I met Denver Brubaker at the Summit City Comic Con last summer. Denver’s a really great guy, and if you’re not reading Tales of a Checkered Man, you should. One of the things I mentioned to Denver was that Checkered Man, for some reason, reminded me of an old cartoon called “Cool McCool.”

Now for those who have no idea what “Cool McCool” is, here’s a quick cut-and-paste from Wikipedia:

Cool McCool was an animated series that ran on NBC from September 10, 1966 to August 30, 1969 with three segments per show, running to 60 segments in all. It was created by Bob Kane – most famous as the creator of Batman – and produced by Al Brodax for King Features.

Riffing off the then-popular genres of superheroes and James Bond spy adventures, Cool McCool featured the adventures of a hip, trenchcoated spy, who – as on the contemporary TV show Get Smart – defeated villains despite being comically inept. Villains included the Rattler, Hurricane Harry, Greta Ghoul, the Owl, Jack-In-The-Box and Dr. Madcap. McCool’s boss was known as Number One, although his face was never seen onscreen; only his arms and a cigar were visible behind his chair (a reference to another contemporary spy show – The Prisoner, which featured a spy looking for Number One who ran the prison he found himself in). Number One’s secretary was Friday, a dumpy girl who had an unrequited crush on the secret agent. McCool had three catchphrases: “Danger is my business!” “When you’re right, Number One, you’re right,” and (after bungling something) “That will never happen again.”

Recently, I came across the show’s opening theme on YouTube. I checked it out, wondering if I was right with my Checkered Man theory. And I was… but just a little. Both rely on images of their heroes negotiating their way through urban settings at night with danger all around. That’s about it though. Frankly, The Checkered Man has it all over McCool.

But here’s a chance for you to compare for yourself. Check out thecheckeredman.com (which you really should do anyway…) then take a look at the Cool McCool opening theme, which I’ve embedded below. Whatever you may think of the cartoon, you gotta admit that this is a very catchy theme…

Again, I’m sorry for the recently-decreased output, but I should be back to a normal schedule soon.

“That will never happen again…”

(I hope)

One is at the top of this page. I’ve uploaded a few different headers and I’m using the “Random” function, so that you’ll see different variations on the logo when you first come to the site.

The other is that I’ve finally got around to joining the inkOUTBREAK banner exchange. Look down in the right-hand column and you’ll see a small banner for one of several webcomics currently appearing through inkOUTBREAK. If you see one that looks interesting to you, just click and enjoy.

There may be more changes to come, but, as Bill Murray once said, “Baby steps… baby steps…”

If you don’t know who Tom Cherry is, you should know that he’s a cartoonist, an actor, and all around bon vivant. He does a strip called “Those Funky Idiots” featuring Arlo Wazzo. Arlo’s made an appearance in Ryan’s Dad before, right here.

Now Tom’s turned the tables on me, with a fun drawing of Rooster:

Now how cool is that? Check out The Tom Cherry Experience at http://tomcherryexperience.blogspot.com/ And tell him Hazel sent you. (Don’t use my name. I don’t want to get involved.)

Three episodes this week. Because of the holiday weekend, it’ll be a Wednesday-Thursday-Friday update schedule. The three are a little mini-story so running them on consecutive days should help them run smoothly.

Now we’re heading full speed ahead for the start of 2012. Hope the Mayans are good to you this coming year…

If you’ll look to the right, you’ll see that you can now subscribe to “Ryan’s Dad” via e-mail. Just put in the e-mail address where you’d like to get updates and you’ll soon be ready to go.

And if you do a webcomic yourself and are thinking, “Hmmm, that’s not a bad idea for MY site too” here’s a link to the Webcomic Alliance page: http://www.webcomicalliance.com/helpful-hints/feedburner-101-email-subscriptions/

Actually, there’s lots of stuff to check out over at the Webcomic Alliance. Head on over… and tell ‘em Tony sent you.

My son plays college baseball for Indiana Tech in Fort Wayne. My immediate assumption is that he was pitching to live hitting in practice and got hit with a comebacker. I found out later that wasn’t exactly it. He’d just finished pitching a bullpen session and was sitting on the bullpen bench. He was looking away to watch someone else pitching. In the meantime, someone on the field had a throw get away from them and shoot into the ‘pen. Tyler turned just in time to get smacked in the mouth with the throw.

He went to the trainer, of course. He kept ice on it for 24 hours (his mom is a nurse, so he knows the importance of controlling swelling early). And we spent Thursday going up to Fort Wayne (about a 85 min. drive), bringing him back home to see his dentist, then taking him back.

The news is generally good. No broken teeth, no apparent root damage (though he does have a slightly loose tooth. He’ll have to keep an eye on it in case it starts to change color, indicating that it’s dying). He had just finished a two-year cycle of orthodonture which is now probably all busted up to hell. (“*$&!!”) But it certainly could’ve been much worse.

So I tell this story for two reasons:

1 – The strip scheduled for Friday will be late, possibly until Saturday. After spending all day on the road, I have neither the time or energy to finish the Friday strip. I’m sorry about that and I hope you understand.

