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  • From: Doctor Fun website changes <dr-fun-changes AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • To: Doctor Fun website changes list <dr-fun-changes AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [dr-fun-changes] http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/faq.html has changed as at 0401 UTC, 2006-06-12.
  • Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:01:11 -0400

3c3
< The Story Of Doctor Fun
---
> Welcome to the Doctor Fun Page
5,1357c5,36
< Slightly updated, June 2005. Most important news is the Doctor
< Fun Book, from Plan Nine Publishing. 128 pages, full color,
< all your favorite Doctor Fun cartoons. Already in its third
< printing!
<
< The Doctor Fun Book from Plan Nine Publishing
<
< Well, I promised to write it, and here it is, the story of
< Doctor Fun. It's not as finished as it ought to be, and I plan
< to add some stuff, sometime. It's been six or seven years
< since I wrote an FAQ, and the last one was sort of terse. Like
< all good procrastinators, I've worked on this right up to the
< last minute. Broken links, spelling and grammatical errors
< will be fixed as I find them.
<
< All the best FAQs are written as long chatty mostly-text
< messages that you can print off (duplex to save paper, please)
< and take to the go-go bar to peruse between lap dances. I've
< kept links to other things to a minimum in this, although
< partly that's because this isn't quite finished yet. I've
< written answers to questions I think ought to be in an FAQ,
< and answers to questions people have actually asked me. I've
< made some notes where I intended to write more and ran out of
< time on this version. Ask me some more questions, and I'll
< write some more answers. Most of the FAQs I read have to do
< with CD-writers or how to read the stepping series on Intel
< chips. You know, useful stuff. I dunno what sort of useful
< stuff you'll find here.
<
< Somewhere out there floating around in Internet Land is a
< sort-of FAQ I wrote in a shameless attempt to get some kind of
< prize for something shortly after Doctor Fun started. It used
< to be on Google, but I couldn't find it the last time I
< looked. I don't have a copy, but will post it here if I find
< one. It's probably a better record of what was on my mind when
< I started Doctor Fun than this will be.
<
< The mini-FAQ on the main Doctor Fun page was written after I
< wrote most of this, and is shorter and funnier. This page is
< longer, and has more run-on sentences.
<
< Now, before anything else, some acknowledgments. I write and
< draw Doctor Fun all by my lonesome, and like it that way, but
< these people have contributed a feature or two to the Doctor
< Fun page and deserve to get their name on the marquee. What
< they did is explained somewhere else in the FAQ. Paul Jones
< and the jolly crew at ibiblio, Nicholas Barnard, Mostafa
< Eldefrawy, Nick Kean, Jack Leblond, Mark Plaga, Ed Staszny,
< Keith Waclena, Dr. Bernhard L. Winkler, Australian Cybermalls,
< and whoever maintains the mirror at Manchester University
< (can't find your e-mail).
< _________________________________________________________
<
< What is Doctor Fun?
<
< Doctor Fun is a cartoon, single-panel, with a wacky gag and
< colorful artwork. Not all Doctor Funs may be suitable for
< children and some childlike adults. There's a new Doctor Fun
< every weekday. What Doctor Fun is, for the literal-minded, is
< a 640 x 480 pixel 24-bit color JPEG file.
<
< Is Doctor Fun an alternative comic?
<
< Doctor Fun is something, but it's not an alternative comic. I
< made the mistake once of sending some Doctor Funs to some
< alternative newspapers.
<
< Where and when did Doctor Fun start?
<
< Doctor Fun first went live on the web on September 24, 1993 at
< the University of Chicago Library on a server called
< neuromancer.lib.uchicago.edu . For a brief time, Doctor Fun
< was also available on, of all things, a web server running
< under Windows for Workgroups on a machine called
< microserver.lib.uchicago.edu. Neither of these computers are
< now serving up Doctor Fun.
<
< Is Doctor Fun the oldest comic on the Internet?
<
< No. That would be "Where the Buffalo Roam" by Hans Bjordahl.
< "Where the Buffalo Roam" started in 1991, and had its own
< Usenet group long before Doctor Fun came along, and is still
< running on the web.
<
< Was Doctor Fun the first cartoon on the World Wide Web?
<
< There you go! You've got it - Doctor Fun was the first cartoon
< on the World Wide Web.
<
< Here's the announcement from NCSA. (Of course, that link to
< the cartoon doesn't go anywhere now.)
<
< Marc Andreesen noted that it was still running a month later.
< Marc also sent me the first e-mail about Doctor Fun, pointing
< out a typo in my links (historic e-mail I wish I could find
< now - whatever happened to my billion dollars?)
<
< Who is the Godfather of Doctor Fun?
<
< Keith Waclena first suggested I put Doctor Fun on this new
< "World Wide Web" thing, and gave me a space on his new "web
< server". Keith is the Godfather of Doctor Fun. Some say the
< guy with the ponytail in this cartoon is Keith, but it
< couldn't be Keith, because the character in the cartoon is
< wearing a tie, and Keith never wears ties. Keith says "Happy
< New Year", sends his regrets that he wasn't at the party, and
< asks you to decide.
<
< So Doctor Fun didn't start out as a web cartoon?
<
< The proto-version of Doctor Fun started out as a cartoon I was
< going to post to one of the binaries groups on Usenet. I spent
< an awful lot of time trying to balance quality while cramming
< down the size of the cartoon. Doctor Fun was posted to Usenet
< for many years, and there is still a mailing list that will
< send you the new Doctor Fun each weekday.
<
< Here is a test drawing left over from when I was trying out
< different formats.
<
< And here is the announcement of Doctor Fun dredged out of
< Deja.
<
< An even more proto-version of Doctor Fun started out as a
< photocopied 'zine I was going to distribute myself here in
< Chicago before I even got on the Internet. I have that
< somewhere, and might scan it in someday, although most of the
< cartoons have already been re-used as early Doctor Funs. I
< don't think more than ten copies ever got passed out. Gosh, if
< you had one of those, that would be really valuable!
<
< What is ibiblio?
<
< ibiblio is the public's library and digital archive, and is
< physically located at the University of North Carolina, in
< Chapel Hill. There are all sorts of interesting things on
< ibiblio. Why not check it out?
<
< How did Doctor Fun end up on ibiblio? And what why did it move
< from SunSITE to metalab and then to ibiblio?
<
< The short answer is, Doctor Fun never moved anywhere after it
< left the University of Chicago, SunSITE just became metalab
< which became ibiblio.
<
< Since I am sitting here pretending real people are asking me
< these questions instead of my imaginary friends, a more
< interesting question is, how did Doctor Fun move to SunSITE to
< begin with? There was a collection of artists called SITO (I
< forget what it stands for) on SunSITE. SITO was maintained by
< somebody named Ed Staszny. Ed saw my cartoons and contacted me
< to ask if I'd like to move Doctor Fun to my own space on
< SunSITE. This was very kind of Ed, and for other reasons I had
< to get the cartoons off of neuromancer anyway, so everything
< worked out. Unfortunately, Doctor Fun sort of swamped SITO, so
< the SunSITE people decided to move me off to my own space all
< by myself. And I've been there ever since, and so have many of
< the people who were at SunSITE at the time, like Paul Jones,
< and Jonathan Magid.
