Foreword by a cartoon dog

“Have a good time!”

That was my first line on a Biograph Theatre midnight show handbill about six months after the theater opened at 814 West Grace Street in 1972. Eventually, that line became the theater’s motto and I became its only official spokesdog.

My name is Rebus. That’s me in the illustration above, which was lifted from the top of the Biograph’s Program No. 53, published in January of 1980. What does my name mean?

A rebus is a puzzle using symbols. The viewer sees a line drawing of an eye, then a plus sign, then the letter “c”, then another plus sign, then the letter “u.” Decoded that rebus means “I see you.”

If I look familiar, in addition to my work at the Biograph, you may remember me from my breakthrough comic strip appearances in the Commonwealth Times’ special all-comics issues of Fan Free Funnies in 1973, or from my face being on handbills promoting Rock ‘n‘ Roll shows.

First at the Biograph, then afterward in countless projects, I’ve worked for the guy who wrote the stories that follow my comments here. F.T. Rea likes to say he keeps me around, because he thinks I’m a lucky charm.

Well, I know Rea is a little superstitious, but I think his reason for continuing to use me has more to do with real charm. Senility notwithstanding, my boss knows perfectly well that for a good while most folks have found me easier to put up with than him.

Naturally, I advised Rea to put more funny stuff in the stories. But he rarely listens to me, these days. Now that he seems to envision himself as more of a writer than a cartoonist, truth be told, he doesn’t spend all that much time at his drawing board. 

To set the stage, the stories start out with an offbeat remembrance of a weekend in May of 1970, about a year-and-a-half before Rea was hired to manage the theater. It was the weekend that followed the tragedy in which four Kent State students were killed by national guard bullets at an antiwar demonstration on campus. Obviously, Rea was reminded of that story by the recent Occupy Wall Street/The 99% protests and the various reactions to them.

On top of the stories about the Biograph, Rea threw in some bogus, er, I say bonus yarns that touch on other places and events from the time period being covered. So, look for mentions of a few long-lost Fan District watering holes and so forth.

The stories in this collection are supposed to be true. Maybe so, but I hope the reader will have a good time reading them, even if they do come off as somewhat fanciful, at times.

Me?

Naturally, I still prefer the illustrations.