Paul Gadzikowski
scarfman@iglou.com

New reader orientation and Dailies cartoon cast thumbnails

Hi. I'm Paul Gadzikowski.

Abstract: This personal website consists largely of DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER crossover fanfiction in prose, comic strip and sketch form. Comics strips are referred to as Dailies because this writer has drawn a cartoon a day, with the occasional hiatus, since 1976. Many fanfiction stories have also had their franchises' proper names globally replaced with proper names from the King Arthur legends, and these versions are gathered under the umbrella title King Arthur in Time and Space. "Original" Dailies feature the cartoonist, his friends and relations and some invented characters. Fanfiction stories, sketches, and Dailies (fanfiction, King Arthur in Time and Space & original) each have their own indices. This website was retired at the end of 2006, though new material shows up rarely.

First, a definition. Fanfiction is original, fan-written, unlisenced fiction adopting characters and/or concepts whose source is the intellectual property of another, usually a motion picture studio. The first fanfiction (at least, the first fiction called "fanfiction") was STAR TREK fanfiction. STAR TREK fanfiction was originally distributed through the mails. With the advent of the internet, fanfiction propagates so quickly that the news forums and websites, and the source inspirations be they screen or books or games, can't be tracked any more. (For more see my essay on fanfiction.)

I had already had fanfiction appearing in a few STAR TREK "fanzines" in 1976 when I drew my first Daily cartoon. This was a four-panel gag on blue-lined notepaper whose purpose was to save my place at the high school lunch table. I drew in my audience to them by drawing my audience into them - like many webcomics of today, the first Dailies depicted the cartoonist and his friends dealing with conflicts ranging from everyday frustrations to dark lords with spacefleets. On and off I continued to draw Dailies featuring myself and my friends and some invented characters until 1997 (graduating to unlined paper about 1982). The Dailies had also featured appearances by fanfiction characters; in 1993 I excised all others' intellectual property from the Dailies. I replaced the fanfiction characters in the regular Dailies notebook with thinly-veiled parodies of themselves, and started a new notebook for the fanfiction heroes.

By 1997 it'd been a year or two since I'd discovered internet fanfiction forums, and had begun this website, where I'd archived my Archy the Cockroach material. In February '97 I gave over drawing Dailies in order to post new humor pieces weekly to alt.drwho.creative, the DOCTOR WHO fanfiction Usenet newsgroup. In August '97 I began posting a series of DOCTOR WHO/STAR TREK crossovers a chapter a week (crossovers so the stories could be posted to both the DOCTOR WHO and STAR TREK newsgroups); taking summers off "like a real tv show". (See also my essay on crossovers and their relation to real life.) Those stories, primarily DOCTOR WHO crossed over with many other properties, make up the bulk of the prose material archived on my website. They contain all the extrapolations from the sourceworks into the fictional universe in which fanfiction Dailies were set.

By January 1999 I had a scanner. Now, as I wrote new fanfiction stories (which by now included BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER crossovers), instead of committing them to prose on Usenet I serialized them in panel cartoons and uploaded them to the website.

Also in 1999 I created King Arthur in Time and Space: In one of my DOCTOR WHO/STAR TREK crossovers, I globally replaced the franchises' proper nouns with proper nouns from the King Arthur legends. This was as much or more fun than writing the stories in the first place. I began doing it to my other DOCTOR WHO/STAR TREK crossovers. When those ran out, in my other stories Superman became Hercules, Hawkeye Pierce became Achilles, Buffy the Vampire Slayer became Saint Pudentiana the Fairy Bane, etc. King Arthur in Time and Space took off to the point that several readers wrote in with their own "sadfan" extrapolations in the manner of fans of screen properties.

In January 2000 I returned the Dailies to their classic stand-alone daily gag format, instead of serializing stories, though I retained the fanfiction characters. In spring 2000 I began mixing in King Arthur in Time and Space Dailies with the fanfiction Dailies. Lacking, at that time, the resources to archive all stand-alone Dailies on this website, I kept each new cartoon here about two weeks. During my summer hiatus I always posted rerun Dailies, and starting August 2003 I posted reruns alongside new Dailies during the regular year.

In late 2001 I was ready to end a longer hiatus in Dailies I'd taken, but my scanner was no longer operational. For some weeks I experimented in black-and-white line drawings done with the trackball but, my not lacking a life, trackball line drawing was too time-consuming for me to turn out internet Dailies as often as I like. I revived a simplified caricature mode (originally invented for Amiga animated cartoons in the late 80s and early 90s) called "triangles". Triangle caricatures were hardly welcomed with open arms by my audience. But I'm not aware that they lost me anyone, they grow on people, and I like them for reasons discussed here.

In spring 2003 I decided to, beginning fall 2003, revive the original pseudo-autobiographical Daily format to alternate with the fanfiction and the King Arthur in Time and Space formats. A week before my "season premiere" I decided to do "original" Dailies in good ol' line drawings, since I had a scanner again. But they only lasted a year.

