Joe Intro

Lately I've been compiling a book of the complete Fetus Joe cartoons, including the contest cartoons and a couple of cartoons Sam drew after the boy was born. It also includes an introduction to the book by myself. Here it is, for your amusement.

Fetus Joe Intro

I’ll never forget the day in 2005 when my friend Sam, then recently married to his wife Terry and living off in Massachusetts, called me and told me that Terry was pregnant. My reaction can best be described as a conflict between joy and fear, coupled with mild catatonia. The catatonia, of course, is an all too common reaction to big news—faced with a gargantuan change in their reality, people often need to take a few moments to stammer, drop their jaws, and maybe shriek like a monkey. I have little doubt Sam, himself, reacted in much the same way when he got the news from Terry.

As for the conflict I experienced of fear and joy, what can I say? Of course, I was proud and overjoyed for my friend that he was going to be a father, not to mention wholly grateful to him for playing his part in ensuring the survival of my species. But that word, Parenthood, gnawed at me at night when I was trying to sleep. Just that one word was enough to tighten my breath and send my heart into arrhythmia. Parenthood meant the end of the Sam I once knew. Soon he’d be moving to the suburbs and driving a minivan, taking the kid to soccer practice and weekending at amusement parks populated with colorful cartoon characters. The day would come soon when I’d tell him about some new beer I’d found, and Sam would hike up his over-sized sweatpants and say “That sounds too wacky for my tastes…I’m more of a Bud man, myself.”

Then one day, I received an e-mail from Sam with the subject line “Fetus Joe vs. the Wolverine.” Inside was a cartoon of a wolverine, it’s leg torn and bloody on the ground, its face frozen in the ghastly horror of a bully just beaten down by the class nerd. And above it, a fetus gloating its victory to the world. I was so relieved. What a fool I had been even to worry. Of course! Parenthood wouldn’t destroy Sam…it would just be an opportunity for him to bestow his wackiness onto his offspring.

We can only speculate as to what forces inspired Sam to spend the next nine months pitting his unborn child against wild beasts of all shapes and sizes. A sociologist or a cultural anthropologist would likely tell us that the cartoons came out of a desire to quell his own fears for his child, to symbolically imbue the boy with health and strength, much as cavemen painted images of animals on their cave walls to ensure a successful hunt. But they would be full of shit. Warm, smooth shit. In truth, I suspect they came mostly out of boredom and the occasional need to comment on the events of the pregnancy (such as when Fetus Joe attacked Terry’s sciatic nerve) or the everyday trials of living in Boston (such as the amazing exploding turkey, a common nuisance on the Massachusetts turnpike). Whatever the impetus, all can agree that they were funny as shit. And they proved to me, once and for all, that I never need fear the loss of Sam’s wackiness. For it is a font that springs eternal. In his pants.