Who is this character?
J.B. Biggerstaff began life as a satirical Twitter account. In the fraughtness of our political times, I noticed (belatedly, perhaps), that some Twitterites were using alternate accounts to retweet their own material. Well, no one agrees with you like yourself. (And if not, get on your meds!)
I merged this cartoon figure with an earlier notion I had, that it’s a little silly for authors to make up pen names, and to use those pen names to imply a greater authority, a second gender, a vaguely Germanic/British ethnic background (this strong with people who come from vaguely Germanic/British backgrounds), than their own reality would.
I always thought, why do people not fake credentials, if you can boost sales with a false identity? (The grey-area-making traditional definition of fraud being that you make money out of it, as opposed to just lying, which you can do as you please.) If Priscilla Seraphina Merriweather would sound more manly as a writer of thrillers (this presumably a boost to credibility, in the thriller milieu), by calling herself P. S. Mather, she may sell more books. So why not call herself Special Agent P. S. Mather, and suggest a mysterious background with international contacts?
J. Big’s Twitter bio became at the outset, Colonel, ret., Chicken Division, Royal Chickadiers. After a while, I put up a tag-line from one of my poems. I wasn’t sure people were getting the joke!
After that, I got tired of just retweeting my blog posts, and wanted to begin using the Cartoon House I’d been building to make some of my long-term ideas, and some recently inspired ones, pseudo-reality. Thus, the interview with Jerry Beamhead (more such to come), and a chance to share some of my research into how The Yellow Kid, a comic character of the 1890’s, ever became the poster-child for yellow journalism. Short answer: not at all clear.
Here you will find the Dynamo Brothers, superheros slightly shy of a well-oiled machine, and frequently shy of a handy outlet to fuel the lightning bolt. I invented a character, way back in childhood, who did nothing but hide inside his fake-shrubbery superhero costume, and witness crimes, making him the number one target for all the leagues of evil. (Including, one now supposes, the Cartel of Malevolence.) He may appear. He may even become a she, for the sake of inclusiveness
Announcements!
All cartoons from 2017 will be archived alphabetically on the Archive O’Contents page, so as to make the Table O’Contents easier to navigate.
All cartoon material, art and punchlines, are creations of Stephanie Foster, © 2017-2018.
Finally, let me throw in myself, and a link to my main blog, Torsade Literary Space, where I post serious and semi-serious work, art, poetry, fiction, essays, even a little music.
A Figure from the Common Lot
Inimical
Tourmaline
Sequence of Events
Impresario, find it here!
A YouTube channel of funky videos, a couple of promos, a poem set to music, a snatch of fiction, with a track and imagery.
The Cartoon House 