Drawing In Strips Should Still Matter…



... if only because this Richard Thompson portrait of Alice Otterloop as a feral two-year-old is funny all by itself, and hopefully adds an element to the final joke that wouldn't be there otherwise. It just doesn't seem right that the quality we can perceive in the above should fail to contribute in a positive way to the end result, especially as a general rule.

I wonder if strips in particular end up being read as code more than consumed as a unique artistic experience. When I was writing for a strip, I was told by syndicate folks that some people frequently used the same art in a different strip, mostly as a way to catch up but also because no one would notice. That linked-to Cul-De-Sac may even employ this technique, with the two Alice. There are plenty of people that believe almost no one reads comic strip art at all, and that at best the art is used as a visual pushing-off point to keep the readers' eyes locked on the words. I'm not certain. What I worry about is that because they're read so quickly, that this has a longterm effect on limiting what strips do. I also wonder if old strips hang on so strongly in part because they're so familiar they provide reassurance, that they're recognizable as humor more than they are actually satisfying, that they convince us they're funny more than make us laugh.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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