My Goodbye
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:34 pm
A writer once said that it was easy for any grown-up to revisit childhood at any time. They need only get on their hands and knees and crawl around for about a week. You must holler to be heard at all, everything is just out of reach, and every time you turn around you are faced with another giant telling you what and what not to do. This writer’s name was Roald Dahl.
An artist once drew a picture of an anthropomorphic wolf boy wearing a top hat with an enormous sack of jellybeans. This artist has been known by several names; David, Dana or simply “D.C.” (but to me the name shall always be “Rain”.)
Just as Dahl took this somewhat crude view of childhood and turned it into a legendary writing career, so did “Rain” Simpson transform what was a somewhat crude drawing into a comic that, while nowhere near the phenomenon that is “Peanuts” or “Calvin & Hobbes”, has forever established itself as part of internet history (if such a thing there be) and has placed the artist in the company of Dahl as someone who, as fantastical as their body of work may have been, managed to capture childhood as it truly is.
The world of “Ozy and Millie” is not the idyllic, nostalgic Never-Never-Land so often erroneously recalled by those who claim to have once been children (damned liars, every one of ‘em!) Rather it presents childhood as children themselves would see it. It is a time of confusion and contradiction, where your head is filled with stories of how good shall always conquer evil, yet you fall victim to the torments of sociopathic schoolyard bullies on a daily basis. It is a time of uncertainty and apprehension, where you never know if the kid who you thought was your friend is going to lead a chorus of jeers when you reveal to them that you still bathe with a rubber ducky. It is a time of disappointment and disillusionment when you learn that those you heretofore thought of as omniscient are not always available to provide answers, if indeed they are available at all (I always found it curious how all the children in “Ozy and Millie” seem to come from single-parent households. Ah well.)
This is not to say that Rain’s world is a grim, hopeless place. Just as it was in the reader’s case (and yes, I realize I’m assuming a lot), “Ozy and Millie” recalls those places and moments unique to childhood where one can find flashes of relief to make what is otherwise a tumultuous time bearable. Furthermore, by exaggerating them for the sake of comedy, Rain ironically makes them all the more accurate with our own memories. You might not have had the luxury of having an attorney for a mother willing to litigate against a school bully, but it was hard not to view your own mother as a champion of justice when she complained to the school. Perhaps circumstance did not dictate that you be adopted by a dragon, but I’ll bet the relatives you met for the first time at your family reunions seemed pretty alien and bizarre.
It was this refreshing, unique ability to view childhood through an eye that was at once both jaundiced and jovial that convinced so many, including myself, to join Simpson on a trek that has lasted over 10 years. Whether we were adult readers to whom Simpson said, “Yeah, I remember too” or young readers to whom Simpson said, “I feel for ya, kid!”
We take the news that “Ozy and Millie” shall soon be completing its run with much the same mix of feelings as we had when the time came to bid farewell to our own childhoods. There is, first of all, a sense of pride and accomplishment in knowing that we made it through what has been a long journey full of ups and downs. There is a sense of anticipation and wonder as we look to the future and wait to see what Rain shall no doubt think of next. But, alas, there is also a sense of loss and regret (I myself regret that “Ozy and Millie” was never made into an animated special or series as I would have loved to try out for the voice of Llewellyn, whom I always pictured as sounding somewhere between Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Winters) and perhaps even a desire to go back and relive the journey, hopefully with a chance to make little changes here and there (I would have liked to have seen more of my favorite character, Timulty, I don't care what Rain says, I think he's adorable!)
But just as the wiser among us knew to keep a small part of what they were as children inside them, so do we know that “Ozy and Millie” shall never truly be gone. As long as childhood continues to be a time of both fantasy and frustration, of both woe and wonderment, then somewhere, somehow, there shall always be two fox children at play.
I hope they brought plenty of jellybeans.
Gabriel C. Gentile
“Ozy and Millie” fan and bohemian-after-a-fashion
An artist once drew a picture of an anthropomorphic wolf boy wearing a top hat with an enormous sack of jellybeans. This artist has been known by several names; David, Dana or simply “D.C.” (but to me the name shall always be “Rain”.)
Just as Dahl took this somewhat crude view of childhood and turned it into a legendary writing career, so did “Rain” Simpson transform what was a somewhat crude drawing into a comic that, while nowhere near the phenomenon that is “Peanuts” or “Calvin & Hobbes”, has forever established itself as part of internet history (if such a thing there be) and has placed the artist in the company of Dahl as someone who, as fantastical as their body of work may have been, managed to capture childhood as it truly is.
The world of “Ozy and Millie” is not the idyllic, nostalgic Never-Never-Land so often erroneously recalled by those who claim to have once been children (damned liars, every one of ‘em!) Rather it presents childhood as children themselves would see it. It is a time of confusion and contradiction, where your head is filled with stories of how good shall always conquer evil, yet you fall victim to the torments of sociopathic schoolyard bullies on a daily basis. It is a time of uncertainty and apprehension, where you never know if the kid who you thought was your friend is going to lead a chorus of jeers when you reveal to them that you still bathe with a rubber ducky. It is a time of disappointment and disillusionment when you learn that those you heretofore thought of as omniscient are not always available to provide answers, if indeed they are available at all (I always found it curious how all the children in “Ozy and Millie” seem to come from single-parent households. Ah well.)
This is not to say that Rain’s world is a grim, hopeless place. Just as it was in the reader’s case (and yes, I realize I’m assuming a lot), “Ozy and Millie” recalls those places and moments unique to childhood where one can find flashes of relief to make what is otherwise a tumultuous time bearable. Furthermore, by exaggerating them for the sake of comedy, Rain ironically makes them all the more accurate with our own memories. You might not have had the luxury of having an attorney for a mother willing to litigate against a school bully, but it was hard not to view your own mother as a champion of justice when she complained to the school. Perhaps circumstance did not dictate that you be adopted by a dragon, but I’ll bet the relatives you met for the first time at your family reunions seemed pretty alien and bizarre.
It was this refreshing, unique ability to view childhood through an eye that was at once both jaundiced and jovial that convinced so many, including myself, to join Simpson on a trek that has lasted over 10 years. Whether we were adult readers to whom Simpson said, “Yeah, I remember too” or young readers to whom Simpson said, “I feel for ya, kid!”
We take the news that “Ozy and Millie” shall soon be completing its run with much the same mix of feelings as we had when the time came to bid farewell to our own childhoods. There is, first of all, a sense of pride and accomplishment in knowing that we made it through what has been a long journey full of ups and downs. There is a sense of anticipation and wonder as we look to the future and wait to see what Rain shall no doubt think of next. But, alas, there is also a sense of loss and regret (I myself regret that “Ozy and Millie” was never made into an animated special or series as I would have loved to try out for the voice of Llewellyn, whom I always pictured as sounding somewhere between Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Winters) and perhaps even a desire to go back and relive the journey, hopefully with a chance to make little changes here and there (I would have liked to have seen more of my favorite character, Timulty, I don't care what Rain says, I think he's adorable!)
But just as the wiser among us knew to keep a small part of what they were as children inside them, so do we know that “Ozy and Millie” shall never truly be gone. As long as childhood continues to be a time of both fantasy and frustration, of both woe and wonderment, then somewhere, somehow, there shall always be two fox children at play.
I hope they brought plenty of jellybeans.
Gabriel C. Gentile
“Ozy and Millie” fan and bohemian-after-a-fashion
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