A Look Back, Plus Hot Dogs

I didn't know this would be available online (and arguably it's not)... but Time Out has posted the cartoon I wrote and drew for their Year in Review section: Local Events with Bearsly Windinski. Sort of. The Powers That Be put it up panel by panel, rather than as the actual pages, and ripped the text out of the panels, putting the words below the art. Which probably raises some great questions and potential discussion about the nature of comics and the juxtaposition of text and picture, but I haven't slept enough recently to get into a dissertation. And in Time Out's defense, there was so much text to begin with, it was more like illustrated prose than comics proper.

Regardless: at least it's free to read this way (a boon in this economic desert). And while you're being cheap, be sure to check out Anders Nilsen's strip for that issue. It has a sort of Where's Waldo? feel to it.

The Real Bearsly?

I just handed over my contribution to Time Out Chicago's Year in Review section (Issue 199, Dec. 18-31), a two-page story featuring Bearsly Windinski, my squat, slightly verbose Chicago everyman. Bearsly's won the lottery, makes films of sanitation workers, and has a time travel helmet. Just like most people in Chicago. Oh, and he likes sausage.

Working with Bearsly was entertaining in its own right enough, but the real excitement came just after I had turned the cartoon in to the art director and was watching a bit of the local coverage of Rod Blagojevich's arrest.

A U.S. Marshal, one Kim R. Widup, appeared on the screen to discuss the case, and my jaw dropped. Bearsly! Not that these two were exactly separated at birth, but when the big budget Bearsly buddy cop movie comes out, Kim's my man (not to mention apparently one hell of an accomplished Marshal).

Make your own judgments. But pick up that issue of Time Out if you're in the Chicago area, because Anders Nilsen has a couple pages in there as well, which I'll be looking forward to reading.