Over the years, I’ve spoken with many storyboard artists, and many have found the issue of putting an entire idea into just four panels to be the most challenging. Now imagine doubling that challenge four times, putting the same idea into just one board. Most comedians will despair, but Dave Blazek will feel like a fish in water because it’s the best thing to do. The brilliant cartoonist has years and years of syndicate experience for The New Yorker and other notable magazines, and by this point, he’s reached a mastery level that makes creating a solo comic a breeze. Briefness is the soul of wit, so let’s keep it short and jump right in: Here is a cartoon of the Loose Parts Man!
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As mentioned earlier, Dave Blazek is the “old ranger” of the comics world, dating back to 1998. Naturally, there were only a select few who were as old on the scene as Dave. It was the day when Instagram, or any other platforms didn’t make the job of self-publishing that much easier, and comedy had to spread through the old comic track, the newspaper. Dave and his then partner John Gilpin found their home in the Philadelphia Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
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So let’s count how long the comedian has been for loose parts…that’s 23 and a half years! Even more impressive than the actual time period, the comic was nominated for and won an award. And unlike many other awards, this one actually means something. Mr. Blazek and the Comedy turned out to have won the National Cartoonists Society’s Robin Award, which is compared to the Cartoonist’s World Oscar in importance. They have won it twice in 2019, and in 2020, and have been nominated many more times. If you were to present the comedy as “critically acclaimed,” you wouldn’t be wrong.
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The “Loose Parts” comic is described as “a grotesquely clever, funny, grotesque, and impulsively funny comic that graces newspaper pages, websites, and refrigerator doors across North America (and on other continents with clever people, too).” This is true in all respects, but what I would also add is that it is well balanced, because it is not peppered with gimmicks, old themes, tired clichés, and all the other things that seasoned artists know best to avoid. Some might criticize the comic as being too conservative, but it’s probably one of the reasons why it’s loved by mostly everyone, not just a niche group.
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