Wondermark

The Comic Strip Doctor: Drabble

June 29, 2023August 1, 2005

what IS a drabble

(Click any of the images to zoom in on them.)

Drabble is one of the strips that are usually in the middle of the newspaper page, easy for the eye to skip over. It’s the very definition of “eminently forgettable.” I’m fairly certain that if there wasn’t a picture of the main character right above this paragraph, you’d have no idea what comic I’m talking about. In fact, you still may not. If that’s the case, then just keep reading as a favor to me — I’ll take all the charity I can get.

Drabble is the creation of Kevin Fagan, a man who has never held a job that did not involve creating Drabble. In 1979, Fagan became the youngest comic-strip creator to be signed to a syndication deal (United Feature Syndicate). He was 21, and had four years of college-newspaper cartooning under his belt. Drabble was borne from Fagan’s desire to “do a strip that students could relate to. I wanted to avoid political stuff, because that’s what every other college cartoonist does.”

Thus we’re gifted with the story of dimwitted Norman Drabble, his dimwitted father Ralph, and their family that’s not really important enough to mention (precocious Patrick, precocious Penny, mom June/Honeybunch, Oogie the cat, Wally the weiner dog, and Bob the duck, as well as sarcastic Norman’s-love-interest Wendy, if you must know). Like The Simpsons, Drabble has, over the course of its run, drifted away from focusing on the son and more towards focusing on the father, perhaps due to the shift in Fagan’s perspective as he ages.

Let me make one thing clear: Drabble is not the worst comic in the newspaper. (That honor goes to Momma.) About once a month or so, it achieves the base level of quality that, in a perfect world, would be the minimum acceptable standard for all syndicated comic strips. And, from all accounts, Kevin Fagan is a helluva nice guy.

That being said…

Drabble is retarded. It’s every cliché from every sitcom ever made. This week is Week Two of a massive story arc involving Norman’s struggle with a tip jar — territory that was a C-plot in a Seinfeld episode from ten years ago. Drabble has mined such comedic veins as math (pi r squared = pie is round!), travel (New York taxicabs drive crazy!), and if you’ve ever not laughed at a joke because it was too dumb or obvious, Kevin Fagan will make it into a Drabble strip in 2015.

The characters are cliché. Ralph (the dad) is Homer Simpson without the interesting antics, repeatable catchphrases or pitiable quirks. Norman (the older son) is just dumb in a shallow-fiction way, meaning that at every juncture you can predict that he will make the really obvious wrong decision. Because he’s dumb, you see! I’d love to see a comic strip about a realistically dumb kid, who’s always making bad choices because he gets angry too much and likes to spite those who think they know better than him, and who’s powerlessly watching his life spiral out of control while desperately trying to forestall the inevitable by turning to bad homemade meth and Red Hook and punching holes in walls while hopped up on aerosol paint fumes. I knew lots of those guys in high school, and any of them would be much more fascinating to watch than Norman from the detached distance of a comic strip:

Hypothetical situation: At a salad bar.

Norman: Sneezes at the sneeze shield. To the chagrin of onlookers, he explains: “Well, it’s a sneeze shield, isn’t it?”

Realistic dumb guy: Leans underneath the sneeze shield to get at the beets. Sneezes directly onto the salad at point-blank range. Looks around furtively, and amidst disapproving glares, he stalks off angrily, shouting, “I didn’t do nothing!” Brow furrowed, he is on the receiving end of silent stares and whispers for the rest of the night.

Here’s a Drabble strip from the family’s aforementioned trip to New York. This was published on August 22, 2005:

In the first panel, we see the outside of the “Big Apple Hotel”, which would place the scene in New York City, at 752 Fifth Avenue. While trying to find a picture of 752 Fifth Avenue in New York (where, according to Google, the real Big Apple Hotel is located), I learned that most of that block of Fifth is occupied by the Bergdorf Goodman department store. In other words, it would seem — and I’m no expert — that the Drabble family is lodging in a department store. It’s sort of like that commercial, where the people are arguing in their kitchen, and then it turns out they’re actually in Ikea? If we live in a world where that could happen, I suppose it’s reasonable to assume that the dumb Drabbles could make a similar mistake. It should be said that I have never actually been to New York.

