Posted on 12/30/2005 3:02:11 PM PST by pcottraux
And now we reach the bonus, just as I promised. All of my Dinkelmeyer bonus cartoons will include my own commentary on each…and in some cases, that will be a requirement because some of the toons are in-jokes that don’t make any sense unless I explain it.
The first small collection of cartoons are essentially doodles I made in class (the strip will later rise above that). The first few were done in a notebook of graphing paper for my math class. They were done in red ink, although I don’t fully remember why. I guess the red pen I had was the only writing tool that was expendable. I have included subtitles in case the handwriting isn’t legible to everyone.
This first little thing is not great, but it captures a moment in time. I drew this one the very first day of my senior year of high school. I was in a miserable mood. I drew this really as a doodle expressing my misery. At first, the cartoon was kind of a hybrid version of myself, but I immediately felt that the character I was making here was not the same as me. He was someone different.
Technically, these aren’t the first “Dinkelmeyers” because the character did not have a name yet. The inspiration I drew from was Charlie Brown; I wanted to create this as a guy who was a lovable loser, who never won and bad things were always happening to him. Bad things always happen to Charlie Brown, and that’s why we can relate to him (because those kinds of bad things happen to all of us at some point or another).
This is my favorite of the original “red ink” Dinkelmeyer toons. This is an early attempt at “hallway humor”…a play on the little awkward moments in hallways, bathrooms, standing in lines, etc. Larry David got rich on this kind of thing with “Seinfeld.”
This is the last red-ink Dinkelmeyer. Really, something as silly as walking into a girl’s bathroom would not make it into one of my FReeptoons today. Nevertheless, I wanted to introduce Principal Buffcake, a guy who was pretty much uncaring, apathetic, and less than intelligent. Buffcake would make a few more appearances in the strip, but didn’t become the regular character I wanted him to. Part of the problem was at this point, my main character didn’t even have a name yet, and I had already named the secondary guy?
That’s it for the first few Dinkelmeyers. Starting Tuesday, we will see the first ones to have a little more detail and care in them…and they will also be drawn with pencil (the medium I chose for the remainder of the strip). They are still drawn on graph paper, but after that I restarted the strip in a regular notebook (next Friday, we will start with those, the REAL Dinkelmeyers).
I know four is a lot for one day, and there will be three next week, but I wanted to hurry up and get the preliminaries out of the way. When the real Dinkelmeyers start next Friday, I will only post one at a time. We’re in no hurry.
I guess I should have taken the holiday weekend into account. I'm not taking it personally; it's just a little disappointing when Tuesday had such a huge response.
I guess I'll put this on the archives now.
Thanks for the laughs. I will be looking forward to seeing more next time.
Cheers! caryatid
Long day?
Hope your daughter's birthday was fun. I've just been sitting around at home all day. Kind of boring really.
Yes, thank you, it was. I took her shopping ... it was like old times ... we haven't done that in years. Then her husband prepared a really wonderful dinner for us before we made the long drive home.
G'night, pcottraux!
Have a good one.
Ah the Dinglemeye cartoons remind me of what it was like in school. LOL
Thanks Paul. It's been a slow night.
No problem
They remind me of that too, although school is something best forgotten.
Yeah I agree
me too...although they're like computer files...you think you've erased them, but they keep coming back.
I know.
Well, Dinkelmeyer is pretty much high school humor through and through. I hope it doesn't bring up terrible memories: my desire is to make people laugh but also relate.
I can relate too, and they didn't bring any terrible memories, although I have a lot of those. They made me laugh and I look forward to seeing more of 'em next week.
I've got a lot of them. Trust me...these are going to be going on for a LOOOOONG time!
"I need a few more hits from Allah"
That is an instant classic.
And all the best in the New Year to you, pcouttraux. Please keep your wonderfully amusing FReep-toons coming to cheer our way through the year. And Dinklemeyer is a welcome addiiton, too.
Cheers!
caryatid
Eh, don't sweat it. Lots of us read it, chuckle and hit the browse button without bothering to post.
I think there's some humor to be dredged up about pronouncing his name. AH-MAH-DIN-EH-JAD. Like giving a speech but everyone can't seem to pronounce it right so his head explodes and he nukes each country or something. hehe. Whatever, you're the toonist, I just think his name is funny since he's a despotic nut case.
The number of views rather than posts are what I mainly look at. Tuesday got 800+ last I checked.
I'm thinking of naming him President Anasanapecanascram.
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