Maybe I’m Too Sensitive

Often over the years I’ve gotten an uncomfortable impression that serious comics readers tend to look down on strips that are gag-a-day. But then I think, what exactly is a “serious” comics reader? It sounds to me like an oxymoron. I think the vast majority of daily comic strip readers — serious or not — enjoy gags, and humor, about everyday life, and if you’d ask them what they wanted out of a daily, most would say they want a quick read, and a chuckle. That’s it. As someone who is serious about this funny business, I think there are a lot of snobs out there who wouldn’t know a banana peel if they slipped on one.

Why Gag-A-Day May Be Better In Today’s Market

A few conversations with editors have turned up some unsurprising observations about today’s daily strip readership. It’s been said that a growing number of readers tend to favor straight, fast humor over lengthy, continuous story lines. It’s true that over the last 15 years or so, we’ve seen less of the continuity style strip, and more of the Gag-A-Day kind. Why? I can speculate that a continuity strip asks for more of an investment from the reader (if you miss a couple of days, the present day’s strip is lost on you). Catching up on story lines takes a degree of investment, whereas with a gag strip, the reader gets a stand-alone bit of humor every day. There’s no catching up, no going back to see what the story’s about — what you get is a fun, quick read, which makes it all the more attractive to eyes that are bombarded with constant in-your-face entertainment. Also, it’s these types of quickly read “slice of life” strips that get clipped out of newspapers and tacked onto walls. (Or downloaded and shared.) People like them.

Quick-Read Doesn’t Necessarily Equal Crappy-Read

I believe the adage that says brevity is the soul of wit. To me — and I think to most readers — daily comic strips should be short and fun. The quality — or lack of it — lies in the crafting of the humor, how the idea is delivered, and whether or not it’s original and fresh. And, really, what’s wrong with that?

Let me know what YOU think!

(I’ll be posting more of those “sketches of Tina’s life” soon…..)

Here are just some examples of strips where Tina’s ma takes center stage…

(January 21, 2013)

(January 22, 2013)

(January 23, 2013)

It doesn’t end here — there’s a whole archive of strips to browse through right on this site.

Purchasing a strip is easy — just click on the “Buy Strip” button below the comic you’re interested in getting. The prints are gallery quality, printed on fine art paper, and are available in various sizes. If you’re on a budget, you can get the same high quality print without the matte and frame for as low as 25 dollars plus shipping.

So I invite you to browse and shop… it’s easy, you’ll see some fun stuff, and i guarantee you’ll find something that’ll make your mom smile.

More comics, and fun stuff soon. Thanks for reading!

“I figured (not that anyone should care) what’s been bothering me here recently: the introduction of Gus and Monica/Rob storyline are less “gag-a-day strip entering a soap territory” I probably hoped it would become and more “new status quo” which I don’t care for because Gus is henpecked and Rob doomed. Actually, perhaps I just don’t like the attitude this strip has towards men.” [From DailyInk]

Really? If anyone agrees with the comment, I invite them to read more samples of my strip from the last decade.

To say that Gus is being “henpecked” is to forget that there are three girls in “Tina’s Groove” who have been, since the beginning of the strip, relentlessly rooster-pecked, customer-pecked, and yes, even henpecked.

To say that Rob is “doomed” is to forget about poor, ill-fated Monica — perhaps the most ridiculously doomed character in the strip, and also a girl.

And exactly what is the strip’s “attitude toward men”? Let’s ask another question: what’s the strip’s attitude toward women? Let’s see, Suzanne is a slut. Monica is stupid. Tina’s mother is a neurotic nut ball.

The truth is, all of the characters in the strip are to some degree “pecked” and “doomed” — those are some of the best ingredients of humor! Without conflicts like these you’d have a comic strip where everyone is normal, nothing happens, and all the characters treat each other like Stepford wives. (Hey, there’s an idea in there somewhere, hmm…)

The only normal, loving person in the strip is Tina. (That’s the part that’s completely uncalled for, and crazy.)

Last but not least: What’s so terrible about a gag-a-day strip? (But that’s a topic for another day.)

Readers, please tell me what your thoughts are on this — I would love to hear what you think.

