Speaking about Zippy
 |
Email your comments: griffy@zippythepinhead.com (snail mail: Pinhead Productions / PO Box 88 / Hadlyme CT 06439) This "reader feedback" page is a place where visitors can see what Zippy's many fans (and detractors) are saying about their favorite pinhead. Send all emotional outpourings to the e-address above. Most letters will be answered. Some will be posted here. LAST UPDATED: 2/22/13 (most recent mail at bottom of page)
|
6/21/12
(In response to a request to license Zippy for some unspecified purpose)
Okay, so, it's a planner that helps people create their own celebration of life (for after they die) and make other advance arrangements (like a living will, etc.) I call it Sooner or Later.
Comics artist Jason Reeves has drawn a cover that shows a girl driving a pedicab -- but the cab is a winged chariot, and the driver is a cute, sexy, flirtatious young female who happens to be a psychopomp (one who escorts souls to the afterlife; a death character). I want the rider, who is throwing flowers from the cab, to be Zippy.
Are you Bill Griffith himself? Even if you don't give me permission to use Zippy in this manner, I'll never wash my keyboard again.
Martha
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
7/20/12
In my opinion, you're one of the best comic strips out there. I like Monty, Non Sequitur, and Lio too, but following Zippy's daily antics reminds me of all the great underground stuff from the early 70's. I loved National Lampoon magazine during the early 70's, and Mad magazine from the 60's, however nobody has that kind of counter-cultural sensibility anymore. Except maybe you.
- Harry
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
8/2/12
No Question. Comment. Today's strip on PBS was BRILLIANT! TRUE! Has anyone ever before dared to point out the naked emperors of boring music and bland pep-talkers who are taking up way too much time on PBS? You are hilarious--somewhat weird, but hilarious, nonetheless. Sandy S.
-Sandy Sergio
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
8/18/12
Mr. Griffith -
This is a simple note of appreciation for providing my daily sanity-check in the form of the Zipster.
I'm a 7 day subscriber to The Courant, and your strip helps fire up the ol' dendrites each day.
Gratefully,
Jack Hearn
Northford, CT
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
8/28/12
Dear Sir, You had better think about lowering God to the status of a comic book character.We all will be answering an account.
-Walt Zuk
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
9/10/12
I thought you might be amused to learn that we just returned from a quick visit to Los Angeles, via Amtrak (I hate flying). I chose to wear my beautiful "God is everywhere, so why not hop on board and DRINK TH' VALVOLINE!" T-shirt on the trip down. In the dining car you're obliged to sit communally to fill each table, and at both breakfast and lunch I noted three different people looking closely at my chest (one person even moved their lips as they read the speech balloon!). Every time, the conversation at the table simply ended for a while at this point; at lunch, an older husband & wife even exchanged dark glances after reading it, as if they were suddenly aware they were sitting down to eat with one of Satan's Minions. (What price status, eh?) Finally at dinner, a big guy with his 93 year old mom joined me, stared at the shirt, and broke into a big grin: "That is the weirdest T-shirt I've ever seen!" he told me, and wanted to know its provenance. When I explained it to him, he was even more thrilled. "Zippy the Pinhead? Holy cow, he's still around?! Incredible!" His mother was totally mystified, though. She finally leaned over to me and said in a loud conspiratorial whisper, "You'll have to pardon my son. He's not a well person."
Defendin' you honor near and far,
--JB Reynolds
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
10/5/12
Hello Mr. Griffith,
I'd just like to thank you for all the laughs I've gotten from reading your creations over the past thirty-two years. I recently bought a copy of "Lost and Found" and am working my way through it. I also decided to take a break at work every day and read Zippy, because I was taking it for granted, but realized I shouldn't. Doing so has vastly improved my mental health and well-being. Who needs Yoga?
Dan B.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
11/12/12
Love it when Zippy gets back to nature-- I love the way you draw it.
My all-time favorite of your strips is The Road Less Taken with Zippy on the bagpipes. When it came out (when the Chronicle still carried Zippy), I got hold of as many newspapers as I could to clip it. I still occasionally come across it as bookmarks or tucked away in folders.
You are a great cartoonist-- I would tell anyone, the best living. And thankfully-- one of the funniest too.
Best wishes as always!
-Robert B. Livingston
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
11/19/12
Hi Bill,
Just want to say "thank you" for delivering the dynamite every single day. I'm of the generation that appreciates the Bushmiller jokes and the Topo Gigio references. As a creative person myself (toy inventor) I know how hard it is to constantly be creative. And sometimes it seems that not enough people appreciate the effort that goes into it. So I'm here to blow the sunshine up you and declare you as a national treasure. Many things in life let me down but you never do. Zippy is the "Nancy" of my adulthood.
Sincerely,
Steve Casino
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
11/22/12
HI GRIFFY
I think that Jaypeg Westinghouse needs to make a field trip to Bhutan, a nation that measures "Gross National Happiness" this could be an important learning experience for him and/or Zippy, Mr The Toad or whoever else goes (yeah right)
We've already learned that "zombies rule Belgium" who knows what else we might learn from the only nation in the world to ban smoking?
At any rate, keep up the good work!
ZIPPY ROCKS! YOW!!
