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Art
the Frog the character came about gradually. I can
say he began as a general propensity of mine towards
drawing frogs. I remember distinctly the sketch that
awakened this awareness. It was nothing more than a
doodle in the margins of my math workbook. I've long
felt that the best things to have come from math class
were the doodles.
That original frog was not Art. He was
just a disgruntled rana with buggy eyes and a
knot in his tongue. I liked it so much that I gave it to
my Dad who had a copier at his office. I had hoped to
reproduce him (the frog, not my Dad). Unfortunately, the
frog was never seen again. Dad was a busy man and things
get misplaced. For the record, I hold no grudge.
But the seeds had been sown. It was a
few years later, at Drivers Ed Class, that the first
cro-magnon Art emerged. The class was stressful; I
relaxed myself by drawing tiny little frogs all over my
notes. The little frog began to take on certain
characteristics and his expressions often mirrored my
emotions at the time. After a particularly difficult day
(Drivers Ed, man, it's not for sissies!) I drew the poor
frog post-roadkill. Beneath him the caption read
"Do you ever feel smeared?" I still remember
the kid in front of me turning around and commenting,
"You really hate frogs, don't you?"
Art proper developed in High School.
This was in the early to mid '90s and few of us had
email access. We kept in touch and hinted at who liked
who by writing (and passing around) letters. It was a
true thrill. Art became popular with certain young
ladies. I remember noting with satisfaction that
Art-decorated letters were displayed on pegboards in
more than one girls' room.
In addition to being an 'in' with the
ladies, Art has three other claims to fame. Firstly, he
earned his original staring roll in a comic strip for
our HS paper, the Valley Brook Academy Voice. The strip
was titled Bufotunes. (Yeah, I was a little
over-creative.) My brother Ethan also did a strip in the
Voice: Fuzzy the Barbarian. I think Fuzzy
was a lot more interesting than Bufotunes. Fuzzy
was sort of a pseudo-Hagar, except funny. If I can, I'll
try to get some old Fuzzy strips from Ethan to put on
the site. It was for the development of Bufotunes
that Bump and Chub came into existence (Chub was
originally spelled with two 'b's). Bump was was pretty
stupid at first, they stereotypical fat, dumb guy. Chub
was the stereotypical fat, short, dumb guy. Art had a
lot of fun at their expense.
Secondly, Art and Co. became the
'mascots' for a friend's 2nd Grade classroom. I did
several Art and Chub sketches and she enlarged them and
plastered them all over her room. That was great, I
immediately had images of indoctrination of the upcoming
generation: in later years when my strip hit the
national papers, the audience would already be there.
(On a side note, my friend asked me to create two
additional 'characters' for her. One was a turtle and
the other was a little girl frog. I resisted this second
character but eventually created Pole, who is Art's
unofficial niece. You will never see Pole - or any other
female character - in my strip. When people ask me why,
I just shrug. I really do have a reason, and maybe
someday I'll share it.)
Finally, Art went with me to college at
the University of Maryland where he became a Terp (in
spirit if not species) and became published
five-days-a-week in the Diamondback, UMD's independent
student paper. I renamed the strip Art the Frog.
I'd love to say Art and his friends were a big hit on
campus, but he actually got the boot after a semester.
He was replaced by a strip featuring a werewolf who
quaffed beer, flirted with coeds, and ate cops. Art
wasn't edgy enough. After I got the call that the strip
was being discontinued, I was depressed for a day. That
night I went out to the movies by myself and watched Russell
Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. My artwork was so
misunderstood.
But that year, the year I graduated, the
Terps men's basketball team won our first national NCAA
championship in our 93 year history. I thought they owed
me that much....
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