Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: Hence the Avatar

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Mike Peterson Published: July 20, 2012 1 minute 3 comments

I've used JJ O'Malley as my avatar since joining Facebook, but I used him as a screen name well before that, and, before I even had an Internet connection, I had a dog named JJ O'Malley.

I've mentioned this several times, how, as a wee lad, I would take down my parents' "Barnaby" book and, even though I couldn't read, I could tell that something strange and wierd and marvelous was happening, and that it wasn't happening within the realm of things kids share with their parents.

Which made it twice as appealling. 

As far as I was concerned, it was the story of a little boy and a strange little man with wings who would come through his window and take him on adventures. And it would be another year or two after I discovered Barnaby that Crockett Johnson would create "Harold and the Purple Crayon" which was more or less the same story but without the strange little man.

I liked Harold, but I dreamt about the strange little man.

The facts of Barnaby are freely available and I'm not going to go into exquisite detail here. It was created by Crockett Johnson in 1942 and ran for four years, then stopped, then started again and then stopped forever. Which is fine, because some comics keep running well after they've stopped, and this one didn't.

There is a very good Crockett Johnson page here, and a book on him coming out soon.

But what I want to do is simply share the first few Barnabys, because I think there's a lot more talk about Barnaby than there is actually showing how the strip worked. And if you'd like to imagine yourself being about three or four and pondering these pictures, I think you'll see how they might touch off some pretty odd and entertaining dreams, even without the words.

Or maybe "especially without the words."

In any case, they certainly did. Here are the first eight episodes of Barnaby:

There's more, and quite a bit of lore and catch-phrases among the fans. But this was what launched my dreams.

It still holds up pretty darned well.

Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.