In the panel, someone (Ralph, probably) is saying, “The key to a successful visit to New York is to not look like tourists!” Right off the bat, you know where this is going. It’s so painfully obvious that this conceit was old when Bob Hope did it in his 1851 hit, Road to Antarctica. It’s so painfully obvious that I actually wrote this comic strip at the age of seven during Sustained Silent Reading in Mrs. Havens’ second grade class. It’s so painfully obvious that cave paintings featuring this same joke have recently been unearthed in France. Please, Kevin Fagan, give us a twist! Reverse our expectations! Do something that would actually meet the definition of the word “humor”! Perhaps, against all odds, he will: let’s read on.

In the second panel, Ralph is briefing the family on his plan to help them blend in. Norman and Honeybunch are smiling eagerly; Patrick and Penny are too short to have readable expressions. Ralph: “So I went out and bought some things that will help us look like native New Yorkers!”

Kevin Fagan, this is an open message to you: As I retype your dialogue, I find myself unconsciously changing it to make it shorter, more concise, and more interesting. Then I have to go back and correct it so it’s an accurate transcription. Please call me.

In the third panel, we see the (inevitable) punch line: Everyone’s dressed like tourists! Whoa-ho-ho! Boy, Ralph, what a dummy you are! Patrick is the moral compass, so to speak: “Are you sure native New Yorkers wear Statue of Liberty hats?” Norman’s not so sure, but Ralph is quick with the response: “Trust me! We’ll fit right in!” And the kicker: Mom and Penny roll their eyes! Whoa-ho-ho!

Before I delve further into the specifics of this particular strip, I’d like to offer Mr. Fagan a general note of advice. In many of his storylines — such as this week in New York, or the prior week in Niagara Falls, both part of a larger “vacation” story arc — he makes several weak jokes and then flees the scene, like a drive-by shooter peppering a house with random, hopscotch-girl-hitting bullets rather than hammering one humorous concept further home over several days, like a hit man stalking through a house and methodically shooting each occupant in the head, two bullets in the temple, then stripping off his surgical gloves and leaving them to melt in the fireplace. My recommendation is to play out certain situations in greater detail; to mine them deeper for comedy, instead of strip-mining the already-picked-over surface. If I try hard, like a horse pulling a heavy cart, I might be able to get a few more metaphors into this sentence, like a series of successively fatter men cramming their way into an elevator. In a library.

For example, here’s another of the New York series, this one printed on August 26:

Okay, I’m not going to retype all the dialogue, but you get the point: fish-out-of-water comedy. Ralph is a mall security guard, you see, so he feels it’s within his domain to perform a citizen’s arrest on some errant jaywalkers (never mind that jaywalking is a citation misdemeanor at best, and if they’re crossing at the crosswalk that’s probably more than good enough for local law enforcement. Apparently, New York has a big crossing-in-the-middle-of-the-street problem. I have never been to New York).

At the risk of giving Fagan too much credit, this strip has potential. It’s no knee-slapper, but it’s a prime example of a not-that-funny strip that’s tolerated because it’s the setup for the following week’s worth of storyline, each episode more hilarious than the last.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. The next day, Ralph has moved on to the Empire State Building — presumably he’s collared the wayward criminals and moved on with his vacation. The “citizen’s arrest” comic would have been a great setup for a few more days’ worth of Ralph attempting to catch the jaywalkers. His braggadocio in panels three and four, above, is a more productive use of his character than any sort of lovable buffoonery.

Besides, the more general the jokes, the shallower the humor — specificity is better. Not to draw this unfavorable comparison again, but when Homer Simpson came to New York, he spent the whole episode dealing with a parking ticket.

The tip-jar storyline, midway through Week Two as of this writing, is a good example of a concept when “longer” — more strips on a specific subject, like I’m advocating above — is not always “better”. It’s a matter of being more judicious with which concepts merit further development.

Setting aside the larger issue of the New York storyline, if we are to rescue the “dress like tourists” strip, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Fagan’s not that great of an artist, and he’s certainly not a very precise draftsman, but he’s given us a fair amount of specificity in the drawings that we’ll have to work around. Here’s my take on how to improve Drabble:

Until next time… I’ll see you in the funny papers.

— August, 2005

(Back to Comic Strip Doctor index.)

The Comic Strip Doctor: Marmaduke

June 29, 2023July 1, 2005

big dog, big bone

In a recent interview, Marmaduke‘s Brad Anderson dropped hints as to his legacy:

“Hank Ketcham died a couple years ago, but he had two guys in training, and you can’t tell the difference. And he always had writers. He had quite a big staff. I don’t have any staff, except my wife, who takes care of the office.”

