See! Michael Kupperman's New Comic Strip!

I first discovered the cartoons of Michael Kupperman while working at a video rental store (remember those?). We also sold magazines, but no one ever bought them, so we always ended up throwing them out. Anyway, someone at work had clipped a little cartoon out of some Nickelodeon kid's magazine. I'm not able to find this particular strip online, so I will attempt to recreate it here through medium of only text:

It was entitled "The Adventures of Citobor, the Invisible, Silent Robot". The picture was a single panel, consisting of a young girl and an old man, who was asking "Do you think Citobor is in this room right now?". The caption read "Because no one could see or hear him, Citobor's adventures consisted mainly of people wondering where he was." It was surreal, unexpected, and kind of weird for a kid's magazine. I had to find more!

A Google search for "Citobor" told me that it was drawn by Michael Kupperman, who at the time had only one collected volume of work:

I immediately ordered a copy. The cartoons contained within were just the right combination of Dada and daffy. As an example, here's the titular crime-fighting duo:

They're featured prominently, as well as stuff like this:

He continues to publish comics all over the place, from The New Yorker to McSweeney's, as well as the Tales Designed to Thrizzle series, which I collect every time it comes out (sadly, only about once a year). He also has a frequently hilarious Twitter account. Oh, and Snake 'n' Bacon even got their own TV pilot, which features Kristen Schaal, and an appearance by Citobor!

Sadly, it proved too cutting edge even for Adult Swim and was not picked up.

However, to finally get around to what I promised in the blog title, Michael Kupperman has a new cartoon strip over on the Fantagraphics web site. Here's the first one:

I can only hope that this is a long and fruitful enterprise.