Free Painless by Devon Hartford Page A

strip? By Cathy Guisewite?”
    Still not getting it, I shook my head.
    “Do you even know what a comic strip is?” he smiled.
    “Duh.” I wasn’t an idiot.
    “Didn’t you ever read the comics in the newspaper? I know it’s totally unhip for people our age to admit to such a thing, but you can tell me,” he winked, “I won’t out you on Facebook or Twitter or whatever.”
    Now that he mentioned it, my parents still got the newspaper. My dad couldn’t go to the office without first reading the comic strips at breakfast. He called them ‘the funnies.’ I used to look at them when I was a kid and try to copy the drawings, but I hadn’t done that in a long time. Then a hazy memory locked into place. “Oh! You mean Cathy, the comic strip!”
    He nodded, smiling. “Yeah. I mean, I know the series ended three and a half years ago, but I figured you may have seen it once or twice before all the newspapers started going out of business.”
    Who was this guy? He was bizarre. He was way too cute to be into something as last century as comic strips. “So, um, why are you calling me Cathy?”
    “I’ve seen you drawing cartoons during class. Do you ever take notes, or just doodle?”
    Guilty as charged. I blushed. “Is it that obvious?”
    “Probably not to the professor and the T.A.’s, so your secret is safe with me,” he winked. “You know, your work is pretty good. Have you ever considered submitting some of it to the school paper?”
    I’m pretty sure he was pulling my leg. “No, those guys are all Snooty McSnoots-a-lots.” The SDU school newspaper, The Sentinel, had a reputation for being a high-brow elitist newspaper for preppie journalism majors. And considering I’d been ejected from high school society back in D.C., I didn’t have any desire to go before a tribunal of hip socialites and have them tell me I wasn’t good enough to join their club.
    “The Analites at the Sentinel are totally snooty,” he smiled. “I was talking about The Wombat.”
    The Wombat was SDU’s comedy newspaper run by the Associated Students of SDU. It was full of funny spins on current events, humor about college life, party reviews of actual parties (on and off campus), and the ever famous Wombat comic strips. I’d read the comic strips before. They satirized the seedier social aspects of college: drinking, drugs and doing it with members of the opposite sex, same sex, or even different species. Some of them were hilarious and some of the art was amazing.
    I raised my eyebrows. “You think I should submit my cartoons to The Wombat?” I didn’t think my stuff was good enough.
    “Yeah. I’ll put in a good word for you with the editor.”
    “Who’s the editor?” I asked.
    “Me,” he smiled. “Justin Tomlinson.” He leaned down and offered his hand.
      I had to awkwardly turn in my seat to shake it. “Samantha Smith. Isn’t Tomlinson the name of one of the guys in One Direction?”
    He rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me. If I’d had a choice at birth, I would’ve had the stork deliver me to another house,” he smiled.
    He sure had a great smile. Now all he needed was four more cuties and a boy band anthem and the girls would come out of the woodwork like termites. If they weren’t already. For all I knew, Justin had a limo filled with fan girls waiting outside.  
    “Anyway,” he said, “nice to meet you, Samantha. Email me some of your samples and I’ll show them to my peeps at the paper.”
    “I’ve never written a comic strip. I mean, I just doodle in my sketchbook.”
    “Do you have your sketchbook on you now? I’ve seen you drawing in it before.”
    Ah, creepy stalker much? Or, had I been drawing in my sketchbook in History so often that it had become obvious to anyone who sat near me? That seemed unlikely. I religiously took notes in History class as if it was the most interesting topic ever invented. Not. “Yeah, I have it in my book bag.”
    “Can I see it?”
    I had never shown my