Rusty

As the final year of John Darling Sunday strips unspooled, I really enjoyed seeing Bob Votjko’s art on the feature. I’ve always liked Bob’s style from the first time I saw it… which was a looong time ago. I’d only been doing Funky for a few month’s when Bob showed up at our apartment wanting some advice on his work and wanting to know how to get syndicated. I was barely started myself at that point so I don’t know how much help I was (none), but I told him I admired his style and we stayed in touch. 

A year or so later Bob brought over some animal drawings that were really enchanting (there’s a word I don’t get to use enough), and I asked him If I could take a crack at writing something for them. What I came up with is a strip I called Rusty, about some animals in a national park. Basically a hipper Yogi Bear, a cartoon that was long in the review mirror by that point. We didn’t have any luck syndicating it, although it did prove providential in a couple of ways down the road. But just because we couldn’t get it in the papers, doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it. Its strong ecological bent probably wouldn’t fly in today’s political environment, but nevertheless it holds up rather nicely. I’m going to roll it out day by day just like you would have seen it had it appeared in your daily newspaper. Enjoy.