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This endeavor was particularly interesting, because I've painted the "Cashews" before. Much of the idea for the "strip" is based on the recurring pulled-away-football gag of Peanuts fame. I wanted to exacerbate that, removing all comedic pretense that hid any of the malice, but would still elicit cruel laughter just as any Jackass or otherwise crude or violent contemporary humor might.

Schulz himself knew that Lucy was an unlikable character, but posited that she was a necessary evil to foil Charlie's unlikeable naievety. Quoted in the book Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, he writes:

"She really can't help herself. She is annoyed that it's all too easy. Charlie Brown isn't that much of a challenge. To be consistent, however, we have to let her triumpuh, for all the loves in the strip are unrequited; all the baseball games are lost; all the test scores are D-minuses; the Great Pumpkin never comes; and the football is always pulled away."

Schulz professed a love of spontaneity in terms of line, ever seeking the "perfect" line that ran from the character's head to foot. This painting was less planned and more spontaneous in it's linework, which to me seems a terrible mistake, but that might be the difference between a man who invented and drew the same characters for decades and a fan who has drawn them maybe two dozen times.

Half way through lettering, my brush split. Perhaps it was not meant to run across acrylic? Regardless, a lot of time was spent simply correcting the tips of letters to seem as though they were one concise brush mark. This often involved a .01 micron.

On the topic of female bullies in his comedy, Schulz said, "The supposedly weak people in the world are funny when they dominate the supposedly strong people. There is nothing funny about a little boy being mean to a little girl. That is simply not funny! But there is something funny about a little girl being mean to a little boy."

This was of course significantly more relevant to the struggle of women and other minorities in 1967, but is largely still funny today for the same reasons. Any analysis of such humor might beg the question why any sort of antagonism is appropriate, no mater from whom to whom, but of course we all know the answer. We like seeing people suffer. And there is the gem of the human condition upon which Peanuts operates. Our malice as the viewer, far more sick than Lucy or Violet or Patty, because we come back every week to see who will embarrass or harm the well-intentioned Charlie Brown next.

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With the addition of the "crazy birds" and the text (decided to leave out the bubbles) all that was left was the logo.

The circular design of the logo is meant to draw slight reference to the opening and closing Loony Tunes images, mostly by being circular in nature and having a black central circle. The font is directly drawn from Loony Tunes. Even the bird's musical notes, an idea only stumbled upon by misaligned lettering, brings a slight formal nod to the Merrie Melodies logo.

The completed piece. 12" x 4"

Next on the roster: My third jab at the "Cashews" strip. Four panels replacing the pulled away football gag with a more directly malicious baseball game involving a brick thrown at Barry Crown's (working name) head. Size 1' x 1'.

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Beginning with what would presumably be the easiest set, "Avery and Those Crazy Birds", has nonetheless wrought a significant amount of surprise difficulties.

There are many ties to comics and cartoons from several genres and periods. The most obvious association being the name Avery with Tex Avery of Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Droopy fame (amongst others). Avery's trademark "cartoony-ness" set the pace for all animation, and his witty but often dry breaking of the fourth wall is represented in my cartoon, as Avery Wahn's (changed from Wann since last week) strip is a complete biopic.

Visual similarities are also struck, as the Crazy Birds (name drawing slight reference to Harvey Kurtzman's Krazy Kat) are dressed in jazz-era spats. Their hats are also reminiscent of the period, taking a slight formal nod from Goofy's hat. The "Crazy Birds'" eyeballs are stretched and curved versions of traditional "carroted" (so named for the tiny triangle in the middle signifying light) eyes popularized in Floyd Gottfredson's 1930's Mickey Mouse. The curve changes the natural cuteness to a more snake-like monstrous form, and the replacement of the carrot shape with that of a circle creates distinct "points" that detract additional cuteness.

Other formal elements drawing relation to Sunday funnies are the pupil-less glasses, akin to Dilbert's and the recurring horizontal line forming a "table" reminiscent of Jim Davis' Garfield.

The painting process itself involved a thing layer of acrylic, "Unbleached Titanium", to create a newsprint-esque appeal. The linework is laid on secondarily again with my Pentel Ink Brush. The difficulty here being that comics and cartoon strips are drawn at double or greater size then shrunk for printing. Working at "life size" with a paintbrush on a vertical textured surface is definitely a far cry from the original process.

Ironically, post-design I ran across a perfectly matched image from one of my heaviest inspirations in the "non-mainstream" comic realm, Tony Millionaire's Maakies. Again, there is far more detail in these images than I am able to replicate due to material circumstance, but I think the simplicity reflects the style and gestalt of more culturally-accepted strips.

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Finally formalized (-ish) ideas for the painting collection:

- Dawson Dawg (akin to Mickey Mouse via alliteration) by Will Essex (a relic from when I thought Will Eisner used to work for disney, but a fun reference to My Son, My Son! that I find nonetheless fitting.)

Trademark Topics to Discuss:
- Gender Roles
- Dawson's anarchistic meddling as a metaphor for American pre-WWII sentiment
- Pre-WWII economic views

- Cashews (same character count as Peanuts) by Sparkz (Schulz's working name was "Sparky") What does it mean to turn the author into a female of color? My point is one of the universal struggle of the creative mind, but there is only one character of color in Schulz's strip. What does that say about society, and how can I avoid saying it?

Trademark Topics to Discuss:
- Depression as a hallmark of normality
- The group's antagonistic relationship to the individual seeking acceptance

- Avery and Those Crazy Birds (non-referential) by Avery Waan (Avery taken from Tex Avery, known for trademark breaking the fourth wall, and the name overall phonetically sounds like "Everyone.") Hopefully by changing the title from "Crows" to "Birds" I have yet again escaped questions of racial subtext. Hopefully.

Topics to Discuss:
- The artist's work as a cry for help, literally
- The antagonistic relationship between the artist and their creations

Material considerations: In the wake of my first Cashews attempt, I'm now considering coating the canvas in a thin layer of off-white acrylic to mock newsprint. Hopefully the india ink will still take on top of that.