Worst Timing In The World (62 Comics)

The following story is true. Weird, but true, and certainly represents one of the worst possible cases of bad timing as one can imagine.

Growing up in the 60s I had two things I wanted to be: A cartoonist and an astronaut. Neither were mutually exclusive. One less likely than the other to come true though.

So, cartooning it was. Or at least some form of art and illustration. My first attempt was a little comic strip in 1970 called Space Odysseys. It was merely a bunch of moon landing gags, the few I remember still make me giggle. To my regret, I’ve lost those but can still draw a lunar module in about 5 seconds.

Becoming an astronaut was out of the question when I discovered they had to go through survival training and learn to carve up and eat iguanas. Not iguanas! My sister and I had several of them over years and so they would never find their way into my diet. Joining the NASA ranks was even more difficult unless one had a cool astronaut name like Chuck “Bazooka” Squarejaw, or two first names such as John Glenn or Dave Scott, Jim Irwin or Dick Gordon. "Dick Gordon" now THAT's an astronauts name!

Carving out a few images in India ink with a paintbrush was considerably easier and supposedly paid a lot better than civil service.

In the 70s I did a few single-frame science comics, actually sold two panels, but the magazine that bought them went under before they were used. Coincidence? You be the judge. I'll post those later.