"As it happened, I had a friend who was a good person who liked to present himself as a dreadful one. Using him as a role model, I created the first Buck Godot strip"
About this Quote
Foglio is letting you in on a cartoonist's favorite trick: the gap between who someone is and who they perform. The “good person” who “liked to present himself as a dreadful one” isn’t just a character sketch; it’s a generator for comedy. Buck Godot is born from that tension, where the audience can sense the decency under the menace and enjoy the friction. It’s the same engine that powers so many beloved rogues: swagger as armor, cynicism as stagecraft, villainy as a flirtation rather than a commitment.
The intent feels almost affectionate, even protective. Foglio isn’t confessing that he modeled a hero on a monster; he’s describing a friend who chose theatrical dreadfulness as a social pose. That choice implies context: a subculture (comics, SF fandom, nerd-adjacent scenes) where performative hardness can be a way to claim cool, fend off earnestness, or signal you’re in on the joke. “As it happened” plays casual, but it also suggests the messy reality behind artmaking: characters aren’t always engineered, they’re scavenged from the people around you.
There’s craft subtext, too. A “dreadful” persona gives a strip instant voltage: conflict, surprise, a voice that can say the unsayable. Underneath, anchoring it in a “good person” keeps the darkness from curdling into cruelty. Foglio is arguing, quietly, that the most durable comics characters aren’t pure types - they’re masks worn by humans, and the mask is where the punchlines live.
The intent feels almost affectionate, even protective. Foglio isn’t confessing that he modeled a hero on a monster; he’s describing a friend who chose theatrical dreadfulness as a social pose. That choice implies context: a subculture (comics, SF fandom, nerd-adjacent scenes) where performative hardness can be a way to claim cool, fend off earnestness, or signal you’re in on the joke. “As it happened” plays casual, but it also suggests the messy reality behind artmaking: characters aren’t always engineered, they’re scavenged from the people around you.
There’s craft subtext, too. A “dreadful” persona gives a strip instant voltage: conflict, surprise, a voice that can say the unsayable. Underneath, anchoring it in a “good person” keeps the darkness from curdling into cruelty. Foglio is arguing, quietly, that the most durable comics characters aren’t pure types - they’re masks worn by humans, and the mask is where the punchlines live.
Quote Details
| Topic | Funny Friendship |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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