Post by pinkpenny on Jan 6, 2023 4:37:03 GMT
Mostly known for creating the long-running animated sitcom Family Guy, MacFarlane has had an interest in drawing ever since he was a child. His drawings were considered by his peers to be very good, at least for his age. He was so talented in fact that he was hired by his local newspaper in Kent, Connecticut, The Kent Good Times Dispatch, to create a weekly comic strip. That comic strip was “Walter Crouton”. Official descriptions of the plot/synopsis of the strip aren’t really out there, but here’s what I’m guessing it is based on information I have gathered: The strip follows a news caster named Walter Crouton and his many friends. That’s... about all I can find about the synopsis. Some of these strips are available online, however some of them are not. And none of the available strips ever reference him being a newscaster. The only reason we know he was a news caster in the comic is because of a letter Seth sent to Jim Henson as a kid, where he tells Jim about his character. In general there’s very little information about this strip anywhere. It doesn’t even have a page on the Lost Media Wiki. There’s one strip from the series in particular that has been confirmed to exist by MacFarlane himself that I can’t find anywhere. The comic is said to show a character kneeling at an altar taking Communion and asking "Can I have fries with that?". This particular strip is notable because Seth states that it caused a mini-controversy in his town, so much so that he got an angry letter from a local priest. Here’s a video where he talks about the particular strip and the local controversy (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=stmxlOTiQu8a). MacFarlane also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel to talk about the strip, with Kimmel even showing off a booklet with some of the comics in it. Here is that video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVfjdbCpnVw). There are pictures of this booklet online, but I can’t find anybody selling it. One source says that there were only 100 of these books made back in the 1980s, but I can’t find a claim to back up that source. Even then it’s possible that the booklet did not include every strip. In fact, it’s possible that the book didn’t consist of the strips made for his local newspaper, and instead had new strips made specifically for that book. The same source that states there were only 100 copies also says that Seth was encouraged by his friends to publish this book either after or during the time he was making the strips for the papers. So if that’s the case, we have TWO cases of lost media here. Oh, and here’s a link to a website that showcases some of the comics (https://www.howardstern.com/news/2015/06/21/seth-macfarlanes-first-published-comic-strip-2/) and here’s a link to the source that states there are only 100 of those books in existence (https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/walter-crouton-friends-seth-51529029).
