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I decided to actually try and submit cartoons to a publication in September. The New Yorker takes unsolicited submissions, so I sent off these four cartoons. They were not what they were looking for, oh well. So my efforts are not wasted i will share them here.
I was quite surprised to learn from a reader ( thank you Heinz) that the strip “Artificial Intelligence” was in an English Text Book in Brazil.
Then my memory came back to me. I looked through my emails and there in 2020 I recieved an email from a university asking if they could use my strip in their text book. I honestly thought it was a scam because they kept pressing me for banking information to pay me to use it. I shared the email with friends and they weren’t sure either. It was beyond my experience, so I told them they could use the strip, and if they wanted they could donate the money to a student.
Then I forgot all about it.
Then a couple weeks ago Heinz commented on “Artificial Intelligence” and that they came to the site from seeing it in their textbook. I had completely forgotten, and was baffled by his comment. Then it slowly came back to me.
I imagine that readers of this strip that have a strong grasp of English gramer and punctuation may find it ironic that with all my oversights and errors, my strip is in English language textbook in Brazil. Don’t worry, I love that irony as well.
Heinz was kind to send photos of the textbook cover and the page the strip is on, with some nice sketches of Aldous.
thanks again Heinz
Blue Rock was saved onto my computer on December 12, 2009. So this was about 6 months or so before I did the Apples series introducing Nambassa. He was originally named after the chicken breed Plymouth Rock( Doc / Nambassa being a blue Rooster) . The Apples strips take place in this world’s New Zealand and a homage ( besides Peanuts) is paid to the great New Zealand strip Footrot Flats by Murray Ball. A strip unknown here in Canada, and if it wasn’t for a Kiwi acquaintance knowing my love for comic strips sharing some of his copies with me I never would have been aware of it either. So in keeping with giving nods to New Zealand, the roosters namer was changed, named after tribe and music festival in New Zealand.
This was me experimenting with one scene in multiple panels with movement through out. Later of course the lion’s crash and free Nambassa, who in Doc’s body wasn’t a bird/human at this point,and here he escapes on his own.
