Student I remember the first time that I was introduced to Gus. I was working for the Daily Egyptian during my first year and my photo editor at the time would leave post-it notes around the office of Gus Bode sayings. They usually referenced something that was said in the office between employees. The concept of Gus was explained to me a little while before the notes became a regular thing that would cover the backs of our office computers. 

Gus Bode was first introduced into print April 13, 1956 when the Daily Egyptian was just the Egyptian. Gus is the DE mascot, yes, but he is also more. Gus was meant to be a voice for us. An outlet for us students when we couldn’t say what we wanted to say. I remember doing research about Gus and flipping through the archives and old editions of the papers we had that had been sitting in the archive room. Gus has done and said some interesting things in his time and his past iterations really speak for the state of the times and the positions of the students using him as a voice. 

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I remember looking at the Gus Bode design in 2021 and feeling a bit of a disconnect. As a Nicaraguan Black woman that grew up in the early 2000s the representation wasn’t there for me in the same way it is in current times. I grew up having to find ways to relate to white main characters in media and books who didn’t look like me or have similar home or life experiences. 

The older Gus Bode designs very clearly allude to a white male college student and one thing I am not is a white male college student. When I first became aware of Gus Bode in 2021, our staff was majority Black as well and Gus did not feel representative of any of us, and if we used Gus, he was meant to speak for us. While overall the situation isn’t all that serious, historically that kind of thing doesn’t play out well. When white voices tell Black or people of color stories, something is always lost in translation. 

 I started to draw iterations of a modern Gus Bode in my notebooks in class. I softened his features and drew his hair in a way that could indicate any kind of curl pattern. It was a way that I had drawn my own hair in the little simplified personas many artists tend to draw of themselves. I wanted him to feel more ambiguous in terms of gender and race. I also made him softer mostly because of my own personal preference of softer shapes and lines. 

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My idea was that this new Gus Bode was meant to be Gus Bode’s child. This is a reference to a comic panel made in the past where Gus Bode was pregnant. Gus Bode would finally graduate undergrad and become a forever master’s student instead while his kid took over in his place. I called it B.G. Bode (Baby Gus Bode). 

Eventually, I introduced the concept to the editor-in-chief at the time, Oreoluwa Ojewuyi, who loved the design and the choices behind it but decided that if he were to be released it would just be a reskin of Gus rather than his kid, as Gus is supposed to be a forever college student. 

After some more consideration, the new Gus design was put into publication in the 2023 academic school year. He continues his tradition of popping in to speak every once in a while in print and can be seen on a myriad of post-it notes drawn by different reporters or photographers with his pinnacle phrase “Gus Bode says.” I am very happy that everyone still has the love for Gus that has been seen in the past alum of the Daily Egyptian. I hope this design will live on for a while longer and I am excited to see what the next iteration of Gus Bode provides for the next generation of Daily Egyptian employees. 

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