Wednesday, July 1, 2015

No Pressure Or Anything


Third post, time to get down to business.
Let me state upfront to my Facebook friends that I am going to rehash the materials you have already seen. I will expand on my comments of the Murphy's Manor strips where I think I can add something that will be of interest. I will digress into esoterica where I think I can get away with it. I will totally deviate from the Facebook narrative when I damn well feel like it.
And I hope you enjoy it. Ultimately i hope to get the Kompleat Murf online in a more accessible form.

Murf #1 was from a set of six demo strips I drew in response to a classified ad in International Justice Monthly a bar rag from Toronto that never did pick up the strip. After completing my demos I found a mailing list of GLBT local papers and sent out a mimeographed (yes, with my Gestetner 360!) cover letter offering 4 monthly strips for $15. Bill Watson of Miami's The Weekly News said great, but I've gotta have weekly cartoons. I gulped loudly and got to work.

The first six were signed "Al Heimstadt," because I was uncomfortable putting my real name on gay cartoons. At the last minute before initial distribution I re-thought it: hey, what am I hiding? It's not as if there's anything wrong with being gay. And isn't being *out* the point of this strip? I used my real name, and from there, there was no looking back.
 

The first strip set the stage for all that was to follow as Jeff the Eternal Party Boy met Murf, his new landlord/roommate.

If you really think about it, you could become quite intimidated drawing the first comic strip of a series, especially one that is going to run 1,183 strips.Think about it. That premiere strip must establish the pivotal characters. More than that the foundation for the humor of every strip to follow. Take this case. Murf is a "Mary Tyler Moore" character. A good-natured, mild observer more than an instigator of comedy. The other character is Jeff, the party boy. He doesn't worry too much about life's philosophical questions - he's just here for the fun. He represents the great mass of the gay community you saw in bars but never at meetings of the local gay rights activist organization.Take it as a hint that much of the satire in Murphy's Manor will be affectionately directed within the community, and not just at our foes.

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