Chapter 7

Cartoons, page two

The lad stopped, gently rocking on the globe beheath him.

"Hiya, Herbert. How've you been? Nice to see you again. Been some time."

I'd drawn this character as a generic kid who could do various things, but finally wound up in some short piece titled "The Kid and the Book" or something.

"And don't forget the earier work you had me in, something about using your imagination all the time and enjoying life more. I liked that one alot. Action and message. Putting me in that one about some adult leaving a book to read and find some way out was corny. Look where it got you - that senior exec just told you to get back to work, or at least his secretary did.

"Yeah, they really appreciated you and your talent. Jeez. And you never drew me again. Nice result, eh? Actually, you never drew cartoons for them any more after that, either. Colonel Drake's dailies died long before, with no one to pick up the support for you and your popular art."

Drake chimed in, "You know how people would actually turn to the back page to read it first before any of the regular news. That made me happy - my fans loved me, even though some of the jokes you had me spout were pretty flat at times."

I objected, "But they had a point, they said something."

Able inserted, calmly, "And that is just why cartoonists draw and letter their art - there's something to say, some point to get across. Take Pogo, you always loved Walt Kelly's incisive humor, poking fun at everyone and everything through his satirical humor. Doonesbury slants his stuff to the left and Mallard Filmore..." Drake smiled as only a duck could. "... slants his to the right. Then there was continuing work on strips like Calvin and Hobbes, which told stories of kids like me, but really pushed family values and made occasional social commments. Made his creator quite well off, by the way, even without licensing his characters as plush toys and so on."

The other planets had been closing on our position gradually, each showing some young child on them, having fun just racing around. Not moving close enough to engage with this conversation, but interested - hovering just on the polite edge of our space.

My interest was piqued by these two cartoon characters, "So you're saying that I should simply drop everything and move over to cartooning/animation full time..."

"No, no, no," Drake retorted, "you don't have to change anything. We are just going to tell you to listen to yourself, don't just go on the whole material universe telling you what you should do with your life. Use your own personal wants and needs as part of the comparative data. Don't just run off having to work in some warehouse or factory or cubicle for 60% of your life. Weigh in all this other data as well..."

Able interrupted, "But we aren't really here to persuade you at anything, just entertain you with some of the characters you've recorded."

"What, some sort of Dickens' Christmas Carol scene?" I asked.

"Yea, more or less." Able continued, "You don't have much of a present, other than Pita, Phil and Roger - and maybe some others. But Webspread and I are part of the past. You have been wanting to confront us for awhile, so we just decided to take the initiative to do a show and tell with all your old friends, like some sort of reunion."

Drake: "But daylight's burning, man. You're busy making decisions which affect our lives and many of us are getting thinner by the minute - our survival is at stake, as well as yours. Let's get over to the meeting hall for some real meet-and-greet."

"Meeting Hall?" I wondered.

Able: "Yea, it's a bit away from here... You know, Colonel, we never figured out how to get him over there. This planet I'm riding doesn't sit two, but Herbert isn't trained on riding these anyhow."

Drake: "No problem - we're in cartoon land now. Anything is possible."

With that, he pulled out a marker from one of his pockets and drew a pair of panelled doors with large brass doorknobs and heavy brash plates around them. After standing back to admire his artwork, Drake stepped forward and kicked the corner of the door frame. It then enlarged to a size normal for my height.

"OK, after you," the Colonel quacked.

I reached over to the knob, expecting some Disney-Alice interaction with it, but finding none, I simply turned the knob and pushed. Nothing happened. I grabbed the other knob with my other hand, then twisted each of them and pulled at the same time - an audible "pop" sounded and the two doors creaked toward me. A warmth exuded from the space beyond, which turned out to be a huge convention space, replete with unfolded tables, chairs and the usual rolled plastic table covered - printed in some checkerboard pattern.

Around the room were clusters of characters I had drawn at various times. I barely recognized many of them - this was truly a historical event. Way over in the corner were the Scratchy Brothers - who starred in a grade-school attempt at converting Tom Sawyer to cartoon form. Near him were the robots I drew for years, balanced on a single wheel with a box body and various heads and appendiges, usual two arms and different hands. While there were some massively tall windows into the sunlight, I saw the various hot-air balloons and different car designs I had worked up in the margins of my school papers and book covers.

Some of these characters nodded and smiled or waved to me as we entered. Drake waddled beside me, while Able had dismounted and walked in behind us, moving over to the punch and cookies buffet. (I think he had the icecream dishes in mind.) Some of the other children had also jumped off their floating planets and crowded in on a bee line behind Able.

Drake led us over to an oversized, but none-too-large dragon, who was sipping some suitably large drink in his clawed hands. "You recall your protege', don't you? Here's Drago, who performed for so many varied stills so well for you. Even put him in a strip once."

So well I remembered. He was all too popular while I was at the Center. Used to take old posters and draw this character on there, to motivate the clientele of programmees there to take more services.

"Hey there, Herbert. Nice to see you again. Thanks for all the great opportunities to work with you. Really wowed them, didn't we. Got any new work on the board which needs a character like me? Liked how you fit me in with Able on that one piece, despite the lack of circulation on it."

