This Week in Drabble History: May 19th, 20th, 21st & 22nd (Strips from the Wall)

1980, 1982, 1990, 1996, 2000

Hi everybody!

A while back I told you about this wall in my studio.

For Drabble’s 25th anniversary (which was back in 2004), my wife secretly went through some old originals and selected a strip from each of the first 25 years. She put them all in plastic frames and arranged them on my wall. They’ve been there ever since. We haven’t added strips from the next 21 years yet. She said if I want to do that, I can do it myself. Actually, I don’t think there’s enough room unless I rearrange all of them, and … well, I kind of like it as it is!

Anyway, today’s batch of strips contain two strips from that wall. I’ll tell you which ones. See if you can spot them on the wall.

May 19, 1980

This is one of the strips from the wall. Sherwood Schwartz, creator of Gilligan’s Island, asked for a Drabble original that mentioned the show. It must not have been this one because it’s on the wall! I mentioned Gilligan’s Island several times in the early years of Drabble.

May 19, 1990

May 20, 1982

I haven’t seen this strip in over 40 years, and it made me chuckle.

May 20, 1996

May 21, 1982

May 21, 1990

I called them so often, I still have the phone number of our 1980’s cable company memorized.

May 22, 1982

May 22, 1990

So who is the president of the cable company? PEANUTS animator Bill Melendez did some animation of this story line that ran for several days. His hope was to sell Drabble as either a TV show or a short film. It was wonderful but never got off the ground, due to various reasons.

May 22, 1996

May 22, 2000

The other strip from my wall.

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Thanks for reading!

—Kevin Fagan