New strip
‘Get Fuzzy’
debuts in Today!

Mix a likeable ad man
with an aloof cat and a naive
dog and you 'Get Fuzzy'

By Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin

Rob Wilco Main character Stressed-out "guardian" of Bucky Katt and Satchel Pooch who works in an ad agency. Bucky Katt Sidekick Aloof ... bizarre ... volatile ... but he doesn't really mean it, honest. He is a CAT after all. Satchel Pooch Sidekick Good ol' Satchel tries to be everybody's best friend..

We got Fuzzy!

The new comic strip debuts in today's Star-Bulletin. If you haven't heard much of anything about it, that's because there isn't much to tell. Yet. The strip is so new creator Darby Conley is still trying to figure how to use his computer scanner to get the artwork to the syndicate.

We caught him last Monday evening, furiously inking new Fuzzys. "I'm a night artist," he admitted, and acknowledged there's a difference between humor generated by cartoonists that work by day and those who work at night.

Even though it may be a short run -- we're scheduled to close Oct. 30 -- the Star-Bulletin is one of the first papers to pick up the strip.

In many ways -- and we're only going to get our toes wet in the philosophy pool here -- "Get Fuzzy" offers a very traditional triangular relationship between a guy, a cat and a dog.

Rob Wilco is a harried sub-level advertising man; Bucky is a self-centered Siamese cat; Satchel a too-sensitive dog caught in the middle. Nominally "pets," Bucky and Satchel are more like annoying housemates than animals.

It's a classic cartoon set-up; the eternal, internal conflict between anima and animus, balancing human reason and animal instinct.

"Somebody called it a 'Garfield wannabe,' which was surprising to me," mused Conley. "I don't even think of Garfield as a cat. He's more like a little person in a cat suit."

Indeed. While Garfield is completely transparent, motive-wise, Bucky is opaque. Like a real cat. "OK, he talks and does human things, but Bucky is a cat," said Conley. "You can't ever figure out what's going on with a cat. That's why they're so funny. They'll sit there purring and happy, and then suddenly take a bite out of you for no apparent reason."

The human, Rob, is based on a couple of Conley's friends, also named Rob, and isn't a self-portrait, "except that he's about my age -- 29 -- and we're probably wired the same way."

Conley himself doesn't have any pets. "I grew up with the greatest dog in the world, and my girlfriend has cats and they're funny, but Boston isn't exactly pet-friendly. I do like to go to the parks and watch other people with their pets. You can sit in the park and call it research. Good deal."

Despite the hoary premise, "Get Fuzzy" seems to have a young-spirited thread of slacker-oriented humor. "I've heard others call it a slacker strip too, a Gen-X strip, which is interesting," said Conley. "What makes it slacker? That all Rob wants to do is sit on the couch and be left alone? Watch TV? I'm for that."

Conley is excessively observant and dedicated, and it's too early to tell whether the daily grind in the strip-mines will beat it out of him, but one of the real pleasures of "Get Fuzzy" is the carefully rendered drawing style. Conley pays homage to the detritus of everyday life, finding gravity in the commonplace. He's a genius at perspective and visual balance.

Dave Thorne, Hawaii's Jedi master of cartooning, worries that Conley's method of achieving gray tones -- delicate cross-hatching -- will "muddy up in the reduction process of printing." Conley says he'll be adjusting his style to suit the mammoth, ink-slinging presses used by newspapers.

Printing reservations aside, Thorne said he "laughed out loud at some of the strips, which is a good sign. Looks like (Conley) was influenced by Bloom County and Doonesbury. He has an interesting drawing style and an offbeat sense of humor. I think readers will come to appreciate the strip more and more as they and Conley become more and more involved with it. It has much potential."

While we also see a Gilbert "Freak Bros" Shelton influence ("That's a compliment, man!" cheered Conley) the artist cops to basking under "Bloom County's" full moon. "I used to rush to the library every day to see what Berke Breathed had drawn. I loved the storylines. Like a million other cartoonists, I started in high school doing a 'Far Side' ripoff. The trick, though, is developing strong characters, like Breathed did in 'Bloom County,' and that was the thing the syndicate really liked about 'Get Fuzzy.' "

Every new strip arrives at the expense of an older one, and "Wizard of Id," which still resonates with the humor of the 1950s, when it was introduced, is taking its leave. Online fans can still track "Id" -- and hundreds of other strips -- at http://www.comics.com or at http://www.creators.com.

In the meantime, prepare to "Get Fuzzy."

"I'm so psyched that it's running out there in Hawaii, man!" cried Conley, and then he was back to work, drawing a whole new world.

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