Looks Good on Paper by Dan Collins for June 27, 2020

Genius!!

I can think of a couple more…

i’ve always been a dead hedd…

Wasn’t there a Richard in that family?

Underground comic artist Rand Holmes got there 50 years ago with Harold Hedd.

And here’s Harold – https://comixjoint.com/haroldhedd1-1st.html

Heddy stuff today, Dan! I’m surprised there are no Richards on this tree, though.

What about the one who works at the sewage treatment plant?

Dead Hedd is under the tree.

Sometimes Dan Collins’ artwork reminds me of R. Crumb’s stuff.

He forgot cousin Red Hedd!

…..

MELON HEDDS!

All the characters in circles. All the meandering dashed lines. It’s like an exploded Family Circus Multiverse.

I’ve heard the child characters in the Family Circus feature called “the melon heads” and have usually assumed this is in reference to the compressed oval shape of their heads.

But I’ve also found that it can add a completely new dimension to the experience of reading Family Circus if one thinks of them as the Melon Head forest and cave dwelling cryptids of American folklore. (Well, regional folklore, mostly of Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, Connecticut, a few other spots.)

From Wikipedia: “Melon Heads are beings generally described as small humanoids with bulbous heads who occasionally emerge from hiding places to attack people. Different variations of the legend attribute different origins to the entities.”

If I were a talented cartoonist I’d be drawing a family of Melon Heads living middle class American lives. But still with a sinister edge. Like The Addams Family.

This way of analyzing something by imagining that it is something else I’ve mostly just found amusing. Some people use it as a thought experiment to clarify their thinking on the original thing.

I got it from an experimental SF short story by J. G. Ballard.

Meat Hedd

The National Lampoon did one of these in the 1970s, if I recall; it included Meat Head and Pin Head, plus, since it didn’t have to deal with comic-syndicate censors, Give Head and Sh!t Head.

Bed Hedd

Give Hedd….What? She’s just a generous soul, that’s all!

Let’s hear some more, go right a Hedd!

Punkin’ Hedd.