2 – You never stop worrying about your kids. Even when they’re adults and out on their own (or at least away at school), you’re always concerned about their welfare. The movie Parenthood had a pretty good line about this: “You never get to do the touchdown dance…”

The main thing is, it looks like he’s gonna be okay. I just have to keep reminding myself that…

I now use a couple of fonts I created from my lettering, and I like the results a lot better. So I’m going back and redoing the lettering on those early strips.

I’ve already redone the first 6 strips and I like the results. I’ll keep at it until all the handlettering is replaced. That could take some time, but I think it’s worth it.

I did that mostly ’cause I knew it’d get a laugh from Alan (right, Big Al?) but also because his comments reminded me of back when I was in college (Ball State University for those of you who are abnormally curious) and took an Introduction to Philosophy class.

For years I thought I’d gotten a “C” in that class. But recently, I had to get my transcripts for a new job and discovered I’d actually gotten a “B”. I have no idea why I had the faulty memory (I’m sure there’s some philosophical reason but I don’t know what it is, which is probably why I didn’t get an “A”).

The class instructor was a very nice lady, and I ended up lending her a tape I had of Steve Martin’s “Death Of Socrates” skit from his “Comedy Is Not Pretty” tv special. I was curious about what her reaction might be.

I’ve long since lost that tape, but here’s a version that I found on YouTube. A couple of disclaimers, however: For some reason that I don’t understand, this clip has a laugh track. I’m fairly certain that the original didn’t. Also, the very end is cut off. But even with those caveats, I think it holds up:

If you haven’t seen it before, the part that was cut out at the end was the revelation of Socrates’ final words to Plato (“Come mister tally man / tally me bananas / daylight come and me wanna go home”).

When the instructor returned the tape to me, she said she liked it and commented that it was funny while reflecting a little bit of the reality of Socrates (though I doubt that he ever actually ordered Chinese food).

That Intro to Philosophy class did give me an important insight, though probably not one the instructor intended. On the first day of the class, she stood in front of us and declared that, “Philosophy is the attempt to answer, or at least examine, questions that cannot be answered using standard empirical means.”

The first thought that went through my head was: “Well, that leaves guessing.”

And that has stayed with me ever since.

We had a great wedding and a great reception as well. And we had one of those things happen that you usually see in 60s sitcoms and the like.

But rather than tell you about it myself, I’m going to leave that to David Penticuff, my old friend from high school/best man/brother-in-law…

Excerpt from the Muncie Evening Press, dated June 7, 1993:

…From the standpoint of pure ability, I am much more suited as a groom than, let’s say… best man.

My brother-in-law Tony and his lovely wife Sherry can attest to this, as can the innocent bystanders who attend Emanuel Church of the Nazarene on this city’s south side.

Sherry is Donna’s sister and Tony is a buddy of mine going back to junior high school. They met and were married while Donna and I were still in courtship.

When they decided to tie the knot, Tony selected me to be his best man. It seemed natural and I ejhoyed the role.

I did little things, like renting a Lincoln Town Car to drive them away from the church and staying with Tony throughout the hours leading up to the ceremony, seeing to it his hair was trimmed and that everything ran on time.

But when you break down the duties of best man, there’s really only one thing that is important — hand the guy getting married the wedding ring at the appropriate time.

I did not do this because folks, I lost the ring.

This is where the story starts to get real ugly. I had placed the ring, which, of course, was expensive, on my left pinky finger, so as not to lose it. After arriving at the church, it slid off that sweating pinky and lost itself in about 2000 square yards or so of carpeting or grass or gravel or whatever else was on that quarter block where I’d traveled.

It’s strange what goes through your mind at such times. Regressing backwards to happier moments in childhood is the automatic reaction. But I forced myself out of that mode before winding up in a fetal position on one of the church pews.

I told a couple of trusted friends there what happened and we searched.

In the video tape of the pre-ceremony goings on, everyone can be seen happily and excitedly posing and preparing, while my chalk-pale face was lookikng down and around and my hands repeated ran through every pocket in my tuxedo.

If this happens to you, be aware that you cannot keep this sort of thing a secret. By 20 minutes before the alter turned to ground zero, everyone but the bride knew.

What with the natural nervousness of someone about to be married for the first time, Sherry was the last to be told for fear she might wig out and literally explodee all over the bridesmaids. But she did not.

When I told some of the people there what had occurrred, their faces betrayed a weird mixed reaction of, “Oh, I feel so sorry for you — you idiot freak who has ruined everything.”

But Tony and Sherry were very kind to me. I think because they were in love, this was their wedding day and they were my friends. The ring really wasn’t all that important.

The wedding went on and we used the engagement ring as a facsimile for the lost jewelry. The couple left for their honeymoon cruise that night…

The story has a happy ending. Someone found the ring the next day in the grass outside the church. For the record, it never bothered me all that much. Like I said, it gave the ceremony a sitcom kind of feel. You know, like I was Major Nelson and Major Healy lost Jeannie’s ring.

Other happy ending — I got married. And I still am. 21 years later.