In Memoriam -- Phil "Overbarrel"

This is sad news, but there may be somebody peeking in who needs to know.

Phil J, who signed his hilarious and highly detailed "Poser" cartoons "Overbarrel," died this weekend after a ferocious three to four year fight with ALS.  

  His abilities to create, to partake in life as he did so richly, and eventually even to communicate, were stripped away bit by bit by what he called "this goddamned disease."  Nevertheless, he didn't spend a lot of what energy he had in fecklessly railing against it all, like I might have done, and I think his profound, nigh-unquenchable sense of humor was a saving grace. His loving wife and family were with him, and hospice care.

 Phil was a remarkable husband, father, grandfather, and a stalwart friend.  He was one who helped me out of a very dark time, and when the Internet was new, he was also one who made me understand that my particular and perhaps peculiar sexual interests were nevertheless not as deviant as I used to think.  Phil himself was as decent, intelligent, and caring a man as ever walked the planet.  We shared, across the distance via that wonderful tool, the Web, all the joys and sorrows of each other's family life, and hundreds of photos. 

 We also shared many a grin over twenty-plus years of goofy "Overbarrel" and "WolfieToon" creations.  Phil first learned the "Poser" program via a copy in German-- he didn't speak or read German-- and never stopped developing and getting better at it.  He had a natural movie director's eye, although he had never studied filmmaking, and many of his Poser Epics were cinematically brilliant.  Sometimes his 'toons were "copy heavy," and I occasionally made suggestions about word balloon placement, and even recommended putting the words below the pictures, à la "Prince Valiant," but he never went for it.

 Phil was the most guileless and honest man I've met.  I worried about that for him in the World Of Weird Web People, but he never came to or caused any harm.  And, yeah, once in a while his ribald sense of humor got the better of him, and fantasies went off in directions I wouldn't trod, but Fantasy is one thing, Reality another, and he never, ever confused the two. 

He was an exceptional raconteur, and told many stories of his childhood, military, and wedded life that I hope the family will collect and publish for a few of us.

I'm very grateful to have known Phil, and life will be a lot emptier without him.

Items from my "Phil Philes"...

A panel from one of the many Springrose Birthday Tales:

"Then and Now"

One of Phil's first "Poser" characters, "The HOLY SHIT SMILEY!"

Meanwhile, Across The Web--

 If you've missed the "Poser"-program cartoons done by Phil "Overbarrel," here's a chance to catch up a bit!  

Click these blue letters for the Overbarrel Spanking Toons Blog!

Sadly, Phil is struggling with ALS, and unable to produce new work.  But, with loving attention and care from everyone around, first and foremost from his lovely and remarkable wife, his kids and grandkids, and splendid service from the V.A. and their incredible technology, he is in good hands, and has been able to re-post past presentations!

The latest was the series he did for our Springrose's birthday sometime back, featuring that Resourceful Masked Man of the Plains!  Here are three from it:

(It runs "backwards," on the blog, so now you can follow it properly!)

Another was a celebration of couples who began spanking in their high school years and kept going through married life-- "Then And Now!"

And there's even some Halloween Magic!

Phil's dialogue has always been intended to augment and complete the fantasy!

So, enjoy!  And if I could persuade yo to leave a short comment there, too, that would be exceptional!

Art from Arild's!

Back when the Web was new, and those funny dial-up squeaks and squawks were fairly ubiquitous, I stumbled upon a Yahoo Group known as "Arild's Cartoon Spanking Group," and met some of the finest people ever.  There were a couple of loonies, there, too, but, hey, that happens anywhere you go.  

This was the first place where I found friends, decent. loving, caring people, who also found adult spanking arousing!  Before, I had always felt like the odd man out;  it had been suggested that my libido had taken some woefully wrong turn early in life, and the majority of publications I was able to find then, devoid of humor, filled with anger and/or self-hate, sprays of blood, and other extreme unpleasantness, didn't help.  

So it was a sheer delight to explore "this thing we do," with the others, to finally become comfortable in my own skin, and, most of all, to enjoy a wide variety of art!  We shared pictures from magazines, paperback covers, comics, newspaper strips, and our own original creations!

Our host, Arild, the man who created the Yahoo site and brought us all together, was a fine fellow from Norway (thanks to Vohaul for reminding me!) who gave us his wisdom and humor and great encouragement.  Very sadly, he was apparently seriously injured in an industrial accident at work and eventually dropped off the site.  What finally became of him, I've never known.  If you search "Arild" on-line, you're likely to find one or two of his other, long-abandoned websites.

I encourage anyone else who was there to correct my memory, offer anecdotes, and the art I've lost!  I do have a few examples.  There were, of course, some of my earliest efforts:  

I'm sorry I don't have more of everyone else's art;  my floppies went bad!!  Don'tcha hate when that happens?!  But among those treasures were things from Endart:

And "Boom," who created the delightfully ditzy OTKatie!

(By the way-- I'm not absolutely certain-- but that cop could be Yank, whose famous protest, "Down with Panties!" began at Arild's!)  

Dan Rivera's "Spanky Sal" and "Sam Swat" cartoons had been published in "Spank Hard!" magazine from Shadow Lane, and he did a lot of original art at Arild's site.

What a great superhero!  Don'tcha love those little hands on his mask?!  Springrose, by the way, is my best friend, beautiful and eminently spankable!!  She's also the one to thank for the best WolfieToons; I can judge from her reaction if a cartoon is going to work, and she's never been afraid to answer a proposed idea with, "Uh-huh;  what else ya got to peddle?"  :-D

There was a fella from Germany at Arild's who signed himself "Angus Old," creating wild stories using the "Poser" program:

'Twas he who sent that program to Phil, and LO!  "Overbarrel Spanking Toons" were born!!

Even from the start, Phil's creative, cinematic staging and hilariously horny imagination were in full swing!  As you can see from my previous post about his work, his skill has mightily grown!  And, yes, that's Springrose and Wolfie again!

"Darth" was a great guy from the UK who created pencil art to share, and I've lost it!

The high point of the group was the First Anniversary Special, in which Boom and Arild combined all our efforts into an awards show!  For example, at one point, Wolfie's avatar strode on stage and spanked OTKatie for taking up too much time, and making him fall into the orchestra pit!

Well, as I mentioned, Arild disappeared, and slowly everyone began to waft away as well, to other things on-line and in life.  My next stop was MSN and the "Southern California Spanked Wives (and Girlfriends) Club"-- but that's another blog.