My Career in Comics: Dog & Bunny #1

I had always wanted to do a comic strip but one thing stood in my way: I can't draw. Even though I've been doodling all my life and really wanted to be a good artist, I really can't draw at all! During my extended enrollment at community college I had the services of the campus newspaper at my disposal and decided it was time to unleash my comic strip dreams. My first idea for a comic strip was an obvious rip-off of Snoopy called "Schloopy". Believe it or not, the school was worried about a copyright infringement lawsuit. (Because Charles Schultz sits around and reads community college campus newspapers.) So I decided to take Schloopy, rename him with an even dumber name and give him a sidekick with an equally dumb name. It was then that "DOG AND BUNNY" was born.

Instead of drawling the strip myself, I enlisted the help of a talented girl already working on the newspaper staff. Her name was Rebecca Bachrach and, yes, her father's name was Burt. Rebecca was a good looking girl, way out of my league, and one time at a story pitch meeting I jokingly suggested that her and I go to the movies together to review some new movie and she surprisingly was o.k. that idea. So she was cool in my book...anyhow, back to the story - Rebecca designed the characters and I gave her the scripts and she drew up the strips.

DOG AND BUNNY debuted in the March 6, 1996 issue of Catonsville Community College's campus newspaper 'Red & Black'. My goal for the strip was not to be artsy/weird like so many other college paper strips, I just wanted my comic strip to look cute and make very little sense. Many of the strips were about a minor event that happened in the news that week and forgotten about by the next week. Looking back at the strips 10 years later, they make absolutely no sense!!! My joke with this one was that there are three sexes of Honey Bees. (Click on the comic to enlarge it if you can't read it.)

From my collection of old issues of Red & Black, it looks like we did the comic for the better part of 1996. The newspaper only came out once every other week, and we had the summer off, so it looks like we did about 7 installments of the "groundbreaking" comic strip. I'll be posting the further adventures of Dog & Bunny in the days and weeks to come...something to look forward to!