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Wednesday, Januai'y 24, 2001
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THE BATTALION X
Page 3
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By Brooke Hodges
The Battalion
Have you ever wondered who is responsible for the comic strips in The
Battalionl You know, the ones that sometimes make you laugh out loud dur
ing a really boring lecture. From the funniest to the crudest and everything in
between, here is an inside look at the guys responsible for the strips.
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Ruben DeLuna, The Battalion graphics editor and a senior marketing
major, is the creative mind behind the strip that The Battalion has featured
for almost three years.
Fish started in Fall 1998, when DeLuna created a strip about a group of fresh
men with a plan to follow them over a typical four-year college career. The fact
that the characters have stayed freshmen for three years is never discussed, and
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DeLuna said it is because he did not want to change the strip’s game.
The characters in the strip are named after people he knows but are not
necessarily based on their personalities. The only exception to this is Middle-
Aged Larry, who was based on a guy in DeLuna’s freshman math class.
“I don’t even know if the guy’s name was Larry,” he said.
DeLuna said the characters Scoot and Ryan reflect his personality the most.
“Those are the two characters 1 use for outlets,” he said.
DeLuna said he especially enjoys drawing the strip when he gets more
room in the double strips that usually parody a recently released movie or a
television show.
“1 have more room and can do multiple jokes instead of one punch line,”
he said. “And, I’m a fan of movies and anything ‘pop-culturish,’ so it lets me
be more random.”
DeLuna said the comic strip started as a way to get his drawings no
ticed. Now, because he has to make other graphics, the strip is the excit
ing part of his job.
Brandon Henderson, a junior
electrical engineering major, is
the mastermind of the wit that fu
els the humor in Non Mia Culpa.
The idea for Longhorn and
Robo, who first appeared in Sep
tember 1999, came to Henderson
when he was at a basketball game
with a friend.
“At the time, I saw an un
tapped market of readers who
were sarcastic, witty and, by all
means, good looking,” he said
with a laugh. “We came up with
Longhorn right then and there.”
Many readers may wonder
| why Henderson decided to use
the mascot of A&M’s rival as
the star of his strip. Henderson
said he used the Bevo look-
alike because of his lack of
artistic ability.
“1 was such a horrible artist when 1 first started, I just tried to come up with
sketches that could readily be identified as unique characters,” he said. “If it
has things sticking out of its head, it’s a Longhorn.”
Henderson said the character Robo was the second member to join
the cast.
“Robo came about when I realized I needed a good foil for ‘Horns,” he
said. “What is the opposite of a longhorn-man? A trashcan, of course.”
During last spring’s student body presidential campaign, the usual fliers
were accompanied by leaflets featuring Robo. Henderson said the idea of the
Robo2000 Campaign started as a joke and spread like wildfire.
“It was fueled by that sick feeling everyone gets in their stomach when
they get offered some cheap candy by a stranger disguised as a cam
paigner,” he said. “The Robo2000 campaign was for those who wanted to
rise in a unified voice, shouting across Aggieland in a rumble that would
shatter democracy and windows alike, ‘We don’t care!’ ”
Henderson, who is not on campus this semester because of a co-op job in
Dallas, is looking for someone to head up this year’s Robo campaign.
Non Mia Culpa is being submitted by email and will run only three days
a week.
4A|jp)t,
Kyle Whitacre, a cartoonist and a senior journalism major, has given read
ers an almost daily glimpse into his apartment since this past summer.
All the characters in his strip are based on Whitacre’s former roommates.
He said the old roomies don’t mind being in a comic and think it’s cool.
“They’ll use the fact they’re in a comic strip tq hit on people,” he said. “My
new roommates are always
complaining (because) they
are not in there.”
Whitacre describes his
material as anything out of
the ordinary that happens in
daily life.
Last semester, he exper
imented by adding photos
to his strips. He said the
challenge of mixing pho
tography with his draw
ings led him to try some
thing new.
Whitacre said his fa
vorite strip was the one fea
turing Jay and Silent Bob
from Clerks and Mall Rats.
Whitacre said his artistic
ability has benefited from
drawing the cartoon.
“It has really improved,”
he said. “It just keeps get
ting better and better.”
For people who have not followed the strip since the beginning, the nin
ja who randomly appears in the strip was originally a pet that the residents
of apartment 160 kept in a cage. The ninja escaped from its cage last se
mester and will continue to wreak havoc in the apartment this semester.
Carson Higgs, a cartoonist and a senior biomedical science major, is re
sponsible for 254, which is Higgs’ apartment number.
Higgs decided to do without reccuring characters after a failed attempt at
a storyline comic during Summer 2000 with Fantastico Chronicles.
Higgs said that not having to follow the characters makes doing a comic
strip easier.
“I like being able to put random stuff down, and it doesn’t have to be a lit
erary masterpiece,” he said. “And with college students, you can be more
crude. Plus, it makes my parents proud.”
Higgs said originally he wanted to place classifieds in The Battalion each
week containing information about his and his roommate’s lives like “Car-
son took a test today,” but the ads were refused because they didn’t offer any
thing for sale. So, he said, the next logical step was a comic strip.
He said he suffers from creative blocks when he thinks about his subject
material too much.
Higgs said he believes he lacks artistic ability.
“If you see my comics, you can tell I haven’t been drawing forever,” he said.
Higgs said the hardest part of doing a strip is that one person will love a strip
and another person will hate it.
Tte Cmkm
Adrian Calcaneo, a cartoonist and a senior international studies major, is
the artist behind The Wuss Cookie.
i .,e strip, which began in Summer 2000, is back this semester after a brief
hiatus.
The strip started because Calcaneo wanted to poke fun at the University
and the average college
student.
He thought about hav
ing one guy in the strip
but decided to use two
because he said he thinks
pairs are funnier.
The two characters
are based on Calcaneo’s
ex-roommate and Dave
Foley of “Kids in the
Hall.”
Calcaneo said most of
his material comes from
his daily events.
“I sit down and think,
‘Was anything funny?’ ”
he said.
He began drawing as
a kid and said he would
enjoy drawing a strip af
ter college.
“I would love to do this as a career,
more to learn.”
he said. “But right now, I have a lot
Tte prmm imm&
The cartoonists were asked whether revealing their identities made them
nervous after they have been behind their drawings.
Here are their answers:
DeLuna: I’ll be very disappointed if people don’t hunt me down ask
ing for autographs!
Henderson: A year ago, I don’t think I would be comfortable telling
everyone who I was. That is why the comic is penned under b-hippie. At
some point, I decided that people, for the most part, don’t care enough to
even raise an eyebrow. This being said, all stalkers must sign up at Koldus
before 3:30 p.m. on Thursday to receive stalking passes. Stalking is per
mitted only in designated creeping areas. If you stalk on game days, PTTS
will tow your car.
Whitacre: The people who I care if they read it, already know I do it.
Calcaneo: I don’t think people will recognize me from the picture! but
if they do, I hope they had good things to say and aren’t mad that I’ve been
picking on the football team.
Higgs: I’m not worried about revealing my identity because “Carson
Higgs” is an alias. I’m like that guy from the critically acclaimed TNT
show “Pretender.”