Description
Release Date: 2021
Publisher: Jumawid Press
ISBN: None
Softcover, 53 pages
Most of these cartoons originally appeared in the Times-Picayune
“For most of my life, fans of my father’s art have been asking if he was going to reprint these books. My dad didn’t really care much about reopening his past. I’ve always thought that these drawings captured a very special time and place that has most certainly passed. I really hope that everyone that gets to see this new editions can appreciated this glimpse of New Orleans.” — Jude Matheews, October 2021
“Late one afternoon, about two years ago, I called Bunny Matthews and asked him to work up an idea for a weekly cartoon in Dixie Magazine. I had just become editor of the Times-Picayune’s 35-year-old Sunday magazine and we were making some changes.One of them, I hoped, would be running the kind of cartoon Bunny first introduced in the now defunct paper, Figaro.
Soon, Vick and Nat’ly Broussard were born. They owned a bar in poor-boy emporium in the 9th Ward, Bunny said, shortly before he brought a test drawing up to the paper. I’ll never forget the first time I saw them. There was Vic with that greasy hair, that 5 o’clock shadow and that nasty cigarette stuck in his mouth. And there was Nat’ly with those pointy eyeglasses, that 1930s print dress and that mad, upswept hairdo. They looked like creatures spawned in a swamp and seasoned with 50 years’ worth of fried oysters, hot sauce and pickled eggs.
Vic and Nat’ly first appeared in Dixie on January 3, 1982. As time went by, those of us around the office became fond of the couple and its little family: the sarcastic Chihuahua who makes his in a white coffee cup, the know-it-all cock-roach and, of course, Vic’s tormentor and grandson, Arthur.
We have some readers who don’t always share our enthusiasm for Vic and Nat’ly. They write occasionally to say the cartoon is a mean joke on New Orleans and some of its people. But for the life of me, I cannot understand their concern. I can only think of Vic with a corkscrew attached to the top of his head, dressed up like a mosquito for Mardi Gras.” –Jeannette Hardy, October 1983
