Some Extra Notes on Boondocks

* Pam Noles sent along this message board thread focused on a supposed passed-along letter from a cartoonist, a letter which carries a unique reaction to Boondocks leaving the paper: that because newspaper editors compartmentalize their comics page, and consider all strips by black cartoonists "black strips," this puts many cartoonists in the strange position of rooting for a fellow black cartoonist to fail so that he can maybe get his spot.

No doubt this happens: newspaper strips are compartmentalized and many if not all strips by black creators are packaged, sold and treated as black strips. If you look at your newspaper's comics page, you can probably figure out what sub-market is sepcifically being targeted strip by strip.

But two weird things: One, Boondocks and Aaron McGruder didn't fail. Two, it's worth pointing out that for McGruder to have been in 300 papers, he likely got there not through replacing Bentley, Turner and Armstrong but by replacing other features.

* Boondocks' likely final departure made me recall another thing about its impressive launch: wasn't its art supposed to signal a new age of non-traditional cartooning? I swear this case was made a few times. I can't recall any more than one or two strips that even sort of look like McGruder's, and that's basically through a shared animation storyboard feel. It would be kind of strange that such a unique strip, one that was successful, might not have anything close to a legacy on the page.
 
posted 10:06 pm PST | Permalink
 

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