I thought I might use this space today to explain why I used this particular punchline.
Hopefully everyone (save for one or two people) saw it and thought, “Oh, cute, they think Bigfoot is a Wookie. What a fine pop-culture mash-up.”
But there’s also people like Mike Norton, who does Battlepug (The link is down there on the left, on the main page. You HAVE clicked on it before now, right?)
Mike used to live here. He’s a tallish, hairyish sort of fellow his ownself and he draws comic books. Lots and lots of comic books. The good ones. The real ones. One of my favorite illustrations he’s done made me laugh out loud. I’m not even sure it was in a printed comic. It wasn’t when I saw the art, yet. Anyhow, the page showed Mike himself at a comic convention being forced to confront an obnoxious attendee or something like that. I only remember the funny bit- the funny bit was Mike rising up out of his chair to tower over this other guy while two little kids watched from off to one side.
One of the kids says, “Ten bucks on the Wookie.”
I have no idea if that was an original line, or a parody of a movie line or what. I don’t know if I recall the page correctly at all. I do recall being so impressed by the art and the line that I, like many other people reportedly have done, tried to buy the original page.
That was many years ago, and when I laid out this cartoon, I had a totally other gagline in mind. ‘Til I remembered Mike and his page.
So, tip o’ the hat, Mike… and for the rest of you… “Hey, look, the dumb guy in the audience mistook Bigfoot for a Wookie.”
