Of that much, I’m certain. I was attending the illustrious Raymond J. Lockhart Elementary school of Massapequa, New York. The school had just acquired about 15 or so computers for us kids to learn on. Well, to play weird word games on. Let’s face it, this was 1982… these machines were a step or two above the average calculator at the time.
Nevertheless, play on them we did. And each of us were charged with creating a placemat with which to indicate the computer we were assigned to. On my placemat, I drew my computer. And leaning confidently atop it was a certain little white dog who bares more than a slight resemblance to the Met-Life representative. In bold, block letters running above and below the computer, I wrote: “DANDY, THE COMPUTER DOG”
I loved it! I was so proud and happy with my creation that I would continue drawing it all year! I would draw him and his growing list of friends like the little boy, Bernard (based on an embarrassing photo of me in a fully matching red and white outfit, from hat to shoes and socks), Bernard’s dad, George (created in a connect the dots drawing exercise taught to us by a children’s book author), and Dandy’s little brother, Mistake (then named for his grotesquely huge, mis-proportioned head).
I drew them on everything I could up until 1986, when I decided to emulate my favorite comic strips like Garfield, Peanuts and Bloom County, and make a Dandy comic strip. The six-panel gag with Dandy and Bernard worked — everyone who read it loved it! My teacher suggested I make more for her to pin up on the bulletin board of the classroom. I was in heaven — I had made a funny comic strip!!
She just had one little suggestion…
“Stop drawing him so much like Snoopy!”
Crushed by my first artistic criticism, I went home and tried to revise my beloved Dandy character. Eventually deciding to emulate my Cairn Terrier puppy, To-To, Dandy was reborn.
I did about a dozen Sunday-style strips for school in that year (they were supposed to be weekly… yea, I was lazy even then) but otherwise lost a lot of interest in him until Jr. High School. Again, I attempted to redesign Dandy to reflect my love for the animated Warner Bros. and Woody Woodpecker cartoons I was watching on T.V… It was a short-lived revival lasting only about 13 or so Sunday-style strips, each dipping in quality a little more from the last one.
Over the next few years of High School, I rarely, if ever, drew Dandy or his friends. I instead favored more “mature” Super-Hero comics, as if grown men in bright red tights are somehow more “mature”.
It wasn’t until after high school and my admission to the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey, that Dandy would live again. One of my classes in the school was a class called “Humor” taught by comics legend, Irwin Hasen (creator, ironically, of the classic strip, Dondi). We were all called upon to make comic strips and out of nostalgia, I dusted off Dandy. Research into the works of Chuck Jones, Walt Kelly and Bill Waterson was fueling my creative drive, and this class was the outlet.
Armed with yet another facelift, Dandy was again reborn, but this time he refused to lie down. In a school-years time, I would produce over 80 different strips, tons of artwork, and two short animations (the animations are lame, and thus not on the site).
After my time at Kubert I chose to keep the characters going through various stories and gags in a series called the Dandy Collections; seven books of his adventures which were distributed locally through school and among friends.
Dandy has been around for a while now, and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. So, now that you all know about his past and his history, I hope you look forward to following his future!
Derrick Fish