<
< What is the deal with the ibiblio, etc., name changes?
<
< I didn't really know the answer, either, so I put the question
< to ibiblio's Director, Paul Jones, and he was kind enough to
< take the time to explain all.
<
< "Here's the short: Pre-1992 we were a collection of projects
< including a bbs service called launchpad.unc.edu. In 1992 we
< received funding and support from Sun Microcomputing Systems
< for a joint project to be called sunsite.unc.edu or Sun
< Software, Information and Technology Exchange. In 1998 Sun
< decided to revisit our funding and support arrangement and we
< mutually decided that conditions were not favorable for
< continuing on as sunsite so we became Metalab to reflect our
< new collection of sponsors instead of one major one. In 2000
< we entered into a partnership with the Center for the Public
< Domain (known as the Red Hat Center at that time). to
< highlight this major new involvement, we took a new name (at
< their suggestion) of ibiblio.org today that's who we are, but
< we still answer to sunsite.unc.edu and metalab.unc.edu."
<
< Wait, there's more. Mike Molloy wrote in to remind me that
< "SITO" used to be called "OTIS", and they changed their name,
< too. I've still got an entry on their pages.
<
< Why is there no Doctor Fun domain name?
<
< I've thought about it, but I like ibiblio, and I like being
< associated with ibiblio. They're nice people. One day I hope
< to make a pilgrimage to the clean and well-lighted ibiblio
< offices.
<
< Can you have advertisements on ibiblio?
<
< No, but I'm not constrained from pursuing commercial
< opportunities for Doctor Fun, as long as it isn't taking place
< on ibiblio.
<
< Is Doctor Fun copyright?
<
< Yes. Feel free to link to Doctor Fun, send it to your friends,
< send it to your enemies, print it out and use it for toilet
< paper (use the glossy photo paper so you really clog the
< toilet) or tape it to your door. But anything beyond personal
< use I'd appreciate it if you'd contact me. You can use all
< those file names that never change to always link to the
< latest cartoon, the latest logo, the latest thumbnails, the
< latest week, and all that which has been made E-Z 4 U 2 link
< 2. Most people are pretty nice about asking, and in return,
< I'm pretty nice back. Otherwise...
<
< Why don't you release Doctor Fun under the GNU General License
< or copyleft?
<
< That's an interesting idea, but I don't think it works well
< for cartoons, or, at least, this sort of cartoon. I think I've
< been progressive enough about letting Doctor Fun go all over
< the Internet, but I still write it, and draw it, so the
< copyright stays with me. It's my precious! It's mine! It
< belongs to me!
<
< Who pays for all that bandwidth, cartoon boy?
<
< I don't know nuthin' about that! I just draw the cartoons.
<
< Where can I get the latest Doctor Fun cartoon?
<
< You can always get the latest Doctor Fun cartoon from this
< link.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/latest.jpg
<
< You can always get a little thumbnail of (only the artwork)
< the latest cartoon from this link.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/thumb.jpg
<
< Where can I see the Doctor Fun cartoons from this week?
<
< You can always see the latest Doctor Fun cartoons for this
< week from this link.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/this-week.html
<
< Are all of the old Doctor Fun cartoons and logos available?
<
< All the old cartoons and logos can be browsed in the archive
< page, from this link.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/archive.html
<
< Are there any other fun stuff on the Doctor Fun Page?
<
< I've put a bunch of pre-Doctor Fun scanned cartoons online. I
< plan to add more as I have time. Usually I put "new" old
< material online when I take breaks.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/books.htm
<
< You can get an old week of Doctor Fun, or maybe sometimes a
< page from the collection of older scanned cartoons, from this
< link.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/old-week.html
<
< Which cartoons get the most hits?
<
< Here are some popular ones. This is the same list from the
< main page.
< * Here's the one about Barney.
< * Here's the one about beavers.
< * Here's the one about gerbils.
< * Here's the one about tribbles.
< * Here's the one about wasabi.
< * Here's the one about vasectomies.
< * Here's the one about Clusenix.
< * Here's the one about Usenet.
< * Here's the one about Don Knuth. (I don't know if he's seen
< it.)
< * Here's the one about The Incredible Hulk. (I don't know if
< he's seen it, either.)
<
< Which Doctor Fun cartoons do you like?
<
< Here's another list. Some I like because I thought they were
< funny, and some like because I thought they were well-drawn.
< And some I like because I thought they were both funny and
< well-drawn. This is also the same list from the main page.
< Only here I've added at least brief annotations. I'd like to
< add a list of Doctor Funs I don't like, too. It's only fair.
< * Here's the one about the donuts. (Thought it was funny.)
< * Here's the one about Godzilla. (I always use this as a
< test print image - hardly any printer gets those
< out-of-gamut colors right.)
< * Here's the one about the chickens. (I could draw this one
< a thousand more times, and I would never get that
< chicken's head as good as it already is.)
< * Here's the one about the human cannonball. (The clown is
< concerned.)
< * Here's the one about Mr. Spock. (Thought it was funny and
< well-drawn.)
< * Here's the one about the sperm. (Thought it was
< well-drawn.)
< * Here's the one about the protozoa. (Thought it was funny
< and well-drawn.)
< * Here's the one about the blow-up doll. (This is an old one
< I redrew for Doctor Fun.)
< * Pick this one! (Another old one that pre-dated Doctor
< Fun.)
< * Here's the one about the squirrel. (Thought it was funny,
< and I like those Christmas lights.)
< * Here's the one about the ice cream cones. (How you draw an
< ice cream cone skeleton?)
< * Here's the one about the pinatas. (Thought it was funny.)
< * Here's the one about the deathray. (In this one, the
< artwork escapes into the frame of the cartoon.)
< * Here's the one about the elephants. (Thought it was
< funny.)
< * Here's the one about tomatillos. (Drew this after I was
< sent to the store for tomatillos and came back with
< something else.)
< * Here's the one about watering the plants. (Remember to
< hydrate. Shadows came out good.)
< * Here's the one about the tapeworms. (Thought it was funny,
< and well-drawn.)
< * Here's the one about the Zamboni. (Liked those scorch
< marks.)
< * Here's the one about the operating room. (Thought it was
< funny.)
< * Here's the one about the goldfish. (Ditto.)
< * Here's another one about squirrels.(Ditto.)
< * Here's the one about Gumby. (Nice plastic-looking blood.)
< * Here's the one about Santa. (Thought it was well-drawn, I
< think.)
< * Here's another one about chickens. (The water came out
< nice.)
< * Here's the one about Mr. Potato Head. (Thought it was
< well-drawn.)
< * Here's the one about the weasels. (Thought it was funny.)
< * Here's the one about the Titanic. (I thought it was funny,
< but a lot of people didn't get this one. Liked the
< particles floating in the water.)
< * Here's the one about the Muppets. (Thought it was funny,
< and well-drawn.)
< * Here's the one about the pickles. (Had to draw it.)
< * Here's the one about Vlad the Impaler. (Thought it was
< funny.)
< * Here's the one about carrots. (Thought it was funny.)
< * Here's the one about Rear Window. (Look at the fine
< detail! Look at those pimples!)
