Shoecabbage... countdown

In a few days, specifically November 6, 2020, the comic I first created for GoComics called "Shoecabbage" will be no more. GoComics decided to cancel "Shoecabbage" and remove it and its archives from their site. While I am sad about its departure, at least I'm not facing a double cancellation, which was my original nightmare. Actually, both features would have been gone by now (since the actual removal date was scheduled for October 6, 2020.)

Happily, "Frog Applause" was saved by my dear readers, who rescued me from a dumpster fire of combustible tears. I think one can really never know how precious something is to you until you're faced with the reality of losing it. I love the GoComics website. I have always felt so proud, privileged and lucky to be able to talk to people around the world through my lame little creation known as "Frog Applause" hosted by GoComics, whose parent company is Andrews McMeel Universal (Andrews McMeel Universal is the largest independent syndicate in the world and a leading digital entertainment provider of humor, comic strips, political cartoons and gaming content for print, Web and mobile devices.)

GOCOMICS DROPPING FROG APPLAUSE, THE CONJURERS, OTHERS; CONNIE TO THE WONNIE DROPS GOCOMICS

FROG APPLAUSE TO REMAIN ON GOCOMICS

Forgive my disjointed and embarrassingly sappy remarks. In times such as these, people are losing their jobs, their homes, their way of life, even their lives... and I'm still brooding about almost having my dumb comic strip being canceled from a website. I'm embarrassed, frankly, but I can't stop getting overly emotional about the whole thing. My fear is that I may have to face this same scenario again. I keep asking myself, "What can I do differently?" "How can I keep my comic strip relevant, deserving or worthy enough to remain on GoComics?" I can't help but keep thinking that I've missed something, either I did something or I didn't do something. Whatever the case, that something wasn't enough to make my comic strip valuable enough to my host. Now I'm faced with the worry that I somehow need to work harder or smarter or I need to try to be more like the other comics on GoComics--all the comics not slated for cancelation. Those comics were obviously doing something right that I was not doing.    

Anyway, "Shoecabbage" is about to end and I am sad about that. What most people who read "Frog Applause" don't realize is that without "Shoecabbage" there would have been no "Frog Applause." 

"Shoecabbage" got my foot in the door. "Frog Applause" was born because my cartooning partner, David Stanford, had other obligations that interfered with his ability to do the art for "Shoecabbage." Facing a new, pared-down schedule (once a week instead of three times a week), I asked David, who was an editor at GoComics at the time and who had the power to nay or yay any new features, if I could do something in addition to "Shoecabbage." David yayed my untested, half-baked, and unnamed comic. I wasn't sure what I'd be doing with this new space graciously given to me. How could I explain to David what I'd be doing with my new real estate when even I didn't know? I felt foolish and lost. I drew a box and stared at it. A big nothing stared me back. David obviously had faith in me, why else would he give me the go-ahead sight unseen? (I'll always be grateful to David Stanford for believing in me when I had a hard time believing in myself. That's a pretty potent feeling once the reality of it hits home.) Anyway, I had to do SOMETHING.

The rest is, as they say, history. But this post is not about "Frog Applause." It's about "Shoecabbage." I "read" dozens of foreign dictionaries. I wrote (snailmail with a typewriter) to dozens of linguists around the world. I borrowed dictionaries from interlibrary loan. I sat for hours with native speakers from other countries gathering words "with the same sound as a word in English but with a different meaning." I compiled long, long lists of words in languages spoken by millions to languages spoken by only a handful of people. Some shoecabbages came from "dead" languages. I took my work very seriously. I was meticulous about every detail. One of my mantras was, "There's a whole world out there and English isn't the only language in it! "Shoecabbage" originally appeared in the Sunday edition of the Kansas City Star. There was a page called "Kid City Star" hosted by a dog named StarBrite. I wrote to the editor of this new page (Keith Robison) and he liked my idea of sharing a new word each week with young readers. StarBrite would introduce my "linguistic homophone" and then share the meaning and information about the language with readers. Yes, StarBrite, a black Labrador retriever, could talk. In addition to "Shoecabbage," I also got the chance to interview people for the page. I did a little Q&A with some local cartoonists and I thought I was really setting the world on fire. I first interviewed Charles Barsotti, a New Yorker cartoonist, who lived in the area. I also interviewed Bill Amend (Foxtrot), also a non-native Kansas City local. I doubt if Bill remembers me or the interview. I was a big nobody, doing a language thingy hosted by a dog with his own newspaper page. But I had dreams! I had big dreams, and so I sent clippings of my Kid City Star page to uclick or ucomics (the original name for GoComics, I think. It's hard to remember EVERY detail. I think I made $50 a week for my Kid City Star bit. I got extra if I did an interview or a breaking news story, like the end of the wildly popular commercial featuring the Taco Bell chihuahua. Gidget's obituary.)

Footnote: When Shoecabbage finally ended, I still had hundreds of words that David could have used to create new Shoecabbage cartoons. I feel sort of melancholy knowing that those words never got the chance to appear in our cartoon. I still have all my files, my letters from linguists, my wordlists. I own dozens of foreign-langauge dictionaries. My collection would rival any large university library. Actually, I own some very rare dictionaries. Again, sadness. I miss the smell of a "new" dictionary (I taught myself to read alphabets in several languages). I perused each page hunting for a potential shoecabbage. (I coined the word, by the way.) All the words I suspected of being a "shoecabbage" weren't a part of my collection until they were confirmed by a native or knowledgeable speaker of the language in question, by the way. 

(I apologize for any typos or editing errors above. It's late and I wanted to get this posted. If anyone sees a mistake, let me know, please. I may add or subtract from this post later.)

I tried everything to make "Shoecabbage" interesting. I wrote to newspapers around the world letting them know about my cartoon. Newspapers in Iceland, Estonia, Malta, Indonesia, and elsewhere printed nice little stories including one of my cartoons in their language. I also asked several cartoonists to be a guest for my feature. I was highly motivated and tireless back then. I was always promoting my cartoon. I don't know what happened to me once I started doing "Frog Applause." I seemed to lose my way. I turned down people who wanted to interview me. I did little, if anything, to promote my cartoon, and NOTHING to promote myself. I can't explain it.

#FB00080