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Varvel's cartoon copied!


Fish-and-bicycle evolution finds its way onto the rack of promotional pamphlets at a Thomas E. Dewey Thruway rest stop! The cartoon below was found in a  flyer from the Pedaling History Bicycle Museum of Orchard Park, New York, USA. (This is a very impressive museum, by the way, well worth a visit.)

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Pedaling History Bicycle Museum


This cartoon is clearly derived -- indeed, traced -- from Gary Varvel's most recent one. The outlines of the characters are very similar, and the "Fred Flintstone" bicycling caveman originated with Varvel. Two of the characters, however, have been changed substantially: Varvel's ape has been converted into a knuckle-dragging walking caveman, and Varvel's bicyclist on a track racing machine, wearing a helmet, has been converted into a bolt-upright utility bicyclist on a roadster, wearing a cap. The "funny bike" at the bottom right remains substantially as in Varvel's drawing, but evolution does not continue onward with recumbent bicycles as with Stegmann and Varvel. Apparently, the museum's proprietors considered recumbents to represent too advanced a stage of evolution to be understandable by prospective museum visitors -- or perhaps also, the recumbents would have made the cartoon too large for the pamphlet. In any case, the museum version lacks the humorous "fish-man-fish" symmetry of the Stegmann and Varvel versions.

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Contents  2000, 2001, John S. Allen
except cartoon,
copied from Gary Varvel
yet trademarked!