Colorado Daily

As many of you know, I've been writing graphics and design books for more than 20 years.  Back in those early days, I routinely worked for clients, creating graphics and designs on a daily basis.

But even before that, I wrote and illustrated a daily comic strip for a popular Boulder free newspaper, the Colorado Daily (still in publication). The name of the comic strip was Cereal. In all, I wrote more than 400 of the comics--all the black-and-white weekday variety--from my Junior year of college in 1983 until after I graduated in 1985. I was paid precisely $2.50 for each one, or $12.50 a week. For you youngsters, that was not good money back in those days; that just plain sucked. But I did it anyway, strictly out of love for the art.

In the process of moving offices a decade or so ago, I had sealed all 400+ original drawings in cloth, wrapped them in plastic, and placed the sealed result in a shoe box. (Not the recommended method for preserving fine art, but it worked surprisingly well!) Then I placed the shoe box in a larger box to be moved. But as these things go, somehow a few of the boxes got lost in the shuffle and I haven't seen my beloved Cereals since. Until now, that is. A couple of weeks ago, I located a cache of missing boxes and--wouldn't you know it?--at the bottom of one of them, under a stack of late 1990's multimedia CD-ROMs, was that very shoebox and its contents, in absolutely mint condition!

Which is why, with your permission, I'd like to share a few of these 25-year-old comic strips with you. In which you'll learn, among other things, the origin of Shenbop. Read more »