Drabble's Guest Star

Could this be Middletown High School art teacher Pete Panse guest-starring in Drabble? The saga of Neanderthals v. Panse seems to have inspired cartoonist Kevin Fagan, whose comic strip Drabble is syndicated to 200 publications. In September, Kevin's nerdy hero Drabble made a complete twit of himself after having been teased by his "friends" into believing that a nude model would appear at their next art class. His art teacher wants to know where on earth he got this idea. The "friends" try to look innocent. Pete's accusers have also been trying to look innocent, but without much success. Patricia Simmons, House Principal at Middletown High School, has been fired. Ina Segnit, Supervisor of Fine Arts - also Pete's supervisor -, lost her position when it was scrapped. And Ellen Kaplan (CLICK) has vanished from the Board of Education offices, presumably using up holiday time before receiving the heave-ho. What makes this debacle so insane is that the New York State Art Teacher's Association had asked Pete to write a course outline for a figure drawing course for the NYS Education Department! (Previously, Pete helped the New York Academy of Art create a program which teaches figure drawing to 8,000 students in 22 NYC high schools.) As a result of Pete's yearlong suspension, thousands of art students have been disadvantaged. Time for sanity to prevail....