Anderson, born in 1924, started cartooning at the age of 15. In 1954 Marmaduke began appearing in newspapers. The mischievous Great Dane has sold over 10 million copies of his over two dozen books. It’s currently featured in 500 newspapers in over 20 countries.

Anderson must awake each morning terrified. There’s no one else. There’s no Marmaduke heir. The dog will die with him.

He must keep living — if only to keep Marmaduke alive. Because that dog is all that brings meaning to his life. It’s all the success he has ever known.

In my local newspaper, the crappy square strips — Marmaduke, Heathcliff, Dennis the Menace, and Family Circus — all appear together, in a sort of matrix of suckitude. Occasionally they synergize; one may inadvertently comment on another, or illuminate an unseen facet of an issue raised by another. Each of the four consistently deals subtextually with deep-seated social neuroses — with Dennis it’s the fear of abandonment; Heathcliff addresses post-violent-victimhood paranoia; and Family Circus is racist. (More on these in future articles.)

But Marmaduke is uniquely psychosexual; the dog is a huge, lumbering id waving its monster lipstick-phallus throughout the tightly-buttoned Winslow household while tension simmers just below the surface:

why are they in a spa in the middle of the day?

Marmaduke the dog is the rape fantasy taken flesh; he is the overpowering force that conquers your will and thus leaves you inculpable. You physically cannot resist; therefore you are absolved of responsibility. It is not your fault. (The tacit implication is that you are then free to enjoy it guiltlessly.)

However, brutalizing rape is socially unacceptable behavior. It’s excused because he’s a dog, but it’s not condoned. He is a force that can only be vectored, not contained, but civil society must at least do their best to try and harness his surging energy. Thus the Winslows and their hapless neighbors must discourage Marmaduke’s advances whenever possible:

not again!

However, there is a clear difference between what society must openly condemn and what may be illicitly enjoyed behind closed doors. Anderson delights in dancing across this line with the character of Dottie Winslow (the wife and mother). Marmaduke is several times larger than her husband, Phil; in terms of testosterone energy per pound Marmaduke is a pure dynamo:

forget it, marm.

And so Anderson explores this relationship between the unfulfilled housewife and the sexual beast that lives with her family. When Phil is at work, and the children at school, she is alone with him Are her needs as a woman being met by her husband? Did she marry for love, or for convenience? Did she, in fact, settle down too early? Anderson hints at a longing buried deep in her psyche.

look at that bitch prancing around outside like nothing even happened

But whatever she feels, she is part of society. She cannot act. Anderson has filled Dottie’s world with people to whom her desires are monstrous. Each day, she walks a tenuous balancing act between propriety and fulfillment; a razor-thin line separates her fragile doll’s house and a cathartic loosening of every inhibition that would allow her to feel, even just once, what it would be like to live.

It is a line she must not cross.

lucky you!

In his comic strip, Anderson has created a model of the human condition. The Marmaduke-id and the Phil/society-superego combat each other in the person of the Dottie-ego. To function perfectly in the artifice of society, Anderson asserts, we must become a neutral party to our own desires; conversely, to give in to our innate selves is to reject the mores and codes of the constructed world that sustains our shallow life.

Cruelly, Marmaduke himself is not party to Dottie’s torment. He is ever present, ever willing, should she ever decide to give in and fall into her own infinity. He’s ready to go anytime; however, human society in the aggregate — Phil, for example, personifying the “rules” — cannot allow humans in the singular to experience the depths of all that they might.

This is the joke that mankind has pulled on itself.

but he's ready to go, man, read-y-to-go.

To Anderson’s credit, when his contemporaries have all passed on their mantles and died, he clings to his creation, his mankind-in-microcosm, and tempts us with the challenging possibilities of what man might someday become. In the same interview cited above, Anderson describes his creative process:

“I think like a dog, and that helps a lot.”

Anderson has opened himself to that id, that release to instinct and desire and carnal pleasure. Anderson beckons us temptingly from the other side of the rainbow. But Anderson knows that the “rules” are what keep us together. Maximal individual fulfillment on a global scale would lead to chaos, depriving us of infrastructural elements we need to survive. So it’s a trade-off: to live, to be able to buy food and homes and blankets and trinkets, we must die a little. We must shut away our ravenous base natures and contribute to the homogeneous general good. No matter how painful on a personal level, for the sake of society, we must not allow the Marmaduke-id primacy:

forget it.

