A lot of people wonder where I made my first dollar in cartooning.  The one that really stands out in my mind was when I was 12 years old and drew a cartoon for the American Square Dance magazine.  Back then we had so many kids dancing and we'd compete in the annual Farm Shows and had a blast.  Stan and Cathie Burdick were the callers and editors of the magazine then, and my little black and white spot illustration made me my first $5 check.  I copied it, and still have it today.

Throughout high school and college I made my way from the black and white drawings from the inside of the magazine to the back cover, which was 2 color, and then finally to the full front page in full color.  The monthly cartoon strip I had and still have running in ASD is called SPIN CHAIN SPOOFS, which is named after a couple of dance maneuvers called Spin Chain Thru and Spin Chain the Gears. 

Here are a few which have run in recent issues.  I will try to post the ones that are pretty easy to understand for the gerneral public.  Most of the SPIN CHAIN SPOOFS are inside jokes, which target the dancer population.

There's an easy call in square dancing called Forward and Back, and that's all you do.  Move up to the middle, then come back to where you started.  That's the basis of the next toon.

This next cartoon is just sick, if you let your mind do the trick.

One of the neat things we do in our activity is we can earn Fun Badges.  You can earn these dangles from square dancing in an elevator, to dancing in the swimming pool, or dancing with balloons between your legs. They make the activity so enjoyable.  I do a lot of these fun things with both of my dance clubs.  There is dancing in shoe boxes, dancing with the lights out, dancing with a broom and a mop.  They call the fun badge nights Dangle Dances and some people have over 100 of these babies wrapped around them like a belt or sash. You can poke out an eye on a Swing and Promenade.

This next cartoon deals with the immaturity of some people at dances.  It can happen in the school cafeteria at times too, as well as Bingo.  There are no 'assigned seats', but lots of people think certain chairs are their seats and no one else's. I've seen some worthless and brainless fights over the years.

I will print more of my SPIN CHAIN SPOOFS, if you'd like.  Thank you for the American Square Dance Magazine for printing my toons for over 20 years! 

Most of the time, the cartoons are inside jokes with callers and dancers.  Here's an example of one.  When callers attend caller schools, to help them learn how to move dancers, they somtimes maneuver checkers or dolls for practice, which are suppose to represent the dancers.  A lot of the time, today, callers have computers that visually display body flow with calls. Here's the toon.