Hi, Everybody
Your ol' Interim Editor "Manly" Matt Dow here. With the NEXT chapter in
The Making of glamourpuss #25/ Zootananpuss #4, page 9*:
As you remember from last time, Dave had asked me to pitch a five page story for glamourpuss.
Pitch one was the one at the link. And now,
Here’s the reference I sent Dave for Pitch one:
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| Ted Kennedy’s 1967 Oldsmobile |
Ted
Kennedy’s car as a weapon comes from a bumper sticker my dad has, “Nuclear
energy is safer than Ted Kennedy’s car.”
Which is true. In the US Ted’s
car killed more people than Nuclear Energy.
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| Jodie Foster. (Admit it, you wanna see Dave’s version of this picture.) |
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| The Tardis from Doctor Who, one of the best known Time Machines in the world. |
Yeah, the last
panel on page 5. glamourpuss’ bit about
the offer being a hoax? The idea on page
1 was that -- even though it contradicts the copy -- this story is a dream, a
hoax, and an imaginary story. But I got
to the end of page 5 and realized I had forgotten to introduce the date offer
which would turn out to be a hoax. So that’s why that word balloon looks so
funny.
Every time I read
Iguana’s balloon in panel two I hear Arlo Guthrie’s voice in my head. “You got
a lot of damn gall” is a line from Arlo’s song “Alice’s Restaurant.”
I also love that a
page ago, Iguana and Beer were mortal enemies and now they’re best pals.
I have no idea what
the deleted bits from glamourpuss’ bit in the last panel are. I just figure
that all the truly personal details of her life get edited out of her magazine.
It’s a good pitch. A
fine pitch. I felt this one was the ONE.
But I also had a few other ideas. As listed in my notebook:
1: gp VS I VS B
2: glamour babies
3: glamourpuss’
Confidential “A-list” Celebrity boyfriend
4: glamourpuss
Reader’s In Crisis
5: Nixon Reagan
thing
Numbers two and
three never got to the paper stage, they’re only in my head.
Number four was
struck out as it turned into number 5. Which turned into Pitch #2…
Pitch #2:
This idea is closer (I think) to what Dave was looking for, at least in
terms of execution. My uncle had a box
of files on various subjects that I inherited after he died. In the box was a file full of AP photos of
Nixon. One of them, on the second page
of pitch 2, was of Nixon writing at a desk. I was gonna use it in “glamourpuss Readers In
Crisis” but couldn’t get a decent hook. Then I found another photo and it all
came together.
I needed to
introduce the idea, so page one is my rip-off of Peabody's Improbable History. With
everybody’s favorite skeletal dog, Boner the Runt Dog, as Peabody, and my
nephew Brenton as Sherman.
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| I do love jokey copyright notices... |
Here are the photos
of Brenton I had taken:
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| Panel 1 |
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| Panel 2 |
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| Panel 3 |
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| Panel 5 |
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| Panel 6 |
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| The background for panel 5 |
For all his hard work, I paid Brenton five bucks.
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Anybody who feels I underpaid the little twerp should note that the kid is fifteen now and twelve foot four.
Also, he's "smiting" me with Thor's hammer in this picture.
Frankly, I'm amazed he's still alive... |
glamourpuss pitch #2, page 2:
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| Click to see Tricky Dick in all his glory. |
Text: As 37th President Richard
Milhous Nixon ends his first term in office, he begins planning his re-election
bid. Facing poor approval ratings due to the war in Vietnam and domestic unrest
at home, Nixon looks into a WWII era project he first learned about as
Vice-President under Eisenhower.
Code named “Rebirth”, the project was considered a failure due to the death of
its lead scientist in 1941.
Page 3:
Image: Kirby style Captain America punching out a hippie, but Cap has Nixon’s
head
Caption Nixon: 23 Skidoo Hippie!
Text: New research by government scientists was proving promising, leading
Nixon to briefly plan on using the new formula on himself.
Unfortunately at 58 Nixon was too old for the formula to be successful. A search for a 98-pound weakling to transform into a new patriotic
super-soldier was begun.
Yeah, that’s the origin of
Captain America I’m talking about on page two.
Why? We’ll get there.
Oh I almost forgot,
back on page one of the second pitch, the reason Boner says, “…be whisked back
to San Clemente, California…” is that Nixon had what was known as “The Western
White House” in California for when he would go home on vacation and stuff.
Little factoid for you. Hope it helps if
you’re ever on Jeopardy.
Ah yes, “23 Skidoo
Hippie!” That came about because, one
day, my wife and I were at my mom’s, and in the course of our conversation, the
fact that my mom was eighteen during the “Summer of Love” and -- was sort of a
hippie and used to use all those old hippie sayings like “Peace” and “Love” and
“23 Skidoo” -- came up. And my mom got
REAL belligerent about how “23 Skidoo” wasn’t a hippie phrase. And the more belligerent she got the funnier
it was. So I had to use that somewhere. And having Nixon say it was just icing
on my metaphorical cake.
glamourpuss pitch #2, page 4:
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| Click for the Gipper |
Text: A novel suggestion was made to Nixon by then California governor Ronald
Reagan.
