steamed fishies...

I guess ever since I've had a glass enclosed show stall with three glass walls, which has been about 6 months, I've found myself doodling through the steam on said walls. I'd doodle things like stick figures, random symbols that don't mean anything, I'd play tic-tac-to against myself, and, more recently, random incarnations of one big lipped, bug-eyed cartoon fish. I give you that rousing bit of information to provide you all with an even more exciting bit of personal history...

When i was younger, I was infatuated with Garfield and U.S. Acres. For those of you out there that don't know about U.S. Acres, that was the second, less successful strip by Jim Davis. Think the Garfield and Friends cartoon from the mid 80's. I was so enthralled in fact, that I started a comic strip of my own. It was based on a goldfish who lived in a little bowl on a stool. He had a rock in there with him. And some gravel. His name was, appropriately (and super-creatively) Gill. Gill the fish. Anyway, I decided that the first step in me taking over the cartooning industry was writing a letter to Mr. Davis explaining how I was an aspiring cartoonist and that it was my goal to become the greatest one of all time. I sent him my little letter, and included a doodle - sort of a rough sketch - of the first Gill comic strip. As time passed, I became engaged in other extremely important things like He-Man, Thundar the Barbarian, Nintendo, and other such things. A few months later, as the thought of my letter to Jim had almost vanished completely from my little brain, guess what came in the mail?

Enclosed in an envelope that featured Garfield and Orson (the pig from U.S. Acres - see above pic) holding hands and waiving at me, was a handwritten letter from the Davis himself! He said that he loved my comic and that it showed definite potential and to keep up the good work. He also included a checklist for aspiring cartoonists. I was really excited and I dedicated my prepubescent mind to working up fantastic ideas for my comic strip. Needless to say, He-Man introduced Hordak and his evil Horde, Thundar the Barbarian got cancelled and replaced by, I think, the Snorks or something, nintendo released games like Punchout and Friday the 13th, and once again, I forgot all about Gill and his little world.

Anyway, here it is, 20+ years later, and Gill has reemerged as a character that shows up almost every morning on my shower wall! Has he always been there, buried deep in some wrinkle on my brain, just waiting for the time to be right to show himself? I dunno. Maybe.

Does this story mean anything? It must have something to do with something? RIGHT? Whats the point? What's going on here? Well - it's my blog, so there.