< * Here's the one about the fleas. (Thought this one )
< * Here's the one about the Enchanted Forest. (Thought it was
< funny.)
< * Here's the one about Steely Dan. (Liked how it turned out,
< but I had every line of the lyrics wrong when I first
< sketched it.)
< * Here's the one about the Amish. (Thought it was funny.)
< * Here's the one about noses. (Thought it was funny.)
< * Here's the one about Mister Clean. (Thought it was funny.)
< * Here's the one about Harry Potter. (I couldn't care less
< about Harry Potter, but "The Long Good Friday" is the best
< gangster movie ever, "Godfather" included. This cartoon
< was in the middle of a whole series about Easter peeps.)
< * Here's the one about the chipmunk. (Maybe more cute than
< funny.)
< * Here's the one about the polar bear. (Liked the whale
< better than the bear, actually.)
< * Here's the one about Ultraman. (His suit came out nice.)
<
< What's the deal with the logo?
<
< The explanation on the main page is funnier than this one. The
< logo started as an afterthought, and has just sort of stumbled
< on through the years. Remember, the original idea was to post
< the cartoons on Usenet. Thus, there was no reason for a logo.
< But when I started setting up the web page, I thought it
< needed something graphical, and the cartoon itself was a
< little too big. I wanted a page with a link to the daily
< cartoon, plus all the other stuff (archives, the faq I never
< wrote, etc.) So I came up with a little picture of a dog
< wearing a lab coat - voila! Doctor Fun. After a couple weeks I
< got bored looking at the first one, so I drew another one.
< Then I decided to keep changing it every couple weeks. Then it
< just kept getting fancier and fancier. There was a long
< period, starting around the United Media time, when the logo
< changed infrequently. When I started the cartoon after my long
< break, I decided to change it every two weeks, but I'm not
< locked into it - sometimes (not very often) it's sooner,
< sometimes it's later. The logos are fun because they can be
< kind of artsy and obscure without really having any punchline
< (some would claim the same about the cartoons).
<
< One of the problems, or so editors and other cartoonists have
< told me, with single-panel gag cartoons like Doctor Fun, is
< that they have no central characters for people to somehow
< latch onto and "love", which would then make them want to buy
< things with the character on it. So there you go. Sadly, the
< logo gets the least amount of traffic compared to everything
< else, and the low number of hits on the smaller logo image
< means few readers actually access Doctor Fun through the main
< page.
<
< I recall as I write this that the earliest web browsers had
< inline GIF support, but not inline JPEG support. The cartoon
< was a JPEG, so it originally popped up in an external viewer.
< The logos are now in JPEG, too.
<
< Who is the dog in the logo?
<
< Some people think he's an aardvark, but he isn't. If people
< really press me about it, I tell them he's a Charlie, because
< he's loosely based on my parent's dog, Charlie. Charlie isn't
< around anymore. He lived to be 17 and died a couple years ago.
< Here's a picture of Charlie. Charlie appeared in at least one
< of the break messages, and even made it into the logo.
<
< The new dog is Maddie.
<
< Aren't there a bunch of references to a variety of things in
< the logos?
<
< Sure - that's the fun part: movies, musicians, books, beer,
< you-name-it. Some are overt, some are not. Some took a lot of
< work, and some were slapped together late at night.
<
< I was going to list all the references, but I think for now
< I'll just drop in clues for the music ones: Björk, Scott
< Joplin, Pink Floyd, ZZ Top, Elvis Costello, The Clash, Lloyd
< Cole, B-52s, Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Smiths, The Beatles,
< U2, maybe more.
<
< Some themes have been parodied more than once, but I follow
< the "Royko Rule" and retire a logo theme once it's been around
< twice (I'll probably break it, eventually, for Björk).
<
< You can always get the latest logo from this link.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/logo.jpg
<
< You can get the smaller version, too.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/logo-small.jpg
<
< And a thumbnail.
<
< http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/thumbl.jpg
<
< Can I search Doctor Fun?
<
< You can search the Doctor Fun captions two different ways:
<
< Jack Leblond at Net Smart Incorporated, has kindly provided a
< mirror for Doctor Fun in the form of a search engine. You can
< also get a random Doctor Fun cartoon at Jack's page. Have fun.
<
< Mark Plaga has created another Doctor Fun search page. Mark's
< page will display a slide show of cartoons after you make your
< search. Have more fun.
<
< It would be great if I could search more than the captions.
<
< Yes. It would be great, and it's all my fault that it's not
< greater. Mark already did a lot of work on it, and it's up to
< me to get some of the info in there. I'd like to add metadata
< someday to the html pages so anyone can extra info if they
< want to.
<
< I thought I saw some Doctor Fun postcards. Are there Doctor
< Fun postcards?
<
< There might be. Recycled Paper Products bought some one-off
< licenses to print some Doctor Fun cartoons on postcards a
< couple years ago. They may still be selling them; I used to
< see them in one card shop in Water Tower Place in Chicago, but
< haven't looked for quite awhile. RPP and I didn't continue
< with this because I wasn't really interested in selling them
< off on a one-time basis, and they didn't see it as worth
< anything more than that. I don't make any money off of them,
< but that shouldn't keep you from buying them if you find some.
<
< I thought I saw some Doctor Fun electronic postcards. Are
< there Doctor Fun electronic postcards?
<
< You can send a smaller version of a selected number of Doctor
< Fun cartoons as an electronic postcard at Toonogram, sponsored
< by Cyber Loft.
<
< Toonogram is provided courtesy of Mostafa Eldefrawy, who did
< all of the work. Mostafa was also kind enough to give me the
< code to turn any Doctor Fun into a Toonogram, which I will do
< someday.
<
< Is there a Doctor Fun mailing list?
<
< You can receive the latest Doctor Fun cartoon in your e-mail
< by joining Nicholas Barnard's Doctor Fun Mailing List.
<
< Are there other Doctor Fun mirror sites?
<
< These Doctor Fun mirrors might be closer to you than ibiblio.
< This list is new and improved because the cartoons on these
< sites actually update. There used to be more mirrors. If you
< know of a mirror that isn't on this list, or want to be a
< mirror, drop me a line.
<
< If you want to mirror Doctor Fun, mirror as much, or as
< little, as you want. All I ask is that you give proper credit,
< and not reformat or edit the cartoons.
< * Australia - Today's Doctor Fun and The Doctor Fun Page
< from Australian Cybermalls. (Their page only updates the
< latest cartoons, and has sophisticated features not found
< here. Somebody's on the ball there, too, because they've
< been going on and on about this very faq ever since I
< announced I was writing it. They claim to run Doctor Fun
< "competitions", although I've never actually caught them
< at it.)
< * Great Britain - Today's Doctor Fun and The Doctor Fun Page
< from Manchester.
<
< How can I get in touch with you?
<
< You can reach me at d-farley AT ibiblio.org.
<
< How many people read Doctor Fun?