-Roy Henock
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
12/4/12
Re: today's strip ---
Wow. Just. Wow. This is the most concise history of the Cold War I've ever seen. I even get it. What's more, my dad had a '57 Fury in that very color, complete with the clear, embossed seat covers. This could be that car.
I want to live in Dingburg! Does this Plymouth turn left only?
Thank you, Griffy.
-Jim
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
12/5/12
I never get tired of your Dingburg strips. I hope you keep doing them, maybe because context is everything when it comes to Zippy himself. And the trips back to your youth are great, too, maybe because I'm about the same age as you.
-Peter
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
12/6/12
Although my wife has an irrational dislike for all things Z (Frank Zappa, zucchini, Zippy) she loved the strip revealing the inner workings of the Dingburg City Council. She has been a member of the Falls Church, Va. city council for a couple of years, and says the strip was pretty much spot on.
Keep on! Can't live without ya.
-Dave Rockewell
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
1/4/13
Griffy-
I picked up the gag about Valvoline from your strip and have a lot of fun with it.
I like to cook some stuff, usually a very good Greek dessert, that I bring to potluck parties and dinners.
People like it and always ask what’s in this? I tell them that the recipe was given me by an old Greek housewife who made me promise never to divulge it to anyone. But I tell them that I worry that I put too much (or too little) Valvoline in it.
What a hoot! A lot of people don’t know what Valvoline is.
Gerard Field
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
1/24/13
Hi Bill:
Big fan...I have contacted you from time-to-time in the past.
Knowing our shared viewpoint about "dirtballs," especially if they have a mullett, I want to share a website with you. This website might suprise you as much as it did me. The guy who runs the site looks like a total dirtball, but is actually quite literate, and he features weird roadside attractions, mostly in Massachusetts, along with interesting stories about them. I know that the latter have been featured in Zippy for years. Here is the link:
http://www.boudillion.com/road/roadside.htm
By the way, I love Tanya & Fletcher!
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
1/28/13
Griffy-
Thanks for the above captioned strip. I agree with the concept of the beauty of the "blanket."
As a child, my relatives in the South taught me that liberalism was a mental disorder that was very ugly, I asked them, "Where do the liberals live?" The answer that I usually got was, "Where it snows a lot." They explained that the heavy blanket of beautiful snow was God's way of covering up the ugliness of liberalism.(Minnesota,the North East, seasonal affective disorder, etc.) They were right about the horrors of liberalism, but I still love the snow and think of it like you did as a child to this day.
Best wishes,
David Dimick
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
2/2/13
Just a note to say, Zippy is still one of the few comics I read as often as I can. It is a koan in a photo-op world, a wormhole in a bricked-up window, a beauty mark on the face of a giant squid.
Unnecessary and puzzling, needful and wise, askew and righteous; if you didn't know you wouldn't need to believe.
Please continue, sir.
And the art is good, too. Zerbina has seldom looked zerbier than she did in the strip I just read.
Joyce Melton
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
2/3/13
I was particularly touched by the February First "daily dose", El And Gone. I grew up in The Bronx in the late 50s - early 60s and remember riding on the Els of my borough, including the rattan seats you mention. I couldn't wait to get tall enough to reach the leather straps or even the plastic ones on the newer cars, but alas we moved upstate before I grew, and those straps and individual hand holds were all replaced by a boring old bar by the time I rode the IRT, BMT, or IND lines again.
Thanks again for the non sequiturs, and for all the memories.
Larry Pryluck
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
2/20/13
Dear Bill,
I’ve truly enjoyed your recent trips down Memory Lane in the Zippy strip, Kansas City Star. Your childhood in Frankfurt, Blizzard of ‘47, Myrtle Avenue El, and Pratt in 1962, parallel my own memories. (Can you still get those snap-buckle black rubber boots ‘galoshes’ – they were so easy to put on and off). You liked the Boston Baked Beans in the Automat, I always went for the Chicken Pot Pie when my mother took me to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas and Easter shows, stopping first at the nearby Automat.
I’m a native New Yorker, born 1937 in Manhattan, formative years 1941-1961 in Parkchester, the Bronx. Pratt Institute, Industrial Design, 1955-1959. U.S.Army, 1961-1964 (I volunteered), stationed in Frankfurt, Germany two years, covert Intelligence Corps (I may have been in the same outfit as your Dad).
My Parkchester and your Levittown are still there, still viable communities, urban and suburban, with many shared characteristics.
Along my journey I was a Wall Street ‘runner’ during high school summers, and a Brooklyn Kosher slaughterhouse worker during college summers (it paid really well!). I was an avid reader of the Katzenjammer Kids, Nancy and Sluggo, Superman and Action Comics, and Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, and I’d like to compliment and thank you for keeping alive the highest standards of illustrative draftsmanship.
I’ve still got all my B.C. (Before Computer) Pratt tools, drawing board with Luxo lamp, Rapidograph pens, drafting instruments, pastels, #11 X-Acto knife, rubber cement - I still do my design work by hand, it works for me.
As always, I look forward each day to the continuing adventures of Zippy and company, to your own memories, and to your superb drawing.
Regards,
Bob Eberele
Kansas City
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
