Omaha

My buddy Jeff Koterba emailed me the minute this strip hit the comics page of the Omaha World Herald. Jeff's the estimable editorial cartoonist at the OWH and way more. If you haven't read his memoir Inklings, it's fascinating. And beyond that, Jeff heads up the swing band Prairie Cats which does all the music at the annual National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Awards festivities. He may well dance in the Nutcracker, too, for all I know — a true Renaissance Man.

I think this mini-series about Jeremy not being able to get through Wuthering Heights was initiated by me in my coffee shop sketchbook and passed along for Jerry's magic touch. It called for Jeremy to end up somewhere far from home, and since we intentionally never identify Jeremy's home, that place seemed to be Omaha, a place that seems far from almost everyone's home. I Google Image Searched "Omaha skyline", gathered several reference photos, spread them across my screen, and then totally fudged it. Koterba claims he could tell it was Omaha even before he read the punchline. "The building on the left is Woodmen Tower which I wrote about in Inklings." Gracious man.