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