The problem is, while Marmaduke lends itself readily to textual analysis, it’s never very funny, and it is, after all, a comic strip. It’s always about a big dog climbing on things or being awkward or being annoying, and there are about three jokes in that concept, and Anderson’s been doing them over and over for fifty-one years. From the same interview:

“And, of course, dogs do the same thing over and over, but if you follow them around, they do it a little bit differently every time. So that’s what I try to do.”

This is great for little-old-lady-with-her-morning-tea comicstrippery (while the coal-black spark in her inmost being is fanned, perhaps, into a wan but unrecognized flame) but bad for our hip, ironic, post-postmodern cynical times.

The problem is that the flaw lies not as much in the writing of each individual strip as it does in the underlying concept. But, in keeping with the spirit, I will rewrite the above strip (Marmaduke on the throne) for today’s audience:

Caption: “Children, you won’t believe me now, but you’ll thank me later — no matter what’s he’s told you, all authority on heaven and earth has not been given unto him.”

Until next time… I’ll see you in the funny papers.

— July, 2005

(Back to Comic Strip Doctor index.)

The Making of Wondermark, Part III

June 29, 2023December 3, 2004

XII. DISTRIBUTION

The strip is complete, but before it goes out into the world, it must be approved by the Distribution Chief. It’s Chief’s job to know how the strip will play in various markets. Some strips are held back in various regions; others have alternate wording substituted to avoid (or correctly translate) regional slurs.

About 25% of all completed strips are outright rejected at this stage, whether due to Standards & Practices violations (the infamous “commythumpers” episode) or the fact that their moment has simply past (recently, an entire Yasser Arafat story arc was scrapped at the last moment at great expense to the company).

Once approved, the finished strip is taken to a studio and photographed with a medium-format lithography camera using Kodak 120 ISO high-resolution color film. One print is sent to Marketing, while the negative is scanned at 9600 dpi with an Agfa scanner for archival purposes. Dust on the scanner lens is our constant nemesis.

The original illustration board is now carefully antiqued. A full three-sevenths of Wondermark’s charm is its ‘vintage’ look, and that’s thanks to a team of freelance antiquers who are brought in to age the illustration board. Using authentic 19th-century engraving tools and patinas, they brush and carve the board to resemble a Victorian woodcut engraving. The lettering, safe on the acetate overlay, is unaffected by the antiquing.

sucker
Detail: panel before antiquing

this was funnier back when the comics on the main page were all lo-res and pixely
Detail: panel after antiquing

This painstaking process normally takes around six weeks.

XIII. FINAL EFFECTING

The antiquing process culminates in the board being allowed to age in a cool, dark cellar for up to six weeks. Once completely cured, the piece undergoes digital compression that results in the carefully-modulated pixeling that is Wondermark’s unique stylistic fingerprint.

This comprehensive process coalesces into a final product that is surely the best in every respect. The diversity of voices, each with their own insistence on meaningless revisions and belief in the inerrant supremacy of focus-grouped pabulum, combine to produce a comic strip that is equally appealing to everyone, everywhere:

The final product, after testing-driven revisions (click for bigger)

This time-tested process is what produces all of the top-notch comic-strippery that fills two hilarious pages in the newspapers each day. The only difference is that Wondermark’s creator is still alive.

back to wondermark main page

The Making of Wondermark, Part II

June 29, 2023December 2, 2004

VI. LAYOUTS

The envelope is opened, its lightly-scented contents revealed, and the approved Script is on its way to becoming a fully-fledged, print-ready Strip.

At this point the paste-up composite of the approved script is carefully reviewed for composition, panel layout, balloon placement, and sprite ratio. Each of these factors has been carefully and precisely set by the creative personnel upstairs, and every detail must be retained as exactly as possible in the finished product.

Typically, the paste-up will be enlarged and projected onto a sheet of 32” x 40” illustration board (our liners use Crescent #200, extra heavy weight, hot press). The forms and gestures are lightly traced with a 5H or 6H pencil, and a digital photograph of the board is sent to the ballooner. The ballooner lays in rough dialogue balloons for reference, so that the penciller will know to leave space for the final balloons in the composition.

The paste-up is useful early on for giving the layout artists a vague indication of the preferred composition, but then it’s archived. The pencillers have found that they produce more evocative work when the Marvin or Jump Start or La Cucaracha panels that’ve been used in the paste-up are out of view.