Since the formula would turn a 98-pound weakling into an American Fighting
Machine, was there any reason the 98-pound weakling couldn’t be a woman?
It was a brilliant political move that could boost Nixon’s numbers with the
burgeoning feminist movement in the upcoming election.
Page 5:
Image: A montage of girls. More girls than you can shake a stick at. I mean
“Fruitcake Park” numbers of girls.
Text: So a quick change was made to the search criteria, and the hunt began.
Back in the day,
famed X-Men writer Chris Claremont used
to say when creating new characters, “Is there any reason this couldn’t be a
woman?” Dave then used that logic when
creating Madame duFort in Cerebus. I liked the idea of giving that line to
Ronald Reagan.
The
“Fruitcake Park”- style parade of girls was mostly put in there to make up to
Dave that Nixon wasn’t a hot chick.
[editor’s(?) note: I send this supplement to
Dave to see if he had any notes, and he responded:
(actually, I’ve always been
completely at peace with the fact that Richard Nixon wasn’t a hot chick. Even back in my womanizing days – Dave the
Proofreader)
Laugh?
I thought I’d die. Matt]
glamourpuss pitch #2, page 6
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| You don't have to click on this one to make it bigger, the FBI already knows what they need to... |
Text: During a meeting about criminal background checks with J. Edgar Hoover,
an offer was made by the veteran FBI director to help design a uniform for the
new super-hero.
Image: blurry photo of Hoover in drag, similar to the blurry film
used by Rich Koslowski in Three Fingers, basically a blurry mess that could be
anything.
Text: (Rumors that the director had a spare costume made in a size 44 have
never been properly substantiated.)
Come on… you
would’ve made a “Hoover was a transvestite” joke too…
Yes, you would
have.
Whatever…denial ain’t just a river
in Egypt…
Anyway, the blurry
photo bit seemed like a good idea at the time.
glamourpuss pitch #2, page 7
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| Click all you want, she doesn't get any bigger... |
Text: Finally a candidate was chosen, and on September 19th, 1972 Ms. America
made her debut. (A military rank was deemed
too unpopular in light of increasing anti-war sentiment.)
She was a complete failure.
Vogue editor Grace Mirabella criticized the costume saying it: “looked like it was designed by a 77 year-old closeted transvestite.”
Ms. America was soon overshadowed by the Watergate scandal, and was quickly
forgotten by the public.
She settled in Ontario where she got married and gave birth to twin girls:
glamourpuss and Skanko.
And
here we have the photo I came across which brought this whole pitch
together. It’s from Entertainment Weekly’s San Diego Comicon coverage.
When
I saw it, I knew I had to use it in a glamourpuss
pitch. I mean, I already had the Nixon
photos.
The
line: “looked like it was designed by
a 77-year-old closeted transvestite” was something I was a little unsure
of. I thought I might be going a bit too
far, but hey, it made me laugh.
I
was actually surprised at how much research a seven-page strip required.
I
had to look up what kind of car Kennedy had; I had to look up when Hoover died
(which was less than a year after that picture with Nixon was taken) I had to
look up who the editor of Vogue was in
1973.
But
I think it was worth it.
So
I had two really good pitches, now all I needed was a cover sheet and to print out all the photo reference and mail it out to Dave. Which I did in September 2011.
And
I didn’t hear anything back for a month.
So I called Dave to make sure he got the package.
Nothing.
So anyway, no response from Dave until sometime in late October I got home from work to find the following in my mailbox:
“Not funny enough.”
Not. Funny. Enough.
Each word a stab into my heart.
Agony. Despair. Sadness.
As the following days turned into weeks turned into months, those words would haunt me.
“Not funny enough.” I mean, looking back, Dave was right. The pitches are clever, but they don’t make you almost piss yourself laughing. No one was gonna be quoting lines from them for years to come (“wuffa wuffa wuffa” being an example of the kind of joke that has legs.)
Was I discouraged?
Does the Pope wish I hadn’t made that pedophile crack earlier?
You bet I was discouraged.
But did I quit? (Obviously not, you’ve read glamourpuss #25 right?)
________________________
Next Time: More glamourpuss?
*Advance praise for glamourpuss archive:
"Up until an hour ago, I would have stated for a fact that [Jeff] Seiler's CEREBUS READERS IN CRISIS was the most uncalled-for example of Dave Sim Ephemera to hit the market, but I think you have him beat with this one."
Dave Sim
Creator- Cerebus, glamourpuss, Judenhass, The Strange Death of Alex Raymond, Cerebus in Hell?