<
< A lot. Hardly anybody. I don't have an exact answer because I
< only get statistics from ibiblio. Lots of people look at
< Doctor Fun, or hardly anybody looks at Doctor Fun, depending
< on how you look at the stats. There were a little over a
< million downloads of the daily cartoon last year and the year
< before from ibiblio. Over long periods of time readership is
< slowly going up, but it's inconsistent from month to month. On
< the average, it works out to about 4,000 daily readers on
< ibiblio. In slightly more detail, there were a little over 12
< million hits total on the Doctor Fun pages in 2001. Of those
< 12 million hits, about 7 million were for the thumbnail
< images. Discounting the million downloads from latest cartoon
< itself, that leaves about 4 million leftover hits, a good bulk
< of which are downloads of older cartoons in the archives. It's
< hard to get a handle on total readership, since some people
< only look at the thumbnails, and the mirrors are just out
< there somewhere doing their thing. Overall traffic simply
< grows the more cartoons I add. There is a lot of crawling
< through the archives. Some of it is robots, but not all of it.
< Looking at the randomness of the numbers, it seems that
< someone, somewhere looks at every cartoon in the archive every
< week.
<
< There a surprising amount (to me, anyway) of traffic in the
< older scanned cartoons.
<
< That doesn't sound so bad. It's fun to tell people millions,
< if they ever ask, or even if they don't. Doesn't a million
< sound good? But I don't have anything else to compare it to,
< so it's hard to tell what's good. Every other cartoon I've
< heard about on the Internet supposedly gets hundreds of
< thousands of hits a day, so Doctor Fun may actually be the
< most unpopular cartoon out there.
<
< Has Doctor Fun ever been slashdotted?
<
< A couple times, but never as the main story. Going by the last
< time it happened, being mentioned on slashdot adds about
< 10,000 hits for the day.
<
< Here's a recent mention.
<
< Why do most of the files end in .htm and a few end in .html?
<
< A question recently sent in by an actual reader like you! Most
< of the files are in .htm because I used to write and test the
< whole site on a DOS box first, which only allowed three-letter
< file extensions. The .html files were created with symbolic
< links or edited on what is now ibiblio. None of this matters
< anymore, but things remain the way they are because that's how
< they are.
<
< What kind of people read Doctor Fun?
<
< Based on the e-mail I get, people my age, and mostly in the
< same kinds of work. But I also get a disproportionate amount
< of e-mail from nurses wanting to use the cartoons ("laughter,
< the best medicine...")
<
< Who is the Greatest Doctor Fun Fan?
<
< A sad story. There actually is someone I crowned the Greatest
< Doctor Fun Fan, after they e-mailed me that they had
< downloaded something like two years worth of cartoons over a
< 14.4K modem. Unfortunately I can't find the e-mail or the old
< pages. I do know they were at the University of Waterloo, in
< Ontario. If you were that person, e-mail me, and claim your
< rightful title on this page.
<
< But is it not possible that there could be more than one
< Greatest Doctor Fun Fan? Why not, I say? If you have performed
< a feat of strength involving Doctor Fun that doesn't cause you
< or anyone else physical or (much) mental distress, send me the
< details, and I will consider you, and the story of your feat
< of strength, for an ever-growing list of Doctor Fun's Pantheon
< of Immortals, to be added here. There are no rules, other than
< what I just said. Pictures would be good, too. These stunts
< will not involve me.
<
< Curiously, Australian Cybermalls seems to have their own list
< already, but I'm not sure what it's all about.
<
< Where do people read Doctor Fun?
<
< There are readers everywhere english is the primary language,
< and some places where it isn't. Doctor Fun seems to be very
< popular in Scandanavia, and also Germany. None of this
< information was collected very scientifically.
<
< Do any famous people read Doctor Fun?
<
< Not that I know of, except when somebody I know showed it to
< someone famous. Hugh Hefner saw it. (Peggy Wilkins showed it
< to him.) Bill Gates received a Doctor Fun cake (not in the
< face), of all things, one time, but I hardly had anything to
< do with it. If you are famous, and you read Doctor Fun, let me
< know and I'll start a list here.
<
< Are you famous?
<
< I am not famous. Most people never heard of Doctor Fun and
< wouldn't read it if they did. My brief brush with fame was
< about a year after the cartoon started when I was invited down
< to UIUC to give a lecture (about Doctor Fun!) to the local
< chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery. (For those
< you who are confused, the ACM is people who work with
< computing machinery, not a bunch of computing machinery that
< formed an association.) They gave me a t-shirt and a chinese
< dinner. Later I found out they tried to get Scott Adams first,
< but he wanted a wad of money, hookers and booze (I'm lying
< about two of those things). I'm a cheap date (boring, too -
< plus I smell bad, also I don't have a car).
<
< I don't do much of anything interesting, other than draw this
< cartoon. I've thought that it would work well if I could get
< some famous person to pose as the author of Doctor Fun.
< Suddenly the cartoon would have an entirely new dimension,
< without either me or the famous person having to do anything.
<
< Has Doctor Fun gotten any publicity?
<
< Doctor Fun was mentioned in the New York Times once, and in
< Wired (I think). I once saw a logo flashed on the screen
< during an Internet story on the local NBC affiliate. (I sent
< them an e-mail, but they never wrote back.) It was mentioned
< in a bunch of magazines in languages I can't read, but which
< people were kind enough to send me a copy.
<
< Do you get a lot of e-mail?
<
< A steady amount, but not too much at once. I get so much
< work-related e-mail, and spam, that the Doctor Fun stuff
< sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, but I try to answer it
< all. It's mostly been nice e-mail.
<
< I sent you an e-mail and you never answered it.
<
< Probably I never got it, or I got it and lost it, or it was
< something obnoxious, and you weren't expecting an answer
< anyway. If it wasn't the latter, why don't you send it again?
<
< The older cartoons have your e-mail address listed at
< tezcat.com. I sent you mail there and it bounced. What is
< tezcat.com?
<
< Tezcat.com was a good local Internet service provider in
< Chicago. Unfortunately, it is no more.
<
< Here is their RIP.
<
< The other addresses on the older cartoons probably still work,
< but I'd prefer d-farley AT ibiblio.org.
<
< What's the most frequent e-mail question?
<
< Are there any Doctor Fun books?
<
< Why, yes. The first Doctor Fun book is available from Plan
< Nine Publishing. 128 colorful pages of all the very best
< Doctor Fun cartoons, which means the ones you asked for, and
< the ones that get the most traffic and attention.
<
< Who bought the first copy?
<
< A deranged fan.
<
< What kind of weird questions do you get?
<
< Well, other than that question, for awhile once I was getting
< lots of questions about body piercing. I think somebody had a
< link to a Doctor Fun cartoon on a body piercing web site, but
< I never got to the bottom of it. (I don't have any body
< piercings - sorry.) There was an exchange once that started to
< sound like the person writing me had an actual human head in a
< jar, but it turned out to be simple confusion.
<
< People sometimes seem to think I have a large staff that
< produces these things. It's just me, except for good people at
< ibiblio who run the servers, and the people who have chipped
< in with the mailing list, search engine, and mirrors.
<
< Some people seem to think these cartoons are produced by a
< large staff, who work for me.
<
< Do you get any hate mail?
