From the Archives 1

I've returned, not exactly well-rested, but bearing gifts of negligible value. I spent some time digging through stored files and came across a bunch of rare stuff that may be of interest to fans of XOMBI, KOBALT, and my work in general.

I'll be posting some of it here periodically, but the bulk of it will wind up in the improved "Writing" section of the website, which will hopefully be all shiny and new by summer's end.

Today's offering is a sample of "Date Due" a comic strip I used to due for the amusement of myself, friends, and colleagues, way back when I worked at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at NYU. The strips were obviously drawn on the date due slips from the library books (hence the name) and varied in quality depending on how quickly i was trying to get them done between visits by patrons to the circulation desk.

Most of the stories ran several pages in length, and were pretty random in their content. Eventually, most of the stories centered around three kids, Randy (seen here), Barry, and Travis. While no date was given, based on their toys and interests, and despite numerous anachronisms, it was clearly the early to mid-1970s, a period I was well familiar with.

I realize that some of the dialogue is hard to read. So, the bottom tier reads like this:

Panel 7:

Randy: "Then some zombies to eat it."

Sara: "Randy! Stop, you're ruining it!"

Panel 8:

Randy: "Okay! Okay!"

Mrs. Marlette: "Sara! What are you doing? You're supposed to be putting a brain on your paper."

Sara: "I'm working on it!"

If there is any other dialogue difficult to decipher, please let me know.