The Program
In late 1975, Wes Oleszewski
was expanding his cartoon abilities. It was then that he wrote
his first movie parody.
A take off on the famed
disaster movie “Airport”, Wes’ version was given the moniker “Scareport”.
At the time the teenaged cartoonist had no idea that far away
the Zuker brothers were developing their version of a an airport
disaster parody that would one day come out as “Airplane” and
would earn zillions of dollars. Wes’ “Scareport” would not have
such a lofty goal.
|
 |
 |
As
with all of Wes’ very early work, the original “Scareport” was
drawn into remarkably tiny frames, in pencil. The story contained
plenty of the author’s dysfunctional spelling, ( notice the word
“dollers” rather than “dollars”) his
odd-ball humor, and some jokes that, to this day, only he understands.

The following year, 1976,
Wes wrote a sequel to “Scareport” which was appropriately titled
“Scareport 76”.

|
Again this work was done
totally in pencil, in very small frames and contained all of Wes’
usual grammar glitches. It is clear, however, from reading this
sequel, that his ability in constructing a plot was evolving for
the better.
|
While away at college in
the autumn of 1978, Wes decided to re-write the two Scareports.
The re-write of the original “Scareport” was started in October
of 1978 and the re-write of “Scareport 76” was started on Feruary
28, 1979 with both cartoons having their dialogue edited in 1982.
|

In the 1978-1979 re-write, both cartoons
were done in pen, the text was proof-read to correct any spelling
errors, the humor that only Wes understood was removed, and most
importantly, the jokes were re-worked to be in a standard “4 frame
order” to allow the readers to more easily follow the plot while
also allowing the production to perhaps be published at some later
date. Additionally, the artwork in each frame went far beyond
other cartoons drawn by Wes- this being a sign of a cartoonist
locked up in a dorm room for way too many days at a stretch. The
project took months, but eventually the new versions of the Scareport
cartoons were committed to paper.
|
The two cartoons rested in Wes’ files for the next several years.
By the spring of 1988, as Wes was looking at finishing and departing
college, he felt that the two cartoons would never be published,
and thus submitted them to run as a series in the “Avion” newspaper.
After that the original cartoons seemed to be lost in the vortex
of passing years. In the summer of 2000, however, Wes was visiting
his parents in Michigan and at the suggestion of his mom was digging
through stacks of family memorabilia packed away in her cedar chest
when he stumbled upon the 1978-1979 Scareports. |
 |
With
a bit of editing and a smatter of re-writing as well as some computer
magic, the entire Scareport series is now presented on klydemorris.com.
|
|
|