Dusty Chaps #1

Did you know...? Art Sansom and Chip Sansom are best known for The Born Loser, but they've done more than just The Born Loser. Art was a staff cartoonist for Newspaper Enterprises Association before getting on Russ Winterbotham's Chris Welkin, Planeteer in 1951. You can read the first month here. When Chris Welkin ended in 1964, Sansom moved onto The Born Loser and the rest is history. Chip began apprenticing with his father on Brutus' antics in 1977 and took over the strip in 1991 after Art passed away.

But they worked together on one other comic strip. Dusty Chaps. The short-lived comic debuted in 1982 and featured a group of characters against the backdrop of a dude ranch. Chip was the illustrator on Dusty Chaps while Art provided the gags.

The strip, however, would be short-lived. It ended the following year. I haven't gotten to the end yet, but I'm assuming everybody went back to their home planet. Their home dude ranch planet. Anyway, here are the first two months or so of Dusty Chaps.

Dog's Day

May 6, 1966

Wouldn't she then be a princess if she marries the frog? Maybe he's a frog prince and not a prince who was turned into a frog. Perhaps true love's kiss won't turn this frog back into a human.

I can't imagine any royal family being fine with an interspecies relationship so it probably wouldn't work out anyway.

My dogs absolutely love/hate the trash men. They get a clear view of them as they go through the alley and I can't ever tell if they are upset that they can see the trash men or upset that the trash men are stealing our trash.

Din-Din

When I first started this website, I used to just link to the strip I'm talking about. About two months later, I decided to post the strip in the post and that's what I've done for the last 17 years. Unfortunately, I used to just copy the image from GoComics into the post so you could click the picture and go to the strip. I figured it was a good compromise, but then GoComics updated and essentially broke all the links, deleting the strips.

I briefly used Photobucket but then the dark hand of copyright struck and removed my account. All told, many posts between 2008 and 2012 are unreadable because of no strips. Starting in 2013, I just started hosting the comics myself. I have gone back and updated some posts to either reinstate the links or replace the strips. But, with the new update to GoComics, the archive has been paywalled. So, now the links are all worthless unless you have a paid account and I can't go through and update posts with strip images that were removed unless I have a paid account. All this leads me to, if you would like me to have a paid GoComics account, you can throw me a few bucks if you want/can.

May 5, 1966

Oh, we missed Brutus' 59th anniversary with the company. I'm just assuming this is Veeblefester Tea Cozies, Inc. and Brutus is trapped in a Hell/Limbo of his own making by applying and/or accepting a job with this company. If they didn't fire him after that giant drop, then they never will.

Hmm. That chart looks like something I've seen recently.

This all could've been stopped and everyone warned us.

Great. Now all the children in the morning during breakfast are cracking open their newspapers to read their favorite comic strips and now having to look up or infer what "din" means. That's a terrible way to start the day.

Hair-Brained

May 4, 1966

I don't think there's ever been a time where people wanted to hear criticism of how they do things. Especially when you are the one in charge. I don't know why people they would know better than Birdie Tebbets, whose life was baseball for 30 years. Yes, George "Birdie" Tebbets was a real person! He was a catcher who was very good at directing the pitchers. Tebbets played from 1936 until 1952 and then managed from 1954 until 1966. I don't know, maybe what this guy said sunk it considering Tebbets would retire from the Cleveland Indians after the 1966 season. He would continue being a scout for various teams until his retirement in 1997. Birdie Tebbets would pass away in 1999 at 86.

I guess we're just ignoring all of Kewpie's fur that is on his head and focusing on the two longer hairs that I always figured were oddly placed eyelashes/eyebrows.

Why are they just staring at Kewpie?

And Klusterman Was Veeblefester's Oldest Friend

May 3, 1966

How did Quincy get in there? Did a coworker help? "Hey, Mike, help me into the file cabinet." "What?" "I want to surprise Natalie!" "You could just get her flowers or write her a nice note..."

What happened to the files in that drawer? Is Natalie now going to get in trouble for messing up or even losing those files?

No! Not the Klusterman account! Now Veeblefester will have to buy smaller bags to put his desk money in.

Monday Quickies

May 2, 1966

Oh, and Thornapple looks so confident and ready to prove himself in that third panel. His rumpled suit looks how I feel.

March has sucked. February sucked. 2025 has sucked. I can't wait until this suck year is over. That is, if we don't die.

Prodigious Blast?

December 21, 1986

I've never had to give a speech before. I know me, and I know I wouldn't like it. The closest I've come is I had to give a little speech to run for sheriff of this fake city my class took a field trip to in middle school. I was not elected sheriff, but instead was hired as a meter reader. My speech trying to garner votes of my fellow classmates clearly did not resonate.

I spent hours on my speech and read it. I didn't leave it up to ad-libbing because all that gets me is a panic attack.

The Weasels are so bad, the coach doesn't even bring a second ball to practice. Also, the coach just lost $8 because of Wilberforce.

Maybe the ball rolled into a alternate realm of fantastical creatures?

All aboard the Candy Line Express! If you would like to support me or this website, you can throw some money my way.