Friendly Gelato

Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, I just saw this when I was posting the latest strip. :,DAs far as I know, Danny did not doing any comics besides Friendly Gelato, but he did work in advertisement before he became a cartoonist. I don’t think he designed any famous mascot or the like, but you could probably find something he drew on ad that came before the first strip (I’ll look around to see if I can find anything either).Besides artwork, I think he actually wrote a novel at some point, but I have not read it. From what I hear, it is a very dry work of historical fiction, so I don’t think it would have much bearing on his other work.

As you may have guessed from the content of this comic, this was made on Danny’s birthday, and he would have been 34 at the time.

This is the first appearance of a side character that will become more prominent later on, though at this point in the comic Danny had not given her a name yet.

Original Date: July 11th, 1971.

I still find this one pretty funny, maybe because it mirrors my own experience with IKEA furniture, but also it references the idea that Gelato is just always speaking in Italian and we just aren’t aware of that.

I’m of two minds on this strip, ‘cause on one hand the caption is a pretty crude joke, yet it also reveals just how cool Cat Gamble is. Sometimes I wish Cat got some kinda spin-off comic or something, but Danny never got the chance to do that.

There are definitely more comic strips, don’t worry, I’m just trying to stagger each one I post so that it’s not just a flood of all of them. Sorry if I’ve been missing some days, though, I have been a bit busy. :(Love <3

I’m having a pretty good day, so it’s okay if you just want to chat. <3

Original Date: April 2nd 1971

<3 <3 <3 <3

This is the first appearance of the character Cat Gamble, and while I find the compulsory love interest always a bit annoying, I still find her design and the personality she develops really interesting.

Original Date: April 4th 1971

This is one of my early favorite really, though it might be a little dark, because it revealed a depth of theme that few other comics would go for.

Original Date: March 21st 1971

An interviewer asked Danny during a playboy interview in 1975 who was the man that kept appearing in the background of his strips: “That man is one of my personal heroes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American philosopher and theologian that really influenced my art.“

The second strip and first introduction of Gelato’s skeletal best friend Skelato, a favorite among most in the fanbase.

Play it here