The Brief Life and Death of Weenie The Hot Dog (Patreon)

Back in the 80's I started sending gag panel cartoons to Comics Buyers Guide, most of which featured a talking hot dog named Weenie. Weenie was a character I was drawing on store signs at the comic shop I worked at, Jim Hanley's Universe. He was a goofy little guy who made comments on comics and products and sometimes dressed up in cosplay outfits (not that the term was in use back then). He liked to wear a Galactus helmet but it was too heavy for him and he'd fall down a set of stairs when it tipped him over (highbrow comedy, that's always been my calling card). I would draw him on store signs, envelopes, business cards and I think he made it onto flyers for parties and maybe even a ska show.  

Anyway, CBG rejected all my submissions, so I sent some doodles to Amazing Heroes for the hell of it. These were also rejected, but then I received a letter saying they were going to use some of the drawings as spot illos. Which was a nice surprise for a fanboy and aspiring professional with a few amateurish small press credits. I think Weenie showed up in two or three letters columns pages of AH, I might have the tearsheets filed away somewhere, but these two examples are all I have on my computer. Whenever I did something for Amazing Heroes like this or the swimsuit issues I chose to be paid in credit and get books and comics.  Fun times. Every little thing was momentous and exciting, no matter how small or obscure it was in reality. In some ways that hasn't changed. Getting into print still sends me.

I stopped using the character when Milk & Cheese started up as my go-to doodles. If you have the Bill and Ted's Excellent Comic Book collection (or the comics) you can see his cameo in issue #7, where he "dies" in a cartoon being shown at Bill and Ted's trial for tampering with time. 

Once in a blue moon I find myself drawing him in my sketchbook for no real reason. Your old characters live forever in the recesses of your brain. Someday I'll dredge up some of the little monster characters I was drawing in my teens, which were precursors for some of the elements that went into Pirate Corp$!.