(40) Just Like Luciano Pavarotti

"We've got a stereotype to live up to." Sid's attitude reflects my view of Gay culture at the time: let's have some fun doing the things gay people are supposed to do.

I didn't dwell much on what Murphy's Manor characters did for a living. Sid started out as a demolitions expert with the considerable talent it takes to be an opera singer. At the end, he was Pope of a gay bar. Details later!

(39) Taking S&M For a Spin

Jeff experiments  by going, with trepidation,  to an S&M party. Only to be underwhelmed.

(This is an experiment of posting with a cell phone)

(38) Cruising of the Wings of Song

Being new to Toledo, having come out relatively recently, and being a fledgling classical music/opera fan, it seemed to me in 1982 that the stereotype of gay men as opera queens had some truth. Today I would not assume this level of interest in opera of readers because they were gay. Sid was modeled on Jan Suter, who was an avid opera fan. His idea of a hedonistic retreat was to spend the weekend in bed listening to the Ring straight through.

(37) Murf, the Quick Wit

Murf, always articulate, quick with a turn of phrase. Just like *koff koff* me

(36) Mark and Murf Explore Their Relationship with Higher Math

Gay engineering differential calculus jokes. Let's see "Zits" top that

(954) Murphy's Manor #954 By Antonin Scalia

Forgive my jumping ahead so many years in comic strips, but this is so timely there's nothing but to do it.

You probably didn't know that the late Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote a Murphy's Manor comic strip.

Of course he didn't know that's what he was doing at the time.

I didn't exactly ask his permission.

And I never shared with him the bountiful royalties I realized out of his golden words.

In pace requiescat, his molestation of the Latin language and all.

(35) O a faggot bufoon

Here's something that hasn't changed. Gay literature splits into camps of tacky (raunchy) or PC, and "Either type will bore or offend somebody." 

Too true of cartoons in general. Hey, maybe if I try hard enough I can do both at the same time!

On the whole I have probably worried too much about giving offense  in trying to make everybody happy with my cartoons. Result: it avoids offense but takes the bite out of cartoons. It's how we get comic strips like the Family Circus. O a private buffoon is a lighthearted loon if you listen to popular rumor…