CRUISIN’ LIFE’S FASTER LANE PART 4: MONEY PROBLEMS

CRUISIN’ LIFE’S FASTER LANE
PART 4: MONEY PROBLEMS

Recycling is not only good for the environment, but it’s a proven, useful tool in the life of this cartoonist.

Take this week’s offering, a two-for-one special.

In 1992 I was pumping out R.O. strips quickly. As I mentioned previously, once I sink my teeth into an idea it’s hard for me to let it go. As an avid comic collector, this one was more the writer/artist’s point of view than the character’s, but it made for a cute strip.

Cut to 2005 and the deadline for Keeping Up With Kids had come around again, as it did every month. What to do? What to do? I was drawing a blank, which happens more often than I care to admit but usually only when I wait until the last minute to do the strip.

Which also happens more often than I care to admit.

The process I use in creating a Life In The Faster Lane happens one of two ways. I either have the joke in place and have to figure out the drawing or I have the idea for the drawing and have to figure out the punch line.

The latter is what happened here.

I had drawn R.O. standing in line at the bank. After several failed jokes, I dropped in an oldie from the beginning of the run. "You think you have money problems? Try having a kid who collects comic books." It worked perfectly and there’s no reason R.O. couldn’t make the same comment twice. Anyone who collects comics can, I’m sure, relate to this strip.

And thus, Recyclo-Bob, as my friend Jeff has been wont to call me, saves the day again.

Eventually, we’ll see more instances where I recycled art with a new gag. Which usually has something to do with deadlines and waiting until the last minute.

Hmm… I’m beginning to sense a pattern.

Keep on cruisin’

Bobby Nash
Bethlehem, GA