Also, stay tuned for more fun with “Tina’s off-stage life” sketches by the end of this week!

I like to think of this exercise as a journey into a second life of my characters — all the stuff that falls into the gaps between the panels, perhaps.

Remember it’s just an experimental exercise, so please excuse the roughness! (To be honest, when I did these I never expected to show them to anyone.)

Hope you enjoy ‘em…

Thanks for reading. I’ll be posting more of these!

This wondering — what my characters do when they’re not “on” — led to a serendipitous (and hugely fun!) exercise. On a particularly difficult day of writing, I decided to stop trying to “come up with ideas”, and just fill a bunch of boxes with Tina and her friends doing everyday, mundane things. The idea was to show Tina in her “real” life, outside of the strip. It’s a rough exercise, done solely for myself, and so the drawings are sketchy, fast, and incomplete. The same goes for the dialogue.

Here’s what Tina’s life is like when she’s not trying to get to an end panel with some sort of punch:

The boxes shown here are only a portion of several that I banged out whenever I had time, during the course of a few months. There are no real beginnings and endings, only natural places to start and stop, so don’t look for any logic in the events!

The exercise generated some useable ideas that I developed for the strip. That was the extra bonus for me!

Stay tuned for more of these. And hey, I may even continue the exercise — although it may take a little more time than just plain writing, it’s a lot of fun, and it clearly has its advantages.

Which form of insult would you say is more civilized — the tomato bomb, or the malicious message?

(By comments I mean everything that’s said by readers online about a cartoon. By tomatoes I mean those mushy red things that are delicious on pasta, and in salads.)

Cartoonists, would you prefer to have a tomato thrown at your head when a stranger doesn’t like your work, or would you rather have a reader launch a piece of vitriolic online snot about you?

My old Italian grandmother made the best sauce out of tomatoes. DON’T KNOCK TOMATOES.

Readers, would you prefer to pitch a vegetable at a cartoonist’s head to express your displeasure towards a cartoon, or would you prefer to spew stupidity vibes on a message board about the cartoonist?

I gave it some serious thought. Why show the actual comic, when all we need to know about a comic can be inferred by the comments thread after it?

All the really good stuff is in the comments.

I think there should be some sort of payment made to commenters who explain the comic. They should get interpreter’s wages. In fact, now that I think of it, why not just let them draw their comments, and then leave comments after their comments? The cartoonist can be taken into the back alley and shot.

Yeah.

No really, I’m quite serious about this. For instance I used to read articles. Now I just read the comments after the articles because they’ll tell me more than what the actual article would tell me, and isn’t that better?

I’ve read all the classics just by going on Amazon and reading what people say about them. They’re way more enjoyable. And I agree tomatoes are also extremely wholesome and full of antioxidants.

I think throwing tomatoes at grandmothers is highly offensive.

I think you should self-publish an e book about your comments about your art comics and why then read about them?

Yes, Extremely well put! :0

I have no idea what this post is about. There’s no meaning to it, and it’s all over the place. Feels like a comments thread!

The only way to know the meaning behind something you’ve written is to post it online and wait for the comments to tell you, then you’ll know. And that’s the only way you’ll know anything ever about anything ever. Sew the meaningless words and pictures, then reap the comments, is what my grandmother used to say. Anyone?

Sometimes when I’m writing Tina’s Groove I envy those writers’ freedom to be as genuine as possible. The reason syndicated cartoonists aren’t allowed the same freedoms as TV writers is because our comic strips are created for the family friendly newspaper audience. I should say super family friendly because even the family entertainment on television gets away with a lot more than what a cartoonist can say on the comics page. A lot more. Watch some prime time family TV tonight and note the number of times you hear the expression “this sucks”, “damn”, and “Hell”. And how many times do the characters acknowledge — in the most innocent way — the existence of sex, contraceptives, and same sex marriage? These things are strictly off limits to cartoonists with syndicated strips. The accepted norm on Television — and in life — is taboo on the comics page.

