from black and white xerographic copy
1989
"The buss-room
"Come on you lousy, broken down piece of
man made, scrap-iron intestinal track! You
smelly old head of fungus caked bowel
movement! START!"
Featuring Herb the bear.
-----------
Bussers' room, The French Market Restaurant, N.O.S., Disneyland
I first was hired to work at Disneyland as a restaurant host/cast-member on a part-time seasonal basis (casual temporary, a.k.a. C.T. in Disney lingo) in the summer of 1987. Always with my four-color medium point Bic® pen, I would at times draw on napkins during breaks in my shift. At the time I still a mechanical engineering student in college, so it wasn't an act of vocation but one of fun.
In a secret-Santa gift exchange in December 1988, I received a 9.00 in. x 11.50 in. pad of paper. With these supplies, my scribbles were formalized in one of my longest running comic strip ventures: BackStage.
As is turns out, the strip is 10 years old this year. That's good enough reason to post these old things as any.
Herb is part of the stable of original characters I had developed of intentional Disney-esque design. Most of the characters I developed were bears as a carry over from the department name, Bear Country Restaurants. That same year, the associated land was re-named Critter Country with the opening of Splash Mountain.
Oh, the memories.... ^__^
ReplyDeleteOddly enough I hadn't remembered that this was how it started... hehheh!
Kind of regretful how #7 through #10 seems to be missing.
Really enjoying this sojourn to the past!
By the way, I think here you say the strip is 10 years old, but perhaps you may mean 20?
;)
Yes, you are correct, this year marks the 20th anniversary of "BackStage" not the 10th. I don't know which is worse, my math or my delusion of having only been away from D-land for a couple of years.
ReplyDeleteWhere are #'s 7 through 10? There may not in fact be that many missing. I started saving "BackStage" late in the run, and numbering them later. So, I skipped some in the numbering just in case a few "lost" "BackStages" reappeared.