Parasites du Jour

Here is a strip I did in collaboration with John Kelly, journalist, former university Public Relations and Communications honcho, former media man for a major U.S. professional sports league, and all-around writer, father, and bon vivant about town. At the time I did not know and had not met John. Our nexus was cartoonist, illustrator, and nemesis of all that is nice and clean, Danny Hellman. John had written this script about the parasites that surround and inhabit us and he wanted someone to illustrate it. An introduction was made and the script was provided, and I agreed to draw the pi'tures! (In the "Intro to Zoology" class I had taken in junior college years earlier, our instructor, himself a parasitologist, spent a good portion of class informing us of the awful beasties that, invisible, were out there in the world, waiting, and often succeeding, in ways often amazingly circuitous and unlikely, in penetrating the fortresses of our bodies, with variably nasty results. I had been terminally skeeved out, and so I was primed to draw this! Years after drawing this--in fact, the night before 9/11--I was in the now-gone Astor Place Barnes and Noble in NYC and I bought a book about parasites, as I had never lost my squeamish fascination with these critters.) In my drawings, I elaborated on John's script at times. I never did learn whether John was happy with what I had done, but he told me by IM moments ago that he'd be "happy" if I posted this, so I assume he liked it. This strip was published in a late issue of LCD, the irregular periodical formerly published by primo independent music radio station WFMU, broadcasting out of New Jersey. The originals of this strip were exhibited at one of the Max Fish cartooning salon exhibitions I described in my previous post. When Danny Hellman first saw this, he said the woman in the last panel looked like Kate Moss as painted by Margaret Keane. Bingo, Danny!