This 1996 collection of band strips from NLP Marketing (now Barnhouse Publishing) marks the first appearance of Chuck Ayers work in these books since he came on board to pencil Funky. I was still doing a ton of speaking engagements at various band banquets both local and national at that time, and my discussions with music educators at these events would almost invariably get around to the subject of band moms. It was only a matter of time before Roberta Blackburn the World’s Greatest Most Annoying Band Mom appeared and quickly escalated into numerous outrageous scenarios. The beauty of Roberta’s character was that, for the first time, I had a character who could stand toe to toe with The World’s Greatest band director. Their battle of wills led to some fun confrontations in the strip. Little did I know at the time that Roberta’s daughter Becky would grow to be a central player in the strip (and the eventual successor to Harry as band director at the high school) who would be around long after I had strip mined every possible joke from my super band mom.
