|
|
Tales From The Dougside was a comic strip that I created off and on for about 10 years. In 1987, while a student at the State University of Buffalo, I worked for the student magazine Generation. My roommate at the time, Brian Petrucco, was the production manager and thought that my drawings were at least as good as the cartoonist they had at the time, and a hell of a lot funnier. Unfortunately, they just didn't have room for me at the time. Columnist Jim Geraci just happened to be hanging around the offices at the time and suggested I do a cartoon in conjunction with his political writings called On The Sly Side. So that fall semester, I did a series of political cartoons that accompanied his articles featuring his characters Mick and Tobe. Jim wrote them. and I drew them. Pretty good gig. Unfortunately, Jim graduated after that semester, so I was left out to dry. But fate smiled soon on this humble cartoonist's head. The staff cartoonist quit just 2 weeks into the next semester and they needed to fill the space.
Brian suggested to the editorial board that they give me a try. I spent the better part of the week trying to come up with a cool concept for a strip. Some strip ideas that I discarded included Talbot's Last Burger about a young man searching for all-beef patty nirvana, and something called Sweat Socks and Porridge. After too many late nights in front of the tube sketching, I finally settled on Tales From The Dougside, a variation on the syndicated horror-fest Tales From The Darkside. I don't really know why it stuck, it just did.I was so excited when the very first Dougside appeared in February 1988. Probably too excited. I was trying to jam too many ideas into some of the very early strips and rumblings began amongst the editorial board that I was too wordy and some even went so far as to suggest that I wasn't funny! Of course, my fragile, young ego was hurt, and lashed back with a comic strip that almost ended my career right then and there. Someday I'll dig it out and scan it in for you. Looking back, now I see that they were totally right about the wordy part...the funny part is debatable. I sputtered through a few semesters pissing off everyone from the editorial board to the SA president, before bottling up the inkwell when I graduated in the spring of 1989.
I drew some new strips over the next few years when I self published the short-lived The Douglas J. Arthur Summer Fun-N-Games Newsletter for my friends. This morphed into the equally short-lived self published Douglas J. Arthur Marital Bliss Handbook. In the cold winter months of early 1992, fate smiled again. I was working at a local movie theater at the time, ripping tickets in between threading projectors and starting shows. Up walked a local film critic who began to have a discussion with my manager. I wasn't paying attention to their conversation, until I heard my manager tell the critic that I drew cartoons. The critic did reviews for an entertainment rag called NightLife. he said that he'd been trying to convince the editors that they needed a new cartoon for their publication, and he'd like to show some of my artwork to them. A few weeks later, on March 23, 1992, Tales From The Dougside was reborn!
I did the strip weekly for 5 years and sputtered through a 6th year with sporadic output, until I finally holstered the crowquill pen in November of 1998.
During that time I self-published Tales From The Dougside Quarterly an example of which can be seen above. This was sent out free of charge to many of my friends and family who lived out of town and couldn't see my artwork.
In 1995, my ambitions got bigger and I published my first book collection of Dougside cartoons, Slackjaw. This proved to be successful enough to spawn 3 sequel collections, The Disparity of Gravy (1995), Tainted Circus (1996), and Bad Mustard (1997).Fear not, fright fiends, Dougside is not dead! Plans are afoot to publish a huge 200 page softcover compendeum encompassing the entirity of Dougside's history sometime in 2001. It will include new cartoons, previously unpublished artwork and behind the scenes peeks at my troubled psyche. I'll let you know more details as the time draws closer. I'm also working on a new game that I may be marketing sometime in the next year, probably two. I can't tell you too much about that yet.
Thanks for taking the time to visit my website. Peruse at your leisure and enjoy it or not. It's up to you.
-----Doug Arthur, 9/15/2000
| GO HOME | Just One Match | The Adventures of Redlight and U-Turn | The Gallery of Horrors | ||
| The New American Gothic | Links | Guestbook and Online Diary | E m a i l M e | ||