Louie and Bruce 001-2022-1020, posted Oct. 20, 2022
I was 9 when I fell in love with drawing cartoons. I copied my favorite TV, newspaper, and comic book characters as best I could. At 13, I drew my own “toons,” putting on silly plays between the characters I created. No other form of storytelling allowed me as much fun and freedom within the realm of a made-up world.
I began drawing the comic strip Louie and Bruce in 1981 after I got a job at my neighborhood sawmill. The characters I created for the strip were loosely based on people I knew. None worked at the mill. I put Louie, my main character, in the role of mishaps and misfortune. Bruce was the artist—a dreamer in a baseball cap, peering out at the world from behind dark bangs of hair. Their supervisor, Frank, wore a cap modeled after a naval officer’s hat. He was business all the way and had a strong will to get things done right. He thrived on order, which made him a great foil for Louie’s mishaps.
Other characters in the cast included Louie’s brother Leroy; their Uncle John, owner of the mill and head boss; Bull, the mill’s chief logger; his daughter Gloria, the mill’s finance secretary and Bruce’s girlfriend; Barfield, the mill’s stray cat; and Ernie, Leroy’s talking dog.
The strip lasted longer than my time at the mill, and I amassed an enormous collection of sawmill antics to look back on and laugh at. Fun memories are great to have, even ones of working in a dangerous place of sharp saws, flying wood, and slip hazards. I took liberties with those dangers and made people laugh. And that’s what Louie and Bruce was all about.
Below is a large spread of the first Louie and Bruce comic strip. The guy wearing the black shirt is Joe. The guy with him is Tom. Both were very minor characters.
Next is a smaller strip of Frank dealing with winter. The strip came almost eight years after the first one.
Being Funny Again, posted Nov. 15, 2022
I began drawing comic strips when I was a teen. My favorite movies and television shows were comedies, my favorite books were joke books and MAD, and The Dr. Demento Show was my favorite radio program. All that zaniness made its way into my strips.
I posted earlier about my comic strip, Louie and Bruce. The characters in it worked at a sawmill where all sorts of mishaps happened. The three characters in the featured strip above are (by order of appearance): Leroy, a worker at the mill; his talking dog Ernie; and Leroy’s brother Louie, a supervisor at the mill at the time I wrote, drew, and published the strip in 1989. It was one of the last Louie and Bruce strips I made before I ended the series.
Winter’s Coming, posted Dec. 11, 2022
Winter is a favorite time of year for me. It appears a lot in my stories and art. Here are two winter Louie and Bruce comic strips from 1982:
And one from 1989, published in my local newspaper:
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.
Steve, 5/19/2023
This post “A Look Back at Louie and Bruce” copyright © 2023 Steven Leo Campbell at stevecampbellcreations.com – All rights reserved.
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