<
< Not much. Most of it is short and to the point. "You're no
< Gary Larsen" is another perennial favorite. (I agree that I am
< no Gary Larsen. Most of those people tend to go on quite a bit
< about money, as if I was getting a lot of it.) It used to be
< that all the hate mail I got invariably came from people on
< WebTV, so I began to think that everybody with WebTV hated me
< for some reason, and my heart sank. But I also got some nice
< e-mails from WebTV people. I guess everybody on WebTV didn't
< hate me, and my heart soared. I trend I've noticed lately is
< that people who don't like the cartoon always send me e-mails
< from bogus addresses, so I couldn't reply even if I wanted to.
< (I am always curious about people who send my nasty e-mails,
< and look for them on google, deja, interpol, etc.) Really
< though, if people don't like the cartoon they just don't read
< it, and everybody's happy. It's not like it's sitting there on
< the comics page, goading them into canceling their internet
< subscription.
<
< Speaking of hate mail, what's the deal with Doctor Fun and the
< Far Side?
<
< I've got all those old Far Side collections, and whenever I
< need more ideas, I just pull them out and start copying.
< They've never caught me yet - oops! I think the Far Side is
< one of the funniest things ever, and was certainly an
< inspiration, but comparisons to the Far Side are a non-event.
< If you draw any kind of wacky one-panel comic, and anybody
< laughs at it, then somebody brings up the Far Side. You could
< go through a couple years of The New Yorker, pick out all the
< most Larsenesque cartoons, and create your own pseudo-Far Side
< collection. It is a certain flavor of humor. Gary Larsen made
< it his own, and kept it up longer and better than anybody
< else. I took a cartooning class once where one of the students
< drew nothing but ogres swinging decapitated babies around. The
< instructor thought this was wacky stuff, and kept exclaiming
< that Decapitron or whatever the guy called himself, was the
< next Gary Larsen. Go figure - that was the judgement of a bona
< fide New Yorker cartoonist. If you pushed me, I would say Jim
< Unger was a bigger influence. I was reading Herman for years
< before I ever saw the Far Side. Gary Larsen is the next Gary
< Larsen, if he would ever start drawing again.
<
< Having said all that: Every cartoonist's fear is to open the
< paper and find that they've drawn somebody else's idea. Back
< when Doctor Fun was just getting started, Gary Larsen was
< still drawing the Far Side. I opened the paper one day to find
< a Far Side cartoon virtually identical to something I had
< drawn but hadn't posted yet. (At that time, I was drawing a
< pool of cartoons, and then picking from them to set up the
< cartoons for each week.) I don't have the Larsen cartoon to
< show you for comparison, but here's the one I had to pull. And
< here's one that was a little too similar to a Mother Goose and
< Grimm cartoon (same exact situation). Now I just don't read
< the comics in the paper anymore.
<
< Here are two other cartoons I pulled, both because I thought
< they were in bad taste at the time. My tastes have changed, I
< just think they're too dumb to run now.
< * Cartoon that was in bad taste but is now just too dumb #1
< * Cartoon that was in bad taste but is now just too dumb #2
<
< At last, after all these years I've finally managed to sneak
< all four of those lame duck cartoons online!
<
< What software and hardware do you use to draw Doctor Fun?
<
< Right now, Adobe Photoshop 6.0. In the past I've used Aldus
< PhotoPaint, and earlier versions of Photoshop. I've tried
< other software, like Fractal Design Painter, and the GIMP, but
< I always go back to Photoshop. My computer right now is a Sony
< LX-910 PenTablet, which I bought solely because of the drawing
< table/screen combination. It works great (for drawing, and
< everything else I do - as far as raw computing goes, it's not
< exactly the kind of thing you'd write into MaximumPC about).
< I'm willing to spend a reasonable amount of money to get the
< right tools, as long as I'm actually going to use them.
<
< Update: Sony discontinued the entire PenTablet line. Only
< loser Internet cartoonists were buying it. But if you are a
< loser Internet cartoonist and missed getting your Sony
< PenTablet computer on eBay, Wacom sells a similar tablet now.
<
< Update Update: The Sony is long gone, and has been replaced
< with a teeny-tiny Fujitsu Lifebook and a Wacom Intuos. Did
< anybody really notice? And now we're up to Photoshop CS2
< (9.0).
<
< What kind of software and hardware did you use when you
< started drawing Doctor Fun?
<
< I had a 33 Mhz 486 with 32 Mbytes of RAM, a CalComp Wiz
< drawing tablet (no pressure, and the pen was attached by a
< cord - can you imagine such a thing?), and an Epson flatbed
< scanner. I only used the computer to color the cartoons. I
< started the cartoons as drawings on paper and scanned them
< into Aldus PhotoStyler. It's been a shoestring operation, as
< far as hardware goes, until recently.
<
< Why a Windows box? Why don't you use a Mac?
<
< A good question. I like Macs. They were ferociously expensive
< when I first got interested in the idea of combining computers
< and cartoons (long before Doctor Fun started) and since I used
< Windows almost all the time at my day jobs, I decided to just
< go with that. If Apple had a Mac that did what this Sony does
< with the screen, I probably would have bought one this time
< around.
<
< And the ugly truth is, political issues aside, properly
< configured, Windows can work pretty well. Since my day job is
< supporting Windows, I can provide myself with Kwality
< Technical Support at home (except that time I installed
< OS/2...)
<
< Why don't you used Linux or BSD and the GIMP?
<
< Another good question. I like the GIMP, too, but I don't see
< it as being where Photoshop is right now. I keep an eye on it,
< though.
<
< Why don't you use...
<
< Another great question. I like all computers, all operating
< systems, and all software. It's all great!
<
< Now I want to send you hate mail because you use Microsoft and
< Adobe products.
<
< Sure, whatever.
<
< How are the cartoons drawn in Photoshop?
<
< If you've ever seen cartoon animation cels for sale, and had a
< chance to look at them close up, Doctor Fun isn't that much
< different. There is usually a minimum of three layers, not
< physical layers to the cartoon while I'm drawing it. These are
< not physical layers, but rather computerized layers managed by
< Photoshop, that stack on top of one another. One layer is just
< the black and white drawing itself. Another layer is the
< background. And the last layer is the actual coloring of the
< action in the foreground. While I'm working on a cartoon, the
< number of layers usually expands, as I'll want to draw things
< and keep them separated until it's time to put the whole thing
< together. The artwork is kept in a separate file, and I pop it
< into the template and add the caption, date, and all the other
< text as the last step. (The file I upload only has one layer.)
< There are a number of techniques I like that I usually use on
< every cartoon, and some that I only use to solve a particular
< problem. Over the years I've learned that simpler is better.
< Something that gives the appearance of having been worked on
< for hours is sometimes the same as something that actually
< took hours.
<
< The cartoons are 640 x 480 pixels, which is vanilla VGA
< resolution. Hardly anybody runs their display at that
< resolution anymore, but it's still a good default. The actual
< artwork is 515 x 380 pixels. That leaves enough space around
< the rest of the frame for the title, copyright notice, and a
< caption. The font used in the cartoons is GillSans (and
< sometimes a GillSans knock-off when I didn't have Adobe Type
< Manager available).
<
< Some people have asked for a step-by-step explanation with
< screenshots, but there's not enough time in the world for that
< right now. Maybe someday. Here's a screenshot just for you
< .