VII. ROUGHS

The layouts complete, a high-resolution backup clone is made of the illustration board while the board itself is overnighted to the roughing studio in Korea. There, talented artists work from the existing layouts to rough in each panel’s shapes and forms, freeing the pencillers to concentrate on detail and expression rather than the technical minutiae of proportion and perspective. This process usually takes about two days per strip.

he likes it rough, I can tell
Roughs in Korean studio

VIII. PENCILS

Having seen the paste-up, the research team has already begun compiling reference material — photographs of needed props, Muybridge motion stills, or actual objects or models for the pencillers to draw from. A typical panel requires anywhere from six to ten reference items; some of the more exotic strips have required (as you will no doubt recognize) a bicycle-riding elephant, which was procured and brought into the studio; a seafaring schooner; two cows on a seesaw (actually one cow drawn twice); and a dead man.

When the roughs return from Korea, the pencillers begin the tedious job of creating images where before there were only vague images. They are a fastidious group, often working late into the night, and they have a powerful union, which means they take a lot of breaks. A typical comic panel may take two to four days to pencil, with up to six pencillers trading off in shifts.

The completed pencils are once again subject to the approval of the Creative Director before any ink is applied. This late approval is mostly a formality, as by now it’s relatively late in the game to switch gears, but some minor changes can be made if necessary.

IX. BALLOONS

Before the inking, the balloonist makes light sketches on the actual illustration board to indicate the size and placement of all word balloons. While many comic strips now use computers to add the word balloons and text over the finished art, Wondermark still employs the traditional balloonist and letterer, both artisans who were grandfathered in under the current union contract and neither of whom can be legally fired.

Their placement finalized, the balloonist begins crafting the balloons on a sheet of acetate that will overlay the inked board. This process is normally completed at the same time as the inking.

X. INKING

Perhaps the most exacting step in the creation of the finished strip is the inking process. Using Winsor & Newton Series 707 pure sable brushes (sizes 00 through 3), Rapidograph technical lining pens, and croquill nib pens with Pelikan india ink (below), the inkers interpret the precise pencils into bold black and white. This ensures the art’s archival quality and makes for easy and sharp reproduction.

pelikan is also the preferred tattoo ink: TRUE FACT
Pelikan india ink

Fine artists in their own respect, a close-knit team of three inkers working in shifts can complete an entire strip in four days.

XI. LETTERING

Once the ink is dry, the letterer uses registration marks to lay the acetate sheet containing the opaque white balloons over the inked illustration board. A second acetate sheet containing the dialogue, written with fine-point dry-erase pens, is then laid over the balloon layer.

The entire creative crew, including the Creative Director and the Executive V. P., traditionally gather around an easel in the lunchroom to eat bagel chips and discuss the dialogue. At this stage alternate verbiage can easily be substituted in and evaluated with the finished artwork. The balloonist usually petitions against major changes, since it would mean re-painting the balloons. Minor changes he’s all for, however, and some of our best punch lines (“I hate cracker children!”) have been the balloonist’s.

When the best possible dialogue copy has been created by this committee, the letterer will use an Ames lettering guide and Rapidograph technical pens to transcribe it precisely onto a matte acetate sheet.

Now, so the world can see it: Click here for Part III (of III)

The Making of Wondermark, Part I

June 29, 2023December 1, 2004

The creation of a comic strip is an arduous and seldom-rewarding task. Sweat, blood, tears, ink and occasionally urine must combine in a subtle alchemy on the illustrative page, by necessity ripping creative gashes in the artist’s soul that only sting more greatly with the acrid tang of exposure to the public consciousness.

The creators of The Wizard of Id, comic-strip greybeards Peter Parker and Bret “Hitman” Hart, once stated that the creative process “…is a [mistress]…with [cruel proclivities]…and a [sadistic streak]…that [only] sometimes leads to [the expected release; that of] an [attentive readership]…much less [widespread commercial appeal].” It’s a harsh world for a newbie to come to terms with; however, here at Wondermark we have streamlined this delicate and psychically dangerous process into a slick, successful art.

This does not mean that the processes described below are not difficult or torturous. They are both, in roughly equal quantities, sprinkled liberally with despair and occasionally garnished with a dash of coppery, nutmeg Hate. The following account will be by nature incomplete and imprecise, but it is our devout hope that some if not both of Wondermark’s devout readers will forgive the omissions, fill in the gaps, sit back, and learn a little something about comedy.

I. THE CONCEPT

Every step in the process is difficult, but coming up with the concept is by far the most emotionally taxing. Our creative staff reads several newspapers every day, staying abreast of current events both domestic and international, momentous and mundane, searching for those small items that — to the trained eye — represent the ever-changing character of the culture.

