Frazz by Jef Mallett follows the adventures of an unexpected role model: an elementary-school janitor who's also a Renaissance man. While he's sweeping the hall, he's whistling Beethoven. Or Lyle Lovett. He paints the woodwork in the classrooms; he paints a Da Vinci on the cafeteria wall. He's a trusted authority figure who is every kid's buddy. He took the janitor's job while he was a struggling songwriter, and when he finally sold a hit song, he decided to stay on at school. Frazz appears in 200 newspapers worldwide, including the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Chicago Tribune and Detroit News. "A few years back, I wrote and illustrated a children's book," says Mallett. "When I was traveling around reading it at school assemblies, I noticed that often, the most respected, best-liked grown-up in the building was the janitor. And I thought, 'Hmm, there's a comic strip in that.'" Often praised for its intelligent wit, gentle spirit and effortless diversity, Frazz won a Wilbur Award from the Religion Communicators Council in 2003 and 2005 for excellence in communicating values and ethics.
© Jef Mallett - All Rights Reserved.
Frank & Ernest by Thaves
Fred Basset by Alex Graham
Comments (18) (Please sign in to comment)
masterskrain said, 5 months ago
“Slip Slidin’ Away…”
Nabuquduriuzhur said, 5 months ago
We used to buy surgical tubing from the local department store, tie a knot in one end, put the plastic housing that goes over a ballpoint pen at the other end, then use the yard tap to fill it up. This was before things like the monster squirt guns came along.
Richard S. Russell said, 5 months ago
@Nabuquduriuzhur
At MIT, we’d use bunsen-burner gas hoses with one end bent over and wired off. Much sturdier rubber, reinforced with fabric. When you filled them up, they looked like Thuringer sausages and could shoot a .45 caliber jet up to 10 metres. Huge capacity, too. They were the semi-automatic weapons of water-balloon fights. (Yes, MIT. Same guys are probably making stealth bombers these days.)
Ewal Doh said, 5 months ago
They make it in my town. One little twitch in the production and there might be a hundred meters in the dumper with no visible flaw in most of it.
Half an old football and the goalpost at the practice field … Think sling shot.
Maxi_Haha said, 5 months ago
Kudos to Mallett for today’s artwork. It goes above and beyond your typical daily strip. I really appreciate the effort.
Nabuquduriuzhur said, 5 months ago
Re: Richard Russell
sounds cool. OIT, here. We didn’t build stealth bombers, but before infrastructure was abandoned (the agency I worked for cut 8,000 engineers in the mid 1990s), I worked for the Corps of Engineers, what used to be the North Pacific Division. Projects like the American River Dam System and oddly enough, a dam in Colombia (Miel I Dam Hidroelectric). They shipped their rock, sand, gravel, etc. to us and we did concrete mixes, beams, etc. from it. One time Fort Huachuca did the same, including a very large black widow on the underside of the lid of one of the drums of 3/4-1/4. Every year we’d break one of Bonneville’s test cylinders and even after about 60 years (at that time) the concrete was still gaining strength. No worries about a 9 from a Cascadia quake knocking out that dam. Others like Lake Chelan Dam or John Day, not nearly so sturdy.
Joylion said, 5 months ago
The winter version of a slip N slide, only a lot more painful i suppose!!
tagteam said, 5 months ago
I just love it when engineers reminisce!
Marko56 said, 5 months ago
We did the surgical tube/squirt hose thing where we’d hide the water-filled tubing in the sleeves of our jackets or long-sleeved shirts. Had a chemistry teacher who confiscated all of the rest of the class’s squrt guns on Sadie Hawkins day, then he thought he’d be cute and turned one of them on a few of the dis-armed students in the front row. We drenched him from the back of the room. Not a bad argument against gun control, actually. And he was a liberal, too. Lol.
UsernameUsername1234 said, 5 months ago
@Nabuquduriuzhur
OIT? Cool! That’s my alma mater! (Software engineering, although I started in Civil.)
Tacopielvr said, 5 months ago
@Maxi_Haha
Sarcasm?
Mark Jackson
said, 5 months ago
We used surgical tubing in the old Caltech waterfights also. Downside was that the tube would fail after an unpredictable number of use-and-refill cycles, instantly shrinking back to its original dimensions and often imparting a nasty “whack” to the user.
Comic Minister said, 5 months ago
Impressive!
A.Ficionada said, 5 months ago
These boys, it’s not slip ‘n slide, it’s slip and collide.
Also, check out Tank McNamara today for more wintery goodness. Tank gets on a snowboard for the first time.
Wabbit
said, 5 months ago
this looks fun but would take more pre-planning.