6-25-10 Shades of Blue

CartoonistWill on June 24, 2010

I got tired of focusing on SuperMilo all the time, so I've introduced this surprise chapter into the comic's outline. We'll be focusing on Stripes and some other characters within SuperMilo's world for the next few weeks.

Stripes, who is very deep and artistic, is a cat who thinks he's a beatnik. Seeing as how the beat generation was around back in, oh, say the 1940's I think, Stripes feels alone in the world. He is in fact not a true beatnik and from his poetry he may realize this. Jack Kerouac was the first beatnik but he did not ask or attempt to start the beat generation. Jack Kerouac was once quoted as saying he was not a beatnik - he was Catholic. People followed in his footsteps - but did it wrong. They created a new image for what a beatnik was but still claimed to be following Kerouac's example. The pop-culture then turned beatniks into a heavy stereotype, leaving people of today with the mental image you see in panel #1 instead of who the beatniks, or Jack Kerouac, really were. Yes, the stereotype may glitter like gold, but it rejects the mold that Kerouac set and his would be followers, who never truly followed him, have been stolen away by false imagery and idealism of what it is to be a part of the beat generation. And today there are no true beatniks around anymore. They have, however, changed with the times. In the 1960's and 70's we were met with the newest beat generation, the hippies. Maybe today also has people sharing this same spirit?

The three characters you see making today's punchline are some of my favorite superhero parody characters. From left to right, we have: 1) Arachnerd (A.K.A. Spiderman), 2) The Black Gnat (A.K.A. Batman the Dark Knight), and most obvious of all 3) Colonel U.S. (A.K.A. Captain America). I love Arachnerd and Black Gnat and created them as far back as 2007, but Colonel U.S. (which can be either “United States” or “Uncle Sam”) was a character I created specifically and only for this story arc. Why? Well, originally, none of these characters were to appear here. That's why this comic was late; it took me forever to decide on who would appear. Originally two Flash parodies of mine, a grandson Flash and an old and decrepit grandfather Flash, were to provide this dialogue. But as I was writing for “Grampa” I soon realized that, although different, he was too much like Brock Heasley's Swifty of Superfogeys. I didn't want anyone to think I was stealing material. So much did it remind me of Swifty that I actually considered asking Brock if I could cameo Captain Spectacular and Swifty here! But in the end I thought the three characters here were the best idea.

Hope you enjoyed this commentary!