During the summer of 1985 almost every aspiring cartoonist on the planet was dreaming of being the next Gary Larson, resulting in hordes of vastly inferior Far Side knock-offs spewing from the syndicate spigots. One can only wonder just how many never even made it past the editorial slush pile.
I wish I could claim that I was immune to this covetous rush, but I was not. I put together at least three separate takes on the single-panel gag cartoon, one being Big Suburban Fire Comics, a disparate, fleeting enterprise that culminated with a scant eight samples, none of which ever left my hands. Perhaps even I, locked in my thoroughly non-commercial mindset, saw how far removed this overly cerebral approach was from what the editors of American dailies were looking for. Nevertheless, I opted to adopt the Big Suburban Fire moniker and spent the next year creating many multiple-panel cartoons signed as such. I will be presenting many of these in posts to come. For now, I offer up the never-before-seen original octet, featuring two notably different drawing styles, not to mention some frightening misspellings.