In May 2004 I launched a more conventional, less technically-unprofessional-under-intellectual-property-law webcomic of my own, Arthur, King of Time and Space. But I still believe in fanfiction. There were still new fanfiction cartoons of some kind, if often "sketches" rather than comic strips, here frequently since I moved on to other cartoons, until the member account hosting diskspace ran out in 2006. Before that, in January 2005, I took advantage of an expansion of webserver space afforded me by my ISP to start archiving Dailies as they came up in the rerun cycle. This archive was completed in November 2005. But the server space still ran out in late 2006, at which time this website was retired, mostly, though new stories still appear occasionally. New triangle fanfiction cartoons still appear at The Hero of Three Faces.

Fanfiction Dailies and sketches are on black pages, King Arthur in Time and Space Dailies are on green pages, and original Dailies are on white pages. (When characters aren't encased in panel borders, they've stepped out of the cartoons to comment on being fictional characters.) King Arthur in Time and Space prose stories and notes are on green pages, some cartoon-related prose is on black pages, and all other prose is on white pages.

Any questions? Email me.

Every page has at the bottom a mailto link and a link back to the main index. Almost all also have a link back to the subindex whence you came. Successive story chapters and successive Dailies have links to the next chapter or Daily.

Cast

DOCTOR WHO
The Doctor is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey with a time machine called a TARDIS and the fantastic ability to change his appearance every time an actor tires of the part or vice versa.
Doctors

The Doctor usually has a traveling companion, who is usually an attractive young woman, a fact of which the Doctor never takes any notice, perhaps because the first one was his granddaughter. This isn't all of them.
girl companions

The Doctor's primary adversaries are the cybernetic Daleks and the evil Time Lord the Master who also changes bodies regularly.
Daleks and Masters

The 60s movie version, an Earthman whose surname, unlike the tv version's, actually is Who.
Dr. Who

In King Arthur in Time and Space Merlin has a time machine called a CAVE which goes to his apprentice Nimue at his death. He chases or is chased by the cybernetic Dragons and the evil time-traveling sorceress Morgan le Fey.
Merlin's friends and enemies

STAR TREKs
Captain Kirk and his successor starship captains (except Captain Archer who's a prequel), their XOs, and their CMOs.

captains & crews

Saavik of Vulcan, originally believed to be half-Romulan, is really the Doctor's half-Time Lord half-sister - hence her ability to change appearance every time, etc.
three Saaviks

In King Arthur in Time and Space Arthur is king of all British space and commander of the starcruiser Excalibur. Lancelot is his science knight and Guenevere is his chief surgeon.
Arthur, Guenevere and Lancelot

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER and ANGEL
Buffy is the Chosen One endowed with special abilities to slay vampires and demons, with the aid of her stuffy English mentor Giles and her high school pals.

Buffy and the 'Scooby' gang

Angel the world's only re-ensouled vampire loves Buffy, but the romance is doomed to lead only to his own spinoff.
Angel Investigations

In King Arthur in Time and Space Pudentiana Claudia Rufins (later Saint Pudentiana) is the Fairy Bane, banishing fairies in the capital city of the capital planet of the interstellar Roman Empire, with her stuffy British great-grandfather Bran, her cousins, and her cursed fairie lover Genius.
Pudentiana, Genius, ...

Superman
Rocketed to Earth as a baby from the doomed planet Krypton, Superman ... oh, you all know this.

Metropolis' first citizens

In King Arthur in Time and Space: Rocketed to the planet Greece as a baby from the planet Olympus, Alcides of Thebes discovered himself to have fantastic hero-powers! He battles for truth, justice and the Hellene way as HERCULES!
Thebes' first citizens

M*A*S*H
Hawkeye the unmilitary army doctor and his buddy Trapper John - uh, no, his buddy B.J. - are a pain to their C.O. Colonel Blake ... no, Colonel Potter ... and downright mean to Major Hot Lips and Major Frank no, Major Charles! - oh forget it.

MASH personnel

In King Arthur in Time and Space the Trojan H*O*R*S*E is the first wartime military hospital staffed by surgeons from both sides. The surgeons are Achilles and Hector no Aeneas forget it
HORSE personnel

STAR WARS
Two generations of swashbuckling interstellar intrigue a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ...

STAR WARS cast

In King Arthur in Time and Space that long ago in Egyptian space the gods hadn't got the laws of genetics quite straight in their heads yet.
PYRAMID WARS cast

STARGATE SG-1
That first step is a doozy.

O'Neill and his team

STARGATE: ATLANTIS
What're, what're everywhere?

Sheppard and his team

THE X-FILES
When the truth hits the fan.

Mulder and Scully

Cameo appearances also occur by characters and/or their King Arthur in Time and Space analogs from Indiana Jones, Highlander, Babylon 5, Farscape, Forever Knight, miscellaneous superheroes, and others. Some of these characters from the lower ranks of this website's fanfiction pantheon are visited more frequently by Dr. Who (the movie version, review above) than by the Doctor.

original Dailies
Paul draws a cartoon a day about his friends and relations, some of whom are space aliens and genetics experiments.

Dailies cast

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go to the calendar archive Dailies index, or

go to the main fanfiction index, or

go to the King Arthur in Time and Space index, or

go to the main serialized-fanfiction-and-miscellaneous cartoons index, or

go to the main index.