Ah, incoming freshmen. There’s one born every minute.
440. This is the first cartoon of my last year at Notre Dame. It ran in the paper with the first appearance of Simon by Jeb Cashin ’83. Jeb was the victor in a campus-wide search for a replacement strip in anticipation of my last year. While I could develop in obscurity, Jeb was thrown into boiling waters right away. Once again people presumed there was an acrimonious rivalry between us, but there was not.
441. The top story in The Observer noted that the administration issued new regulations on student-built dorm lofts because of the tragedy of the collapse of suspended walkways at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency. It also reported the end of SAGA Food Service’s contract and Notre Dame’s decision to manage food service itself, as well as President Ronald Reagan’s letter thanking Father Hesburgh for the George Gipp award.
442. This cartoon amused one of my architecture professors, Kenneth Featherstone. It was the only time in five years that any architecture professor acknowledged my strip.
443. The Observer continued to run a weekly editorial cartoon by yours truly. If Garry Trudeau and Al Capp had the most influence on my strip cartoons; Pat Oliphant had it on my political cartooning. After graduation I never sold the strip, but I did political cartoons for various publications and won numerous awards for that effort. Then I kept getting fired for my views.
444. These days you could use the punchline, “You’re five-foot-nothing. . . .”
See the first five classic strips. Buy the book with all 581 original cartoons: MOLARITY: The Compleat Molarity is available at the Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore and Amazon.com. Check back monthly for more classic Molarity strips. Molarity Redux, the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends, also is posted monthly. For those new strips, check out the cartoon archives.