The Oddness of Dodd

Sunday Sermon Day. 

 

A friend of mine on the internet was talking about the Win Mortimer's David Crane, whoch was written by Ed Dodd, who also wrote and drew the ecological Mark Trail. Apparently Dodd's father was a clergyman and although he did not follow in his father's footsteps, he did create this Christian message strip as a tribute to his dad. In Mark Trail, he used the Sundays to illustrate facts about nature. In David Crane, he often used the Sundays for sermons, making for a weird, but truely unique run. After Mortimer left, the strip was taken over by Craig Flessel, which is how and why I ran into it. I am a huge fan of Flessel's style and it is nowhere better than in his David Crane. I showed many of them early on in this blog, which you can find if you follow the link and the strips were funnier. The sermons were gone by then, so maybe Dodd had also left it. In all honesty, looking at the latest Mortimer Sundays, you can see that change was set in before Flessel took over. And the dailies were just as soapy as before, so that gives us no clue either. I also amassed quite a few of Mortimer's version, but did not really care for it. I scanned a few and when I started selling my newspaper sections on Ebay I scanned some more. The recent internet conversation was a good excuse to clean them up and show them here. If not for the exciting art (because it isn't) or the Christian message (not my thing) than certainly for the oddness or unique use of the medium.