# Trying to find an old comic strip.. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 29, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724 "2004-05-29T23:36:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/1 "2004-05-29T23:36:37Z")
It was about a president. Was his name Sam? He lived in an apartment. and mingled with the common folk. It might have been in the National Lampoon. It wasn’t a daily strip. I know it isn’t much. But does it ring a bell with anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/2 "2004-05-29T23:54:09Z")
Whoa. I’m a serious comics freak, strips & books, but I never heard of anything quite like this. Any notion of how long it ran? In what decade? ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2004, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/3 "2004-05-29T23:57:43Z")
The 70’s I think. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/4 "2004-05-30T00:49:59Z")
I was a serious(?) reader of National Lampoon all through the 70s, and that doesn’t ring _any_ bells. Any other clues, no matter how slim? ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/5 "2004-05-30T00:53:29Z")
Same here. I don’t believe it was in the _Lampoon_. An underground comic, perhaps? Think, man, think! ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/6 "2004-05-30T00:57:59Z")
Ditto. I’ve got tons of old comics, and boxes of old _NatLamps_, and that doesn’t ring any bells at all. Sure you didn’t dream it? ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/7 "2004-05-30T00:59:46Z")
Wasn’t there an alternative newspaper strip that appeared in weekly papers about a common salt of the earth kind of president? He instituted an odd form of government – the randomocracy, I think – and as a result ended up with a VP who was the cleaning lady, because he took the “next persn who walks thrugh that door.” Timeline was late 80s, tho. But he was a hippie kind a guy. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/8 "2004-05-30T01:16:06Z")
The NatLamp **did** run a strip similar to what you describe. I think the title was “Man of the People.” The art was by S. Harris and the concept was “What if the president were a public servant?” The idea was that the president was just a government worker on a government salary, so it showed the president needing to scramble for, say, a place to entertain foreign dignitaries. It only ran once or twice, though. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trying-to-find-an-old-comic-strip/247724/9 "2004-05-30T04:48:59Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > Wasn’t there an alternative newspaper strip that appeared in weekly papers about a common salt of the earth kind of president? He instituted an odd form of government – the randomocracy, I think – and as a result ended up with a VP who was the cleaning lady, because he took the “next persn who walks thrugh that door.” > > Timeline was late 80s, tho. But he was a hippie kind a guy. You are thinking of [President Bill](http://home.earthlink.net/~wmlbrown/wmlbpb.html), by William L. Brown. It ran in various alternative newspapers, including the Washington D.C. City Paper and the Chicago Reader, from 1988-1992. Bill, a member of the Woodstock Generation, became president through the first Presidential Selection Lottery. He instituted “randomocracy,” and selected Evita, his day-care provider for his kid, in the way you describe. I loved that strip, and I have the book.