#955 – Tuesday Tradition…
Today’s strip – as you can see – is a bit different. I had this idea in my head and wanted to do a little experimenting.
You see, way back in 1987, I picked up a Green Arrow graphic novel by Mike Grell called The Longbow Hunters. I always liked Mike Grell’s art but what really struck me with this particular graphic novel was that Mike did a wide variety of things with this graphic novel. Most pages were traditional comic bool, pen and ink pages but every now and then you’d turn the page and there would be a beautifully painted page by Mike or a colored pencil on parchment paper rendering of Green Arrow. That alway stuck with me as being such a cool thing Mike did in that graphic novel.
Now, today’s experiment doesn’t come close to those colored pencils on parchment paper but I wanted to try something new and different. Hope you liked my little art experiment for today.
Today is my best friend’s birthday…
I also want to give a big shout out to my best friend, Jeff Lacquement, as today is his birthday. Jeff and I first met each other when I was 14 years old and we’ve been tight ever since. However, if someone were to study us, on paper, our friendship makes almost no sense whatsoever. Our politics are different. Our sports allegiances (mostly football) are different. Our taste in clothes is different and our movie preferences are different. But the one thing we always seemed to share was a similar taste in music – even though Jeff is a much bigger fan of U2 than I am and he doesn’t come anywhere to being obsessed with Stevie Nicks like I am.
However, we could wear out any tapes featuring Journey, Billy Joel (ESPECIALLY Billy Joel), Heart, Neil Diamond (shut up – Neil is awesome!), KISS and, back in the day, the Top Gun sound track. We even DJ’d a Junior High School birthday party or two here and there.
Music may have tied us together but it’s our weird connection to one another that has made our friendship last. So, Happy Birthday, Jef
