http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/faq.html has changed as at 0401 UTC, 2006-06-12.

--===============0863195435==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

Latest changes to http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/
_______________________________________________

--===============0863195435==

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 [email protected]
< 
<    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 [email protected]
< 
<    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, [email protected] 
1365c43
<    [email protected]
---
>    Back to the top

--===============0863195435==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

_______________________________________________
dr-fun-changes mailing list
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/dr-fun-changes
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/books.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/faq.html
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/book-faq.html
Note: Links aren't included in the diff.
--===============0863195435==--