This brings to mind the notion that comics — especially the ones in newspapers — are for kids. That is a crazy idea that only two types of people can entertain: those who are ignorant of comics, and those who are just plain ignorant. I think most kids aren’t bothering with tame newspaper comic humor — they’re watching TV and YouTube where they can find stuff that’s edgier. (I swear I’ve seen billboards say things that would be a no-no on the comics page.) The truth is a large portion of comic strip readers are adults, and a large portion of comic strips are written for adults, and so I find it unfortunate that these strips can’t seem to get out of the “Father Knows Best” realm and keep up with the rest of the entertainment world. I’m not saying that comic strips ought to be as racy as the raciest thing on TV. Not at all. I’m saying that there’s room enough on the page to push the envelope just enough to allow the comics to better compete with other popular forms of entertainment. I’m saying that Tina, Carlos and Suzanne — to use my own characters as an example — should be able to use accepted forms of speech, like “Oh my God”, “this sucks”, and “What the hell?”

I think you can see why writing for syndicated comic strips is extra hard. It’s challenging to get the attention of an HBO audience with “Leave It To Beaver” humor. But here’s the flip side (and isn’t there always a flip side?): constraint nurtures discipline. Creators of syndicated strips are often forced to find novel and creative ways around these restrictions, with sometimes wonderful results. Even without the fairness of a level playing field, I believe quite a bit of newspaper comic strips are better written, sharper, and more entertaining than most of what’s offered on Television. I think you’ll agree.

Still, I would love to hear Tina say, “Oh, my God, this sucks.” Please? Just once? Gosh, no, someone might get hurt.

This Flintstones floor plan scenario is what I think about whenever I have to map out a scene in Pepper’s restaurant, or Tina’s apartment. Many years ago when I started Tina’s Groove my editor at the time — Jay Kennedy — had told me to invent a floor plan of Pepper’s restaurant. He never asked a second time, and I was more interested in writing gags than designing floor plans, so the matter was forgotten, and I was okay with that because I really didn’t believe in floor plans for comic strips.

The question I ask myself today is — do I regret not mapping out floor plans for the imaginary spaces of my strip? I think about it every time I find myself having to expand walls, make small rooms big, and big rooms small, have doorways appear and disappear, put corners in places where there weren’t any before — in short, re-invent the floor plan to suit the immediate needs of the scene, the way they did it for The Flintstones. And every time I manipulate the floor plan (Tina must have strong biceps from moving her furniture around every time she’s home) I get the feeling that I’m tricking the reader — like I’m getting away with cartoon craftiness. But I do it anyway because, well, I don’t have a designated floor plan to follow, and it’s too late to limit myself to one now. Which brings up a strong argument for not designing a floor plan for a comic strip: it imposes unnecessary restrictions to the blocking of your characters on their “stage set”. In fact, sticking to a floor plan may even ruin the delivery of gags, and get in the way of important visual information. In a comic strip nothing is perhaps more important than presenting a gag in the most efficient way possible. I can confidently say that floor plans fall somewhere at the bottom of the list.

What’s paradoxical about all this — and I’m sure other comic strip creators will agree — is that even without a pre-arranged floor plan I seem to have a changeable, but stable, map in my head of the imagined spaces of Tina’s world. I know where the walls are even when there aren’t any. (There’s your weird cartoon fun fact for the day.)

So, to answer my own question, no, I guess I don’t regret foregoing the floor plan. And I bet you, the reader, couldn’t care less where Tina’s couch sits, as long as there’s something exciting happening on it.

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Also, while I’m in this promotin’ mood, I should remind you that Valentine’s Day is coming up faster than Tina’s love life, and there’s a lot of really great gift ideas right here on this site, just a click away. Maybe you spotted a strip that would make that special person in your life blush, or laugh out loud — just click on the “Buy A Print” button below the strip on this site to get a gallery quality framed matted print of that strip. Sweeter than candy! And no lines…

Here are some of my personal favorites:

1. Ex’s name as a password?
2. DIY… yeah right.
3. He slays Dragons? Maybe not.
4. Don’t bring the stars to bed, darling 
5. Are you gonna finish that sentence?
6. One thing leads to another…….
7. What flowers say…

Or just feel free to browse the archives where there are years of strips to choose from…..

Thanks!