New York or the sixties.

This comic page originally appeared in the WFMU Program Guide, what year I cannot remember. Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music had recently been reissued and I, like many others, was deeply into it, wanted to make it my own.

Made for Sitar Bob’s Dayglow Art Show, Milville, N.J., 2013

Fortescue, in lovely Downe Township, my adopted home. Who was I reading? Carver not Coover. Eudora Welty, maybe. Definitely Hemingway. I might even have been planning to get I.B. Singer on its ass. Big plans, and then nothing. Poo. Where was this going? I don’t know. But there would be a girl about, no doubt.

Ice Cream Saga: I think it was Pauline Kael who said of Truman Capote, “he spent an hour talking to Marlon Brando and it took him a year to write about it. I, even more lamely, drove an ice cream truck for about six weeks one summer and it’s taken me over forty years to make a comic about it. And I still haven’t succeeded! My attempts over the years have consistently been met by failure. I think initially it was because I felt I had to make the Citizen Kane of ice cream man comics. Here are two interesting fragments (there are a lot more), one from the early nineties and one from just a few years ago. I later wrote a small, just-the-facts piece about my experience and that did the trick, I’m satiated. I’m including that piece below, for the record.

That summer I was driving an ice cream truck, the worst job I ever had, really, for any number of reasons. During the day I’d circle the neighborhoods and there was no one around--where are the kids? I’d say, in my day we hung out--and at night I’d be out past the cornfields, into the trailer parks where there was money to be made. Inevitably, once I got there, my generator would break down and all the ice cream would melt. Then there was the long drive, past midnight, back to the garage. There I’d have to clean the truck. It was a long, lonely walk home at 2am, though probably the best part of my day. I made almost nothing and was in a constant state of alarm because to make any money at all you’d have to hit these various spots at exact points in time. Like I’d get to this one factory at the start of the afternoon break and all these women would descend from the factory stairs and they’d be in a good mood because it was their break and because they were doing something as frivolous as buying ice cream and, because, I liked to think, I was a pretty handsome guy that summer.  But this one day, after their ice cream frenzy had ended and they went back to whatever miserable task in that redbrick building they were forced to perform, I chose to take a pee by the side of the truck. I really had to go, and, due to the severity of my schedule, I didn’t feel I had the time to stop at a gas station or McDonalds to use a proper bathroom. As luck would have it, many of the women were watching me from their factory window, watching me so disgustingly pee, me who had handled their ice cream. That night, after the generator broke down and I drove back to the garage to clean the truck, my boss—he was a young guy, his father, the real boss, was much more laid back-- was waiting for me and said “heard you was peein’ outside.” Anyway, the women never returned, though for days after I would hit my mark and wait for somebody to come down those factory stairs and tell me that all was forgiven. I was humiliated, not that they had seen me pee, but that they were so offended by the act itself, and that my good looks, at least, didn’t count for something. This was incredibly unjust.  Didn’t they understand that I had to hit those marks? And how did they know I didn’t wash my hands once I was back in the truck?  It might have had a sink.  It didn’t but it might have. Did I mention I was with a woman that summer, and that we fought like cats and dogs?