<
< Early Doctor Funs were done in Aldus PhotoStyler and didn't
< use layers. I colored right over a copy of the line art,
< destroying it in the process, and then pasted another copy
< over top when the coloring was finished.
<
< According to the cartoons in the archive, I switched from
< Aldus PhotoStyler to Adobe Photoshop starting August 31, 1995,
< and I switched to drawing the cartoons from scratch on the
< computer using a tablet (a CalComp, I think) on October 13,
< 1997.
<
< Here, for your amusement, and at no extra charge, are some
< cartoons from Ye Ancient Days, that I drew with a mouse using
< DeluxePaint II Enhanced. So you know, I was working on this a
< long time before 1993...
< * DeluxePaint II Enhanced cartoon #1
< * DeluxePaint II Enhanced cartoon #2
<
< Where do you get the backgrounds and textures that sometimes
< show up in the cartoons?
<
< Some of the material is from clip art collections that come
< with software I've purchased, some of it is from photos I've
< taken myself, and some it is created wholly from scratch. I'm
< a sucker for those "2000 Textures for $2.95!" CD-ROMs you see
< in OfficeDepot. Whatever works. If I'm spending a lot of time
< on the background and textures, then I am probably spending
< too much time.
<
< How long does it take to draw a Doctor Fun?
<
< I do them in batches by working on the drawings themselves,
< and then picking out a batch that I'll work on for specific
< dates. And then creating the backgrounds for each cartoon, and
< then doing the coloring of the foreground parts of the
< cartoon. The coloring part takes the longest. If I did each
< one one-by-one (which is how I did them when I started), it
< would take much longer. If you absolutely must have a number,
< I'd say each cartoon takes about an hour to an hour and a
< half.
<
< Why don't you draw the cartoons in higher resolution?
<
< 640 x 480 is the lowest common denominator, and some people
< still run their screens at that resolution, believe it or not.
< If you are running your display at a lower resolution, the
< cartoon will appear bigger. If you are running your display at
< a higher resolution, the cartoon will appear smaller. I think
< Doctor Fun looks fine both ways. (I run my display at work at
< 1280x1024, not that I'm ever looking at cartoons at work.) I'd
< also like consistency through the entire run of the cartoon,
< however long that might be.
<
< Also, the computer I mentioned above that I'm using with the
< drawing tablet built into the screen runs at a maximum
< resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. Although I've run other
< computers with a separate tablet and display at higher
< resolutions, I get the best response on the Sony working on
< pictures at a 1:1 ratio. So, in order to keep all the other
< palettes and stuff on the screen, the smaller image size still
< works well. I'm aware that other cartoonists don't work this
< way, and all way-cool people use vectors and fancy-fancy
< stuff, but Doctor Fun is more doodlely-oodly than all that.
<
< For people who want some high resolution, here's a really big
< logo.
<
< What other software do you use besides Adobe Photoshop?
<
< I use Cerious Software's ThumbsPlus for browsing and doing
< various handy things to images.
<
< I use Paul Lutus's Arachnophilia for editing my web pages (and
< emacs, poorly, if I happen to need to edit stuff at the unix
< prompt).
<
< I usually use Ed Hamrick's excellent Vuescan for scanning
< stuff.
<
< Why JPEG for the Doctor Fun cartoons?
<
< It's the least worst situation. GIF throws out too much color
< information (and there's that whole proprietary format thing).
< PNG in 24-bit color is not small enough, and PNG support is
< still iffy. The drawback with JPEG is that it futzes up some
< of the line art and text, but I'll put up with that to keep it
< in 24-bit color. I know there are other technologies, I've
< even experimented with them, but nothing is as universal as
< JPEG.
<
< The master copies of all the files I keep are mostly PNG.
<
< How have the drawings changed over the years?
<
< I spent a lot of time looking at the older cartoons during my
< long break and decided that the major problem with many of
< them was that they were overdone and hard to read. The focus
< of cartoons didn't stand out well enough from the backgrounds,
< and many of them used all sorts of silly effects that didn't
< add anything to the joke. All that aside, Doctor Fun has a
< certain "look" to it that was something more than pen and ink.
< So I decided to make a real effort to keep all the colorful
< stuff, but also keep the focus on the joke. So the backgrounds
< are now usually blown out and faded in order to make the line
< art stand out, and I go easier on the fancy effects.
<
< On the other hand, like most cartoonists, I'm hypercritical
< about my own work and would probably pull most of it off if I
< wasn't self-aware enough to keep a lid on it. I drew cartoons
< for years and threw them in a drawer (or only showed them to a
< couple friends) because I didn't think they were any good.
< There hasn't been any time when I've been drawing Doctor Fun
< that I didn't think I was doing the best I could do with what
< I had available. My tastes have changed, though.
<
< Drawing the cartoons has gotten faster, and actually more fun
< now that I've eliminated the hand/eye coordination thing with
< a separate tablet and monitor, and I'm drawing right on the
< screen. A lot of people have trouble learning to draw with a
< tablet while looking at a monitor. It took me a long time of
< trying until I felt I was drawing good enough to stop using
< paper. Now that I can draw on the screen, I'm happy to forget
< all about that.
<
< Where do you get your ideas?
<
< I don't know how many other cartoonists work. My methods may
< be unprofessional. I keep a little notebook, and try to sit
< quietly in a corner somewhere every day for a couple minutes
< and jot some ideas down. I try to read as much as I can find
< the time - mostly on the Internet while I'm supposed to be
< working. When it's time to draw some cartoons, I go through my
< notebook and pick out what still sounds funny and possibly
< easy to draw. Where do the ideas actually come from? Who
< really knows. That's the answer that annoys the people who ask
< this questions. I can say that my ideas always pop into my
< head fully-formed, the drawing, and the punch line together.
< Most ideas come from something I've read, or something I saw,
< or something - they don't just come from nowhere. I've been
< working this way ever since I started.
<
< Why are there some recurring themes in Doctor Fun?
<
< I've been told that sea cucumbers, heads in jars, and bums in
< alleys are some of many recurring themes. I think people think
< I work these themes more often than I actually do. If I had to
< pick a theme, I'd say chickens and squirrels have popped up a
< lot, and peeps at Easter.
<
< Are you buying or using ideas for Doctor Fun?
<
< Not interested. Writing the cartoon is half the fun for me.
<
< If you have ideas for cartoons, check out a copy of "The
< Writers Market" - they may have listings for people who want
< to buy your cartoon ideas. Or draw a cartoon yourself. Even if
< you don't draw, you can always try. And if you keep drawing,
< you'll get better.
<
< I'm sending you these ideas anyway. You don't even have to pay
< me if you use them. We can be collaborators. All that I ask
< is...
<
< [DEL: Go the fuck away! :DEL] No, thanks.
<
< I didn't understand Doctor Fun today. Whatever shall I do?
<
< You can always e-mail me. It's no trouble for me to explain my
< cartoons since I drew them, and I'm not all famous and full of
< myself yet. But if you'd rather have a bunch of other people
< explain Doctor Fun, you can also send the cartoon into Bill
< Bickel's "Comics I Don't Understand Page" and let other people
< explain the cartoon for you. Bill's got some weird thing going
< where he doesn't think it's proper to let the actual
< cartoonist explain their cartoons, so you won't see me there
< (but I do read it).
