Meadow & Bob #5

Meadow & Bob #4

Meadow & Bob #3

Meadow & Bob #2

I made a mistake when introducing the first of these strips last month [HERE]. I said that the characters names were Meadow and Bob, which is correct. But I had them backwards, claiming it was Meadow the mouse and Bob the cat. It's just the opposite: Bob's the mouse and Meadow is the cat.

Strip Show

In the mid-'90s I decided there should be a syndicated cartoon strip in my future. The cartoon syndicates felt otherwise.

Looking back now, the flow of rejection slips probably wasn't such a bad thing. It's tough establishing a cartoon strip, or making much money from it, especially as newspapers increasingly struggle for circulation. But that's a comment one makes in hindsight. The fact was, back then, the thought of having a syndicated strip was appealing. That's what real cartoonists did.

To try and make that happen, I drew up six weeks worth of strips starring a mouse named Meadow and a cat named Bob (i.e. Meadow mouse and Bob cat). [edit: I had it backwards. Meadow is the cat and Bob is the mouse.] I laid the daily strips out three to a page, printed out the pages, and bundled them together in a booklet.

One by one, the proposals went out ... then slowly limped back home. Each time, I would read the enclosed rejection letter, regroup for a day or two, then print up another booklet, substituting in the name of my new target, and send it off.

FAST FORWARD: Those strips are now seeing the light of day, some of them anyway. You be the judge as to whether the syndicates made the correct call. If you ask me, I think so. In any event, above is the first installment, somewhat randomly chosen, of Meadow & Bob.