A month ago Gene Weingarten, co-producer, co-creator, and co-writer of the Barney & Clyde comic strip, invited participants of his Invitational Week at his Substack to contribute scripts for the comic strip:
“Barney & Clyde” is a 14-year-old comic strip written by Gene and Horace LaBadie and illustrated by David Clark. It involves a relationship between a homeless man, Clyde Finster, and a pharmaceuticals billionaire, J. Barnard Pillsbury, but there are several subplots, among them one involving the deepest sort of love. Cynthia Pillsbury, a cynical 11-year-old, loves her grandpa, Ebenezer Pillsbury, who is a cynical man entering the early stages of dementia.
For Invitational Week 77: Write a four-panel script for a “Barney & Clyde” strip that addresses dementia in some amusing way, based on Ebenezer’s failing — but still active and iconoclastic — brain; he’s funny, and amazingly accepting of his situation. The strip must include Ebenezer and Cynthia, but may include other characters. You just supply a script — words only. (For formatting guidance, see a sample script on the entry form.)
Some winners are showing up this week.
Marc Leibert, who got credited in the gutter, wrote the Monday (July 22, 2024) strip:
And Mark Raffman, also credited in the gutter, wrote the script for today’s (July 24, 2024) comic:
We guess that the other runners-up, Leif Picoult and Duncan Stevens, will show up soon.
The results were announced and shown as illustrated by Dave Clark at The Invitational Week 79.
They all seem to be veterans of The Invitational Week and its predecessor The WaPo’s Style Invitational.
A great comic all the time, but these are special.
The older comic strips were so great & weren’t mean hearted!