<
< Do you make any money from Doctor Fun?
<
< I sometimes get small fees when people want to reprint one of
< my cartoons. I got a small advance when I was associated with
< United Media, which they screamed bloody murder about. That's
< about it.
<
< Are you a professional cartoonist? Do you want to make money
< from Doctor Fun?
<
< I was once going to be interviewed via e-mail for some high
< school newspaper, but after a couple preliminary questions,
< they decided I wasn't really a cartoonist, and they had to
< find somebody else.
<
< A tough question. I used to say yes. Then, for awhile, I said
< no. But now I say yes again. For situations where any other
< cartoonist would be asking a fee, I ask for one, too. First of
< all, I like getting money. Second of all, I don't want to horn
< in on the territory of people who work hard drawing cartoons
< for a living by giving away freebies. (I work hard drawing
< these cartoons, too.) So when I deal in situations where a
< professional cartoonist would expect money for something, I
< ask for the same fees, including reprint fees for Doctor Fun
< where any other cartoonist would charge money. Most of the
< time this results in no money, but what the heck.
<
< I go around and around trying to explain to people sometimes
< how, yes, I think money could be made off of Doctor Fun, but
< no, it has not really made any money to date, and no, I'm not
< going to bag the way it's done now in hopes of making money
< later. So when people have come to me with their ideas since
< the United Media debacle, my take on it has been, what's in it
< for me? Usually there isn't much in it at all, except a chance
< "to get my cartoons published" (they are already published) or
< a chance to drop everything I'm doing now to do things the way
< someone else thinks I should do it. I still haven't found what
< I'm looking for. I sometimes find myself in conversation with
< people who believe that by making money I'll somehow validate
< what I'm doing, which seems to me the best argument in the
< world to keep doing things the way I'm doing them. I do have a
< real job, after all. I'm not interested in being a cartoon
< star.
<
< Do you ever do other work on the web?
<
< If it's worth my time, sure. I used get offers to do quite a
< bit of work, usually for good money, right after I started
< Doctor Fun. Much of the work had nothing to do with
< cartooning, so I would usually just do the stuff that seemed
< related to what I was already doing. I think I got this work
< only because Doctor Fun was popping up whenever people tried
< to do a search for anything related to web graphics. The
< situation has changed since 1993.
<
< What's the story with Doctor Fun and United Media?
<
< Doctor Fun was licensed to United Media for slightly less than
< a year starting in May, 1995.
<
< I still haven't figured out what the deal was with United
< Media. The kindest thing I can say about the experience was
< that United Media decided to jump into the Internet without
< really knowing what they wanted to do, wanted some cool
< Internet stuff, and I was handy. Once they found that they
< could do quite well with the cartoons they already syndicated
< to newspapers, my association with them was pretty pointless,
< since they didn't plan to take Doctor Fun into print, and the
< couple thousand readers I brought in really didn't stack up to
< much compared to how many people read even their most obscure
< features in the papers. I am speculating, I never got a
< straight answer from anybody United Media about why they acted
< the way they did, and sometimes got answers from the same
< person in the same conversation that were completely
< contradictory. United Media never did anything with Doctor
< Fun. A year went by and UM dawdled on even moving the daily
< cartoon over to their web server (I had a page at United
< Media, but there was never anything there except the logo and
< a cartoon that was usually out of date by weeks, sometimes
< months). I finally opted out of my contract and decided to
< continue with things on ibiblio (which was then called
< SunSITE). In fact, the cartoon never moved off of SunSITE the
< whole time I was with United Media - we had an agreement that
< it would stay there until they were updating it on their web
< page. The whole thing was like some kind of weird bad dream.
<
< Having learned nothing, I later had a short association with
< Tribune Media Services. I think it lasted until they actually
< looked at the cartoons.
<
< Have you ever been published?
<
< In the 80s I worked really hard at getting my cartoons into
< magazines, and was moderately successful. My two biggest
< customers were the unlikely combination of "Spy" magazine and
< "Campus Life". "Campus Life" still prints some Doctor Funs
< every now and then (the ones that are appropriate for "Campus
< Life"). I've had some stuff appear in King Features "The New
< Breed", and at least one in "Punch" (right before they
< folded). I did some ghost writing for another strip, but
< didn't find it to be particularly fun.
<
< Spy didn't publish cartoons.
<
< They published mine. I'll scan them and put them up here
< someday. They still owe me $200.
<
< Were they those cartoons that were all drawn with dots?
<
< No. That was Drew Friedman.
<
< Have you ever sent stuff to The New Yorker?
<
< Sure. Everybody sends stuff to The New Yorker, but it's the
< biggest joke in the world because they only publish cartoons
< of maybe, 20 cartoonists, who have all been drawing for them
< for decades. Since everybody gets the same little yellow slip
< back, it becomes a big deal just to get some indication that
< some living person even looked at your cartoons. I once got a
< note from Lee Lorenz on the rejection slip that said "Sorry"
< and felt truly blessed.
<
< Who are you?
<
< I grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I graduated from Carlisle
< High School in 1981. I attended Case Western Reserve
< University in Cleveland for two years, studying engineering,
< and then transferred to Millersville University in
< Pennsylvania, graduating with a degree in music. I studied
< pipe organ but I don't play anymore. I had no talent for
< engineering or music, but somehow managed to finish the music
< degree. I moved to New York City, discovered that knowing
< something about personal computers made me employable, and did
< all sorts of interesting and not-so-interesting jobs for
< awhile while I drew cartoons and tried to sell them. I worked
< in the World Trade Center for two years, and then did the temp
< thing for a couple years. About ten years ago I moved to
< Chicago, and have been here ever since. I used to be married.
<
< My parents were teachers (now retired) and still live in
< Pennsylvania, although they are no longer in Carlisle. I have
< one sister, one brother, and two nieces. Aren't they cute? My
< sister is an engineer and my brother is a writer. I don't
< personally have a dog, but between everybody else we have five
< dogs, unless my sister's dogs ran away again.
<
< Did you study art or writing?
<
< Not really - I have no qualifications to draw or write, and
< should probably stop. I took some painting classes when I was
< in high school. I took some drawing and design courses in
< college. I took a cartooning course at Parsons School of
< Design when I was living in New York and some writing courses
< at The New School. (I had ambitions of getting into stand-up
< comedy at one time, but as soon as I got into it, I decided to
< get back out of it.) I took a sculpture class a couple years
< ago in Chicago. Any art instruction I've had has been pretty
< random and sporadic.
<
< Sometimes I've done art-like stuff on the computer to practice
< techniques. Here's a series of manipulations I did to a photo
< (of me!) many years ago using Aldus PhotoStyler.
<
< If that didn't grab you, here's a study in bad compositing.
<
< Here's another image. The trick here is that all the effects
< you see in the image were generated from the black and white
< image of the skull. Now that's tricky!
<
< These days, if I think of something arty, it goes into the
< cartoon or (more likely) the logo.
<
< What cartoons did you read when you were little?
