What happens
Mike Snyder, the cartoonist behind the comic strip Dirk Diamond, struggles as the strip's readership falls off. His syndicate partners Robert Welby and George press him to revive the feature with a new villain. Mike admits he has been haunted since childhood by an imagined figure called Freddy, and the strip begins to take on the shape of his own fears. The broadcast follows his growing preoccupation with Freddy and his unsettling sense that the strip is beginning to reflect his own life. The story is set against the business and personal pressures surrounding the feature.
New York City, in the offices of a comic strip syndicate and in Mike Snyder's apartment, with a train journey and a hotel.
Characters: Mike Snyder, Robert Welby, George, Freddy, Dirk Diamond, Miss Bennett, Frank, Mr. Murphy
Listen for: Mike's confession about his childhood fear of Freddy and the scene where he plans the new strip panels with Welby.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.