I found my copy of Hey Granpa and have begun scanning it for the blog.
I will start posting the strips one at a time like a webcomic (Dylan would hate that!).
I realize as I'm re-reading these that I never talked to Dylan about this strip. If anyone has any insights or stories about Hey Granpa or anything Dylan said about it, please share them in the comments.
http://www.apogeemag.com/interviews/dw.html
ReplyDeleteIn this interview with Dylan from 1997 or 1998, when asked about Hey Granpa, he says, "Originally Hey Granpa was a parody of strips like Blondie and Hi & Lois. As I did some more I developed my own take on newspaper strips. Hey Granpa is really a side of my character (both the curmudgeon and the "square" or sitcom humor). Some of my favorite humor is stuff where you are laughing at the person who wrote it for even thinking that would be funny. Also there is a bit of that Charlie Chaplin kind of humor in it where you as the viewer are laughing at something that is so tragic for the participants. Hey Granpa is all kinds of things to me. There's a side of me that wishes /dreams about Hey Granpa pillow cases and ads for Met Life. Obviously that's just a fantasy for now."
From what I remember the idea was to try to place these strips in weekly alt-newspapers. It seems to me Dylan asked the advice of several cartoonists who were doing the same thing & the advice was to forget about it, as all the papers were dropping comics and/or going out of business, it was hard or impossible to get a spot and the pay was shit! Nonetheless, I think Dylan did have these running in a paper or three for a while (I can’t remember which one/s).
ReplyDeleteI also have vague memories of Dylan talking about using the strip to learn how to cut back and simplify his artwork and storytelling & that he seemed to really enjoy the challenge of making a weekly strip like that.
The art style reminds me of the UPA animation studio, which I believe Dylan was a fan of... or a fan of some of their artists? Mr Magoo? I could be wrong about that. But that restrained style... yeah, you can definitely see it developing and then how it carries on into Reporter and other works.
ReplyDeleteI'm nearly done scanning and getting them ready to start posting... The collection has 18 (i think?) strips total. I don't know if there were more. I'll post one a day until I run out.
ReplyDeleteMy memory could be wrong, but I think Dylan put out several Hey Granpa minis... I feel pretty sure there were at least two (in the long thin format and then one or two in a different format?). I'm really not sure though (hopefully somebody else can clarify). I wish I still had copies / a copy. Looking forward to your daily postings!
ReplyDeleteWe definitely talked about UPA (not necessarily in relation to these comics). The shorts I specifically remember him talking about and being into were the Gerald Mcboing Boings. I seem to recall maybe he had a bootleg VHS of some?
He was a UPA fan in general, but he went REALLY nuts for Gerald McBoing-Boing. He had bought vhs tapes of UPA cartoons that had been released around...95? They weren't bootlegs, because I remember a lot of people being excited about them for the first time.
ReplyDeletethere are 3 hey grandpa's i think. he did a years worth is what he'd said to me once. last time he read one in my presence he was falling over laughing from them which was great to see him enjoy his comic so much. on the phone once while discussing our failed attempts to go get commercial work he mentioned hey grandpa as a "failed" attempt to "sell out" which is amazing to me how dyed in th wool dylan has allways been with his vision.
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