#205: Asparagus, Live at the Bird House
Inky’s still coloring this one, the 4th in the potentially never-ending series of panels featuring Asparagus (“Gus”), the dissembling, alt-country singer and former cast member of Cats (the Musical), on his post-Cats world tour. The Committee wouldn’t be approving these bc they violate almost all of Slothrop’s strategic principles, except for the fact that there’s a cat in them, & they tend to score well below average in the S-MCSS focus groups. And on social media. But somehow the licensing deals just keep coming in. The Sanrio (Hello, Kitty) people are flying in next month for ‘talks’, along with some ex-Studio Ghibli animators. The Stockholm deal led to a kitty litter endorsement for Sweden’s leading pet supply company in a CGI-heavy 30-second TV spot with an accompanying jingle sung by a relative of Greta Garbo, and there’s been interest from a record label for a kind of kid-friendly sing along album tailored for YouTube. On the music front, Artie’s been hanging on to the idea that Gus is going to put out grammatically correct versions of classics, like Bill Withers’ “There Is Not Any Sunshine When She’s Gone” and Bob Dylan’s “It Is Not Me, Babe”. But there’s bigger money in kids songs these days, so we’ll see. Anyway, that’s the good news. The bad news is, we got a ‘Letter of Inquiry’ from the Cats (The Musical) people, who haven’t yet indicated Gus is a violation of their intellectual property, but seem headed in that direction. It was worded in a way that indicated the matter might be solved with a little revenue share, but the lawyers are on a conference call this morning to coordinate our response. In the meantime, enjoy #205, “Asparagus, Live at the Birdhouse,” it may not be here very long... -Ed.
S-MCSS Overall: 1.9/23.0 Text Entries/Most Cited: “TLDR” (57) Artie’s ‘Me/Them’ Plan: Me
