ESSEX -- For Sid Couchey, the lines between fantasy and reality have always been a bit blurred -- at his own instigation.

Sketching out comic book pages starring Little Dot, Little Lotta or Richie Rich, he often dropped in references from his own little world.

The Essex Marina. A view from above of the Essex County Fair.

Just last year, a fan of the Harvey Comics characters of yesteryear told Couchey he'd once stepped into a Willsboro drug store to buy a comic book.

On the first page was a cartoon pharmacy called Foley's, and the guy did a double take.

"He said (to himself), Wait a minute, I'm in Foley's,'" Couchey chuckled.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT

Richie Rich, Dot and Lotta aren't counted on the U.S. Census roles, but they have long been familiar faces in Essex and its environs.

So, too, is Rascal Raccoon, who Couchey brought to life for a Vermont campaign against drugs and alcohol. Other critters star (many of them local folks in the form of cartoon animals) in the comic books the artist and author Morris Glenn dream up some years to send as Christmas greetings.

Essex really teetered over the reality line recently when a painting of the community appeared on the cover of the summer/fall issue of The Harveyville Fun Times.

Not that anyone unfamiliar with Couchey's work would recognize the acrylic piece as Essex. In shades of blue and purple and pink is the artist's rendition of the town in the year 2169 or so, complete with pneumatic tube transport, zipping spaceships and futuristic towers.

As always, though, there's the real right along with the imagined -- local landmark Split Rock, Lake Champlain and a tiny ferry heading for Vermont.

Fun Times Editor in Chief/Publisher Mark Arnold was delighted to use the Essex painting as cover art, for just recently the magazine began color production.

"We had just put the standard characters like Casper and Richie Rich over and over," he said in a phone interview from Saratoga, Calif.

But now, with color, he said, "we wanted to do something different."