PORTRAITS AND SELF-PORTRAITS

Over the years, I’ve done a number of drawings and paintings of myself — and I’ve been fortunate enough to be the subject of drawings by a few other people. Looking back at this whole collection of portraits, it’s a bit difficult to see how they connect; If I didn’t already know what I look like, I’m not so sure that they’d add up to anything really cohesive. But maybe that’s the secret of caricatures: When they work, they exist outside the constraints of objective reality — while still managing to be truthful.

This first one, a self-portrait, was published in my college yearbook as part of a collection that included the chancellor, the student senate president, a basketball player, a cheerleader and the ever-popular professor who taught Human Sexual Biology:

This next one, also a self-portrait from my college days, is actually a five-foot-wide painting (which currently stares out into the neighborhood from the back wall of my garage):

Back in the Stone Age, when newspaper comic strips seemed like a big deal, I pitched a handful of concepts — one of which featured this pseudo-lookalike:

I’ve managed to save a few things by my friend and former co-worker David O’Keefe:

This O’Keefe sketch marked my departure from The Tampa Tribune in the mid-’90s:

As did this full-blown (and I do mean “full-blown”) caricature:

And here’s one more from the talented Mr. O’Keefe:

For a Christmas letter one year, I drew myself as Mr. Potato Head for a “Toy Story”-themed family portrait:

More recently, I included this self-portrait in one of my “Blogjam” comics:

And another recent cartoon:

But my favorite portraits may be a pair that were drawn by my youngest son, Jeremy; This one is from his Pre-Teen Period:

This last one from Jeremy (as a 15-year-old artiste) provides a glimpse of how “Old Greg” might look in 15 years:

THIS EMPTY, THIS EMPTY

I clipped this from an old magazine a long while ago. (Great image, right?)

BURNING MR. CREOSOTE

A letter to TIME Magazine,Vol. 177, No. 16 — April 25, 2011:

Mistaken Identity?

On the Closeup page, a large group of men in Afghanistan
protest Florida preacher Terry Jones’ immolation of the Koran [April 18].
Yet the image taped onto the head of the body burning in effigy
is that of famed Monty Python comedian Terry Jones.
Why take things out on the hilarious Welshman?

Rob Reagan, Los Angeles

HODG-MAN

A while back, my brother Eric and I pulled together a pitch for an animated weekly series – to be based
on true-life anecdotes and totally-made-up crap involving noted writer, raconteur and “Daily Show”
correspondent John Hodgman.

It didn’t pan out. But it was fun.

Each week (as we envisioned it), Hodgman’s character would embark on a fresh new intellectual journey
into the unknown.

Hodgman would be joined on his various quests by an impressive array of his very own friends, colleagues and musical collaborators – including the two Johns from They Might Be Giants:

In the plum role of Hodgman’s arch-rival, B-movie icon Bruce Campbell:

Hodgman’s faithful sidekick and personal troubadour, of course, would be none other than Jonathan Coulton:

Would there be big-name guest stars, you ask? Why, yes. To quote from our pictch, “… in a fond tribute to
(and blatant ripoff of) Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Hodgman might be joined by author and assassination buff
Sarah Vowell, with whom he would time-travel to the Garfield administration only to discover that, if they do not act to ensure that President Garfield is indeed felled by the bullets of a disappointed office seeker, the fabric of time will be ruptured and the very future of civilization endangered. There will also be hoboes.”

And, serving as Hodgman’s spiritual advisor in times of crisis – his “Obi-Wan Kenobi” – The Ghost of
George Plimpton:

JIM’S JOURNAL

Before co-founding The Onion, Wisconsin-based cartoonist Scott Dikkers created the anti-comic “Jim’s Journal,” which followed the excrutiatingly uneventful exploits of a human cipher named Jim. (Jim’s “exploits” involved a long string of bleak, emotionless inactivities, with a howling absence of conventional punchlines and no lessons to be learned.)

Many of Dikker’s comics were published in book form, under titles such as “I Went to College (and it was okay),”
“I Got a Job (and it wasn’t that bad)” and “I Made Some Brownies (and they were pretty good).”

During my college years (also in Wisconsin), I’d produced my own anti-comic, “The Blandies” – so, naturally, I was a big fan of Dikkers’ work. I vividly remember showing one of his compilations to my mother, who laughed until she cried, collapsing onto the couch in baffled delight, barely able to speak.

In Dikkers’ Twitter account, he hints that Jim may be making a comeback of some sort. Seeing this, I was inspired to create my own anti-animation of a classic moment from “Jim’s Journal”:

Check these links for more from Scott Dikkers:

Dikkers Cartoon Company

On Twitter:

@ScottDikkers

WINTER SNAPSHOTS (REVISED)