Open Season

I've been having a minor medical problem lately: Every time I play Ultimate lately - for about the past month - my right foot is really sore the next day. Two weeks ago I could barely walk on it when I got up, though it always gets better with some weight put on it. Last week was better, but still painful.

It's not crippling, and the pain always goes away after a day or two, but I'm not sure what it is or what to do about it. It also doesn't crop up when I'm doing anything but running - for instance, using the low-impact elliptical crosstrainer at the gym doesn't hurt. My various friends (none of whom, I should note, are doctors) have ideas: A torn muscle or tendon, a fractured bone, or maybe plantar fascia.

We only have one more week of Ultimate, and then the final tournament, so I guess it will all go away sometime soon. But I do want to make an appointment for a physical exam and maybe get a referral to a podiatrist to see if this is going to be a long-term thing.

Open Season was a fun little comic book series by a cartoonist named Jim Bricker. It ran for 7 issues, the first 6 from Renegade Press (Dec 1986 - April 1988), and the last from Strawberry Jam Comics (July 1989), both companies long defunct, as far as I know.

Open Season is rare - if not unique - among modern (post-1970) comic books: A funny yet insightful book about normal people designed and carried out in comic book (not comic strip) form. Though its sense of humor would fit right in on the daily newspaper comics page, the looser format and longer page count allowed Bricker to build his jokes (and his points) at a more leisurely pace, and the payoffs were correspondingly higher.

The comic is about a trio of roommates: Joe Daley, a shy but friendly and optimistic advertising designer; Cliff Mason, the big-jawed hotel manager for whom life is one big frat party; and Robin Kress, the (ahem) touchy reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Forced by San Francisco's high housing prices (remember, this was in the mid-80s!) to live together, the trio fights their way through life - and with each other. The series features Robin's perfect boyfriend, Cliff's many conquests, Joe's emergence from his shell as he meets the girl of his dreams, and an encounter with the heavy metal rock band Shadöwaxe.

Bricker - in his early 20s at the time - has an excellent sense of storytelling and comedic timing, but also packs the story with true heart, and heart-breaking stories of his protagonists (well, except maybe for Cliff). His cartooning style is a little rough at times, but overall flows and augments his stories very well.

Sadly, the series ended after only 7 issues, I think a victim of the vaguaries of the independent comics market, which is always undergoing upheaval. Reportedly, Bricker write a stage play based on the concept (although not with the same characters), but I don't know whether it was produced or how it did. By now, I guess Bricker would be in his late 30s, but I have no idea whether he's done any comics work since Open Season, or what's he's up to today. A Google search turned up nothing recent about him.

Reading the series is especially entertaining for me today (as opposed to 12 years ago, when I first encountered it), as it takes place in the Bay Area (San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco) and I actually recognize the scenery now. Not that there's a lot of it, but it makes some of the details more meaningful. It's neat that a series I've read dozens of times before can actually take on a little new meaning all these years later.