Are You Ready For Some Football??

Football is Back Baby!

I dug this one up from my "2017-2018 Prime Nib Days" era with the intention of posting it to my Instagram today, to solemnly observe the return of NFL Football tonight, but after posting it, and seeing some anemic engagement numbers in the first ten minutes or so, I decided to quickly archive it again. I dunno, some pieces stand the test of time a little better than others, but the very specific Colin Kaepernick and Woody Johnson serving as Ambassador to England in the first Trump term references made it feel more dated than usual, and also, looking at it now, I am not 100% certain that it doesn't inadvertently read like I agree with the two angry Jets fans. I don't, it's supposed to be a classic gag-cartoon type Plop! style ending, where you get that we've seen all this political stuff in the first 12 panels, but it's entirely shows of Patriotism and Military flyovers and Thank-you For Your Services etc, but again, looking at it now, I am not totally sure it hits.

Of some interest, I did waste about an hour of my day today changing the lettering in the comic (the last time I revised this piece I put in what was at the time my best Mike Dawson font, but I have a better one now), as well as redrawing the faces on the two characters. Here's how the Jets fans were originally drawn:

Eagle-eyed long-time readers of mine might perhaps catch that these two characters had popped up in other works of mine over the years, particularly in a few cartoon essays I made during that same Prime Nib Era. The design was a nod to characters that had appeared in a self-published humor comic book series that I'd made in the much earlier 'aughts called Gabagool! written with a guy named Chris Radtke who I'd met at one of my day-jobs in Manhattan, and then become friends and creative partners with.

Chris Radtke and I put out six issues of Gabagool! together during the years 2003-2005, and then the partnership fell apart. The friendship hobbled along for a while longer, but eventually that all collapsed as well. My decision to draw the Nib cartoon characters to resemble Christopher Vigliotti and Ritch Sutton from Gabagool! was just just me... being a dick. I knew it would bug my old friend, and did it for that reason. Petty yes, but who said artists and writers were above a little bit of pettiness sometimes?

We didn't talk for a very long time, there was a lot of bad blood, but a year or so ago I decided a fun project for my Monthly Minicomics project would be to draw and produce a Special Edition of the first issue of that series, which I did.

My first impulse was to just go ahead and do this and not worry about Chris's feelings. That wasn't out of spite, it was just out the feeling that I have that I co-wrote and drew all these comics, and had every right to do with them what I wanted. Buttttt, I started to feel some pangs of guilt about that, and decided to reach out to Chris to get his blessing.

His first impulse was the opposite of giving a blessing, it turned out I'd very much hurt his feelings with those Nib comics, in particular because his politics (which had been basic white guy from Long Island growing up in the Reagan years conservative when I'd knew him) had turned much more progressive. Yes it bugged him that I used the character designs from our series, but what appeared to bother him more was my implication that he (he always, understandably, associated himself personally with the Christopher Vigliotti persona) had become a reactionary middle-aged Trumper type. This resonated with me. I have always leaned liberal, but will admit that there was a period, around 2009-2010 when I dabbled in a more conservative outlook, something that I now feel a great deal of embarrassment and possibly even shame about. As bad as the blood was between us, I could understand his feeling of not wanting to be painted in such a way.

Then, something nice happened. We made up. The hatchet got buried, and he gave me his blessing to go ahead with the Gabagool! project. This is a good thing. We aren't best friends again, but it's nice not to have enemies, especially at this stage in my life.

Anyway, this is a long way around to getting to the point that I also spent some time today drawing over those old faces, to make the characters into just generic looking guys. And the end result is... a comic I don't like as much.

I don't know why. It shouldn't make a difference, but somehow it does. My first thought is, I always like specifics. And as incidental as it likely is for the reader, as the writer and artist, feeing like I knew who these guys were I guess was kind of important to me. It was only in my imagination that the Gabagool! characters would grow up to become these Trumpy assholes, but still, it felt like characters I knew and understood. These new non-specific generic-faced stand-ins, well I don't like them so much.

So, there you go, a little topical comic for the day, and a big long bit of insight into my process. Enjoy the Cowboys v. Eagles kick-off tonight!!

Your pal,

Mike