Like in Rolly Stone

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Drew for the Manitoban in your prime, didn’t you?

Rob Dylan

Long before the first of his 50 years of book reviews for the Winnipeg Free Press, our own Dave Williamson was honing his writing (and drawing) talents at the University of Manitoba’s student rag, The Manitoban. The above is Dave’s final Rolly Stone strip, appearing in March, 1960.

Dave was a visionary. Just to give you a little context, the Rolling Stones (the band) only formed in 1962—after Mick Jagger found an old copy of The Manitoban, including Rolly Stone strip #19 (entitled Nervous Breakdown) in the London School of Economics cafeteria — Like a Rolling Stone (the song) was released in 1965. The Rolling Stone (the magazine) first appeared in 1967.

If you know the U of M campus, you’ll recognize the central Admin building. That’s the old bus depot on the left and the Arts Building way in the background. On far left is a drunk from Grads’ Farewell. The four guys on the right are all characters from the previous 36 strips. —Rolly had only just met Jocelyn¹ in strip #36.

At an auction in 2014, Dylan’s handwritten lyrics to Like a Rolling Stone fetched $2 million. At a 2019 garage sale in Osbourne Village, an original drawing for the iconic Rolly Stone strip #29 sold for $1.50.

1 Jocelyn was based on a real person, now also a RRC retiree, living incognito at an undisclosed location.