"Thanks Drago. No, I'm busy with other things at the moment, nothing particularly on the 'board'..." Drago looked subdued with this. "...but I'm sure something will turn up. Drake and I have been talking about getting something going again."

Heartened, Drago lightened up a bit. "Sure, Herbert. You've got my number. Any time. Maybe we could do lunch sometime, eh?"

"Sure Drago, sure." Drake was nudging me along to someone else.

"He was a favorite of yours for a time. This was you working out how to contribute your skills to the Center, when you never really fit in at all. They had one mold, in interchangeable sizes, that they expected people to fit into. Same allowance, no permanence - but I digress. Let's get into another character. There's Buzzy, you remember him - used to drop, well - um - bombs on your opponents in that race to build your franchise up to a big "Old Center" size. Very popular with the guys and gals working there.

"And there's the Big-Nosed-Man. You know, his eyes were always on the same side of his head. Never had any dialogue, always posed in demonstrative ways. You used him to promote production for that "Old Center" race which had all those annual awards."

Colonel Drake went on and on, re-introducing me to all the characters I had ever drawn, had ever copied or worked around. Anyone or anything I had ever sketched even briefly was there. They all seemed to be happy at this convention, eager for another chance at brief stardom or even to grace the page of my sketchbook.

The path Drake weaved was a long one. I had no idea what prolificity meant and certainly never thought I had ever worked as such while only doing this part-time. Yet I had looked down the vast empty hall-ways of other people's lives and seen only the hollow echoing of endlessly non-applied talent and effort. And as well looked through museums, virtual and otherwise, to see only a partial collection of any given author/artist's works - imagine the work which was unpublished. And yet this convention room here was showing me the immense nascent talent which as yet was almost entirely un-published.

As on that sad note - or perhaps Drake noticed the wistfulness creeping across my face, he stopped and led me to some familar friends standing to one side of the rest: Pita and Phil.

"How's it going boss?" Pita asked brightly.

"Hey, whatdya think?" Phil entered the fray.

Colonel Drake had quietly padded off and the rest of the room's chaotic white noise of conversations and laughter faded slightly, as if we had entered some special quantum-mechanics space of our own.

"Well, those spaces exist,you know," said Phil calmly. "Don't be surprised, your thoughts are our thoughts - we are simple extensions of you, you know."

"Roger sends you his best wishes - he thought it better for him not to attend, since this wasn't a sheerly logical need to resolve." Pita was dressed gorgeously in a plush sweater and slacks, purple trimmed with blues and orange threads as highlights. She held one of the plastic cups and had set her minimal cookies over on the table to her side. "But we're here to help you with this particular area, since we seem to know you best."

"So, like the spread? Certainly have enough to eat here." Phil had several muffins and cookies on a napkin spread over one of his huge hands, while he had a large plastic cup in the other which looked small in his grasp. "When Drake told us about this, we flew right on over. Figured if you needed to work something out, we would be needed."

I considered this and was warmed by their thoughts, their care.

"It begins with the need I've always had to draw, to create. This is when I've felt best, brightest and calmest. People around me don't always consider that, nor tended to really understand what I was going through. That's one of the problems - am I doing this for sheerly selfish reasons, or using art as a self-discovery therapy as Pollock did his work, or simply finding my own way at some sort of psychological crisis point in my life?"

Pita, caring: "You know, whatever you do, whatever you decide, we'll be here to help you."

Phil: "Yeah, always have, always will. 100 percent."

This brought up a question, however: "But where were you when I was growing up, I never knew you until recently to even exist."

Phil: "Just had to need us as separate from you. We were always around helping, but so often - especially in the young - people won't see others around them until they've seen enough people in their lives to allow them to have their own distinct value. Like a well-tooled workshop, every tool is better for some uses than others. The trick is to know which does best for what. But the tool shop needs all of them, actually, to be prepared for anything the artisan wants to build."

Pita: "People are the same way. In music, a single instrument can bring out an emotional response in a person, but a harmonic symphony or chorus of voices will bring a completely different view of the same theme or melody. But that is the difference between the young, who can only follow in the lock-step of their peers from one trend to the next - and older adults, who still like the music they grew up with, but now appreciate why the Beatles really took off when symphonic orchestration was added to the background of their tunes."

I considered this: "But it doesn't explain why you suddenly appeared to me."

Pita: "Look, when you draw or write, you use your left hand, correct?"

I nodded.

She continued: "And when you were a kid, your right arm was stronger - in fact, you still drive with your right hand."

Correct again.

"So we've always been around, always helping you. We became apparent only when you needed us to be. Like all those cartoon characters - there's a little bit of you in all of them. Anything you draw or work up as computer art has a bit of you in them."

Phil chimed in: "The trick is bringing it to the surface and sharing it with others. Nothing wrong with being an unknown genius, quietly living a perfect life. But people around you could benefit by what you say, do, write, draw and perhaps just from your smile and easy-going attitude toward life. There's some responsiblity to living. One doesn't actually live by or for oneself. He lives with and for others as well."

Pita: "And while we don't presume to fill in for Dr. Winston or Roger, it starts to explain why you got into that cult to begin with. Besides the marketing, there is within you the need to help humankind itself, to solve some of the more major puzzles which continually confront humanity, or at least contribute to their solutions."

Sooth.