• Drinking With Hamsters
by Matty Boy Anderson 04.11.10

Walfred Cybean was an American cartoonist, whose work was featured in magazines like The New Yooper from 1954 to 1969. At the time, Cybean's doodler-style cartoons were seen as reductive and unpleasant by some readers[proof needed], for they typically displayed a drunken middle-aged man sharing a squalorous living space with an oversized hamster. So many of Cybean's cartoons contained this theme, that a book compiling them was printed in 1970. Despite persistent rumors that Cybean died of alcohol poisoning and hamster-related injuries, his death instead came when he fell between the cars of a subway train.








Little is known of Cybean outside of his cartooning work. After his death, preparatory materials for a new book, titled Drinking With Hamsters Again, were discovered on his studio desk by his landlord. In 1981, an attempt was made to mount a retrospective of Cybean's cartoons, but fell through due to a general lack of details or interest[need proof here]. First editions of Drinking With Hamsters are somewhat coveted by collectors and obscure cartoon enthusiasts, and have gone for dozens of dollars at online auctions[citation please]. Cybean had no family, and tended to keep to himself. It is not known whether he kept a hamster as a pet.

(source: Wikapedia, the free encyclopedia)

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