Tales From The Box In The Closet

UTAH HOLIDAY - ARE YOU INTO HIGH UINTA HIGH JINKS?

I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah from 1980 - 1985 and enjoyed a locally produced magazine called Utah Holiday. It was aimed at visitors and was chock full of ads, things to do, places to go, informative articles about life in the area, stuff like that. What it did not have was humor. It had no cartoons.

So one day I met with the editor and pitched the idea of a monthly, last page, continuity strip about the fanciful adventures of a little guy who liked to explore the back country and out of the way places in Utah and had plenty of amusing adventures. The editor liked the idea but wanted to see what I had in mind. Fair enough.

So I wrote up a few scenarios, roughed out some samples, he liked what he saw and gave me the green light to go ahead and illustrate the first adventure.

The four pages you see here are as far as I got before he called and said they had changed their minds and decided not to go with the strip. When I asked if I could be paid for what I had done he said, "Sorry," and that was the end of it.


My favorite idea for a story coming up after this one would revolve around a brownish-orange ogre who lived in a cave at the north end of the Oquirrh Mountains west of Salt Lake City. I was going to call it the Ochre Oquirrh Ogre.

Sigh... another blown opportunity.