|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- A ROAD MAP OF ARCTICA--CUP 22--"ON THE ORIGIN OF FNUD" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  A Road Map of Arctica  ||  -------> (Cup SRrm022, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ***ON THE ORIGIN OF FNUD*** Many of you have been experiencing my great comic strip character "Fnud" in electronic text form in the bits of "Comma's Coma", but I'm sure far fewer have ever seen the strips in graphical form. Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to scan some (or all) of these into computerese and make them available on the Internet, or as attachments to this E-mail E-zine. Some of you have asked me how I came up with Fnud the Musketball, and I've given a variety of disfunctional answers over the years. So, after some soul-searching (or scorching) and also readin' over my old journals, I'm ready to set forth the true, accurate rendition of the Origin of Fnud. It all started in high school, where I was known as an artist of some sort, and some fellow kids asked me to create a poster for their "Kolle Klops Fund", that international organization that provides relief for third-world countries or something. They were doing some sort of fundraiser, I don't quite remember. I did the poster using Letraset dry transfer lettering and ink drawings and stuff--I myself don't have a copy of it--in the back of my mind I've been considering trying to contact some of those folks to see if they have a copy of it. Maybe I have a high school reunion coming up? I don't know. It seems like the tenth anniversary is coming up--I know I missed the fifth. Anyway, I had a lot of other stuff I was working on, and I kept trying to remember to do the poster by repeating the word "fund" over and over in my mind. At the same time I was heavily involved in anagrams, and somehow I must have subconsciously played around with the word, and one day I just wrote down "Fnud". I had recently gotten a book on George Herriman's "Krazy Kat", and I was really into it, and it inspired me to try and work on a comic strip of my own. Complicated enough yet? Anyway, were were doing the Revolutionary War in history class, and somehow it all came together and I decided to have Fnud be a Musketball. I guess part of it was so he would be easy to draw. So, as you all know, I created the scenario that Fnud was fired in the Revolutionary War, and for some reason of cartoon physics, he didn't stop, but he kept going, travelling through a myriad of alternate worlds, never able to fully stop. I think that several aspects attracted me to the name as soon as I came up with it. It has a mind of Scandinavian feel, like "fjord" or something. I think that Kolle Klops started in one of those northern countries. Also, "Fnud" sounds a lot like "Thud", which would also be a good name for a cannonball/muskterball type character, if you see what I mean. Anyway, the rest is history, and Fnud is ready to take his place among popular characters, as soon as I get off my ass and publish an anthology or something. I always thought it would be cool to have a variety of licensed products of Fnud. I especially think that a Fnud pinball machine would be great, in that he could be the pinball! How great is that? I think it would be awesome for such a pinball machine to be totally black-and-white--no color at all--since all my Fnud comics are black-and-white line art. Also, I don't think such a color scheme has ever been used before, in a major pinball machine. (The "Pinball Construction Kit" comes to mind--an early piece of Mac sotware, but that's neither here nor there...) Let's hear it for FNUD! -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----