The Beanfield
Old Cartoons Are New Again, Right?
Last month, as I was reading a collection of the cartoon strip Shoe by Jeff MacNelly. I thought about my own dreams of becoming a syndicated cartoon creator. I came close a couple of times, once with my strip Wade’s World and then not too long ago with Stoopid Stuf, with Kevin Minor. But, as they say, close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades. They were fun to do, though and I still think that cartoon strips and even single panel ‘toons are a unique way to express ideas and to tell stories, even if they are only in the vein of slapstick comedy. I still do them.
In my late teens, into my early 20’s I created the aforementioned Wade’s World. The title was not ripped off from the Mike Myers/Dana Carvey characters of Wayne’s World. In fact, my title predated theirs by a few years. The only thing in common was the title, just similar. In the late 80’s I was in talks with a small syndicate that took an interest in my strip and was shopping it around. It was slow going, but there was some interest. As luck would have it, a larger, more well known syndicate swallowed them up and mine was lost/thrown out, etc in the merger.
The second time, was just a few years ago with Stoopid Stuf. Kevin was more of the mouth piece for this one, as he’s far more sociable than I tend to be. Maybe I should stop snarling at people when they say hello? A comment was made by the syndicate that we were working with about my art style as being ‘both hilarious and horrifying all at the same time.’ Something to that effect. I took it as a compliment, but the jury is still out with this one at the moment.
So, in between these two strips (closer to the first one), I created one called The Beanfield. At the time I was reading Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and in the book at some moment Thoreau had a small garden, which included beans. There was this thing he said: “What shall I learn of beans or beans of me?” Did I take that as a challenge? I may have, as I was off and running with this new strip with a main character that had the head of a bean set in this far off, surreal landscape. Here’s the first strip:
This set the tone for the kind of strip that this would be. So violent, so stupid… And these have that Frank Frazetta inspired signature. I was rolling.
The main character, you know the one, the guy with the bean shaped head was called Rathman. I took his name from one of my favorite football players at the time, Tom Rathman, a fullback with the San Fransisco 49ers. If you needed a few short yards, you sent in Rathman to bulldoze his way to glory. I guess their personalities were similar. It fit. I don’t think that footballer Tom had a bean shaped head, though.
As with most of my strips and single panel gag ones, I aimed for satire of the social sort. I had a lot of problems with you people, maybe still do. If you are paying attention to anything I post, you just might see this. I’m not sure if my aim was delivered with the panache that I so desired, but I think that I hit the bullseye at times.
The supporting character and Rathman’s friend was called Pork. I have no idea as to why I chose this, but I’m sure that it made me giggle uncontrollably. I’m smirking even now. You can see why Kevin did all the talking for Stoopid Stuf.
I was always and still am happy when I can throw in some meta art references. We artists, especially the cartoony types often can have fun with what we do. It’s imperative, I think.
I did a few Sunday oriented strips as well and this one below has a Salvador Dali inspired theme, keeping with my surreal reoccurrences.
So, Rathman, a semi-stupid kind of guy, who had a strong curiosity and drive of sorts, made his way through his world alongside his friend and had quite a few, mainly awkward adventures.
So, I hope that you enjoyed this trip through my cartoon oeuvre (see, there’s the French thing coming back around!). There’s more, so if this has a decent response, then maybe I’ll show more. And just maybe, I’ll do up a little book of them. Some years ago, I did so with Wade’s World and, although I didn’t print up a ton of them, they did sell out. You can get a copy here, if so interested. So. Beanfield. Maybe.