<
< Now comes the tiresome list of sophisticated or
< cool-in-a-postmodern-ironic-way cartoons that cartoonists
< always say they read when they were little. Other than Herman
< (see above) lots of Pogo and Peanuts. I never saw either
< actually as a strip in the newspaper, so I only read them in
< books. Pogo was the best because I read the books and liked
< them when I was little just because of the way it was drawn
< and how the characters talked, and then when I was older I
< read them again and suddenly understood all the political
< stuff that went over my head when I was younger. Some other
< comics I remember reading over and over were the Carl Bark's
< Scrooge McDuck adventures (particularly the one where they get
< lost in the asteroid belt), Toonerville Trolley, and Classics
< Illustrated. I never much got into superhero type comic books.
< Notice not much of this is anything like Doctor Fun, is it?
< Two that I liked that maybe do have a connection are Herman
< and Hatlo's They'll Do It Everytime. For awhile I liked
< political cartoons more than anything else. And, I would go
< through anything that had panel cartoons, New Yorker, National
< Lampoon, Punch, etc. I read lots of other stuff that wasn't
< cartoons, and I had a ViewMaster, too.
<
< I don't spend much time looking at other cartoons these days.
< I do sometimes look at this one, and this one.
<
< Are you really a doctor?
<
< I'm not a doctor of any sort. Nor am I Doctor Fun.
<
< What do you do for a living?
<
< I work for the University of Chicago Library. I manage the
< desktop support group, officially known as Administrative and
< Desktop Systems. I've been at the library for almost ten
< years. It's a great job working with nice people (who might
< read this).
<
< What else do you do?
<
< I like to run. Here are some races I did. I've done many more,
< but these are the only ones I have pictures of. I also run
< with the Lincoln Park Pacers. Join us for a run if you're in
< Chicago and you run.
<
< When did you start drawing cartoons?
<
< I started drawing the kinds of cartoons I draw now back in the
< summer of 1984. True but tedious story: I was taking summer
< courses at Millersville, and got stuck in principles of
< accounting at 7:30 in the morning. Death. Even the BigGulp
< coffee from 7-11 didn't help. I doodled little cartoony
< pictures to stay awake. Ok, to be fair, I always doodled
< little cartoony pictures, but this was doodling with a grim
< purpose. One day I realized that something I'd doodled was a
< cartoon with a joke and everything, just like real cartoons.
< (I have that cartoon somewhere - when I find it I'll scan it
< in.) I had never occurred to me before that I could do that. I
< wondered if I could draw more "real" cartoons so I tried to
< think up some ideas. I thought of lots of ideas - doodled a
< bunch of them down, and then showed them to some of my friends
< a couple days later back home. They all laughed, so I kept
< drawing and started sending them off to magazines. The
< magazine editors weren't as easily entertained as my friends,
< but I kept drawing, and eventually sold some.
<
< I also drew some comic strip-type cartoons in high school
< mostly involving the supposed adventures of certain people we
< all knew, but these were juvenile and poorly-drawn and not at
< all worth further mention here. (I have those cartoons
< somewhere, too, but they are not getting scanned in.)
<
< Why do you draw Doctor Fun?
<
< People read it, so I keep drawing it. I always think it could
< be better, and maybe someday I'll get it right. For years, I
< drew cartoons and threw them in a drawer, and nobody ever read
< them. Or I sent them to magazines, and most of them got sent
< back. So this is an improvement. When I started drawing Doctor
< Fun, it was a bigger deal to create a cartoon on a computer
< than it is now.
<
< Why did you take a long break in 1998?
<
< I was getting divorced. It was an unpleasant time, and I
< finally decided to take a break for the duration. I'm only
< explaining this because concerned people have written to me
< thinking I was ill, or had some other crisis. (But thanks for
< your concern, those who wrote.) It may have been a mistake to
< keep the cartoon dark for so long - I'm still getting e-mails
< from people who didn't know it was running again. I could have
< started Doctor Fun back up again sooner than I did. By the
< time all the bad stuff was over, I was working on a
< semi-mindless project I knew would never get done (scanning
< all my old cartoons) if I started drawing Doctor Fun again, so
< I decided to put it off until I was all done with that. My
< ex-wife drew this chipmunk which used to be on the old faq
< page.
<
< When will Doctor Fun end?
<
< I hope to be allowed to continue Doctor Fun after the
< superintelligent robots have taken over and made us all their
< slaves.
<
< Hopefully before I go crazy or get run over by a bus, or go
< crazy and get run over by a bus, or get run over by a bus, and
< then go crazy, or... I would like it not to end, but I don't
< know. It's not a career right now, and circumstances can
< change. It could turn into something else. It could turn into
< a career. It's what I'm doing now. If it continues the way it
< is, I'd like to draw ten year's worth of Doctor Fun, meaning
< 520 weeks. Even if I take some breaks, the goal is 520 weeks
< of Doctor Fun. You can see where I am now if you look at the
< files in the archive page. There is a long way to go, but
< we're more than halfway there. So, what happens after 520
< weeks? I will probably take a break and think about what I
< want to do next. I'll be in my forties. There's a thing out
< there somewhere called a social life. Of course, what I'll
< probably do if I make it that far, is just keep going, because
< there will be nothing else for me to do.
<
< One possibility I've considered for post-520 weeks is to
< continue Doctor Fun as a black-and-white daily, and have a
< color cartoon every weekend.
---
> Doctor Fun is over. As promised, I somehow managed to finish
> 520 weeks or ten full years, even if it took a bit longer than
> ten years to get there. All of the old cartoons will stay
> right here as long as ibiblio wants to keep hosting them. And,
> of course, Doctor Fun would never have been possible without
> the good people of ibiblio. I still have some old pre-Doctor
> Fun cartoons to add to the archive, so there's a bit more to
> come. And perhaps there will be something new here in the
> future.
>
> Sometime in the near future I will post a new FAQ and some
> thoughts about Doctor Fun. In the meantime, as always, thanks
> reading Doctor Fun.
>
> Here are some Doctor-Fun related links that may still be of
> interest.
> Browse Doctor Fun cartoons and logos all the way back to 1993
> in The Doctor Fun Archive.
> Search Doctor Fun Captions: Mark Plaga's Doctor Fun Search
> Page, Jack Leblond's Doctor Fun Search Page
> Random Doctor Fun?
> Doctor Fun Mirrors: Pacific Internet, Australia, Austria,
> Great Britain
> If you are a programmer-type person, you can get Doctor Fun
> and zillions of other comics with Netcomics.
> Find out when these pages update, with Jonathan Ah Kit's
> Doctor Fun Website Changes List.
> Some Old Week of Doctor Fun, Mostafa Eldefrawy's Toonogram,
> Doctor Fun Segmation
> Lots of old, pre-Internet Doctor Fun stuff, including Science
> Fair, and other interesting things. Readers often pick this
> one.
1360,1361d38
< There you go. That's the story, at least as I remember it.
< David
1363c40,41
< Back to Doctor Fun
---
> These pages maintained, and contents copyrighted, by David
> Farley, d-farley AT ibiblio.org
1365c43
< d-farley AT ibiblio.org
---
> Back to the top



  • [dr-fun-changes] http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/faq.html has changed as at 0401 UTC, 2006-06-12., Doctor Fun website changes, 06/12/2006

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