For example, recently in Italy a love-struck lunatic stole an ambulance and careened through city streets, wailing the siren to serenade his (hopefully impressed) bella. While this might rapidly become fodder for an E! Original Movie, it has to pass through a much more rigorous gauntlet of inquiry before being considered to be potential Wondermark material:

Is the subject riding the Zeitgeist like a tidal wave?

Our research department took an informal survey of 10,032 Americans and Western Europeans, asking them a variety of questions including their emotional reaction to this news item. The survey also included “dummy” questions designed to disguise the true nature of the survey, so as to weed out “prampters”, or respondents who concoct bogus answers for sport (“prampting”).

The dummy questions included such irrelevant gems as “What criteria do you use when deciding which brand of mung beans to purchase?” and “Did ‘moral values’ play a role in deciding who you would vote for in the Presidential election?”

The survey clearly indicated that the public would be highly receptive to us shining our blinding cultural spotlight on the Italian incident. This is the preeminent criterion for subject selection.

Is there sufficient material to inform a one-to-seven-panel, 3” x 9” sequential illustration?

Drawn out to its full potential, the paramour-turned-paramedic scenario could probably fill at least three panels (assuming the conventional setup-reinforcement-reversal paradigm), or, failing that, could possibly work as an extended single-panel non sequitur.

Would the proposed subject provide an opportunity for side-splitting humor, wry irony, clever witticism, or at the very least a Ziggyesque rhetorical observation?

This is the toughest question to answer. Sure, the material’s there, but is it worth doing? The reality was no, but for this exclusive look behind the scenes at the Internet’s first and only comic strip, we’ve made a special exception. For the sake of this article, we’ll be expending all the normal resources in the service of a doomed concept. This only differs from the norm in that we usually don’t recognize a concept’s stupidity until much later in the process, after it’s far too late (and too embarrassing, not to mention expensive) to turn back.

II. THE PROPOSALS

Once the concept is decided upon, a battery of scripts are written to create a comprehensive campaign. The writing staff, under the guidance of the Creative Director, will each write several “spec” scripts for consideration, approaching the concept from many different angles. For example:

WONDERMARK SPEC SCRIPT - “MAMMA MIA”

PANEL 1: A dapper YOUNG MAN kneels in front of
a LOVELY LASS.

                  YOUNG MAN
       There is nothing new under the sun,
       save thy tender mercies.  I shall
       issue a dulcet cry to the heavens
       befitting thee, o goddess of beauty!

PANEL 2: The Young Man leaps into a passing
ambulance, knocking the previous occupant
(a NECK-BRACED HOBO) into a canal.

                  YOUNG MAN
       For thee, my dearest, there is
       no muting the song of the swan...

PANEL 3: The Lovely Lass throws a hand to her
forehead.

                  LOVELY LASS
       Your promises are promising, my
       promised one, but only by hearing
       them amplified by the life-van’s
       golden throat shall I be truly
       convinced of your sincerity!

                  NECK-BRACED HOBO
      Agkkk.

This script has a lot going for it; it’s got romance, passion, and the clever last-word-in-the-last-panel twist that always tickles the kids. But it’s a little heavy-handed for Middle America. In contrast, the script on the following page has our most discerning demographic firmly in mind:

WONDERMARK SPEC SCRIPT - “SNOWBOARD MONKEYS”

PANEL 1: A PIZZA CHEF tosses a disk of dough
into the air. Suddenly, the WALL BREAKS IN!

                  PIZZA CHEF
      Holy a-baloney!

PANEL 2: Three HIP BLACK CHICKS burst through
the hole in the wall!

                  AFROED CHICK
      What’s shaking, white meat?

                  HOOP-EARRINGED SISTA
      Looks like his belly!

                  RESPECTABLE AFRICAN-
                  AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL
      Bwah, ha, ha!

PANEL 3: The Pizza Chef juggles meatballs.
An AMBULANCE races to the scene.

                  PIZZA CHEF
      Looks a-like you a-gotta my number, eh!

                  HOOP-EARRINGED SISTA
      Mm-hmm!

The writers and the Creative Director will further refine the campaign of scripts, finally sending a package proposal to the Executive Vice-President. The Executive V. P. will mull over the proposal, considering the resarch numbers and survey results and determining the best course of action. After much tinkering based on her own preferences and those assumed for the target demographic, she will approve a handful of scripts to be produced.

III. SPEC STRIPS

The compositing team will take the approved scripts and create rough evaluation versions, or “paste-ups”, of each. At this stage, there may be as many as six or as few as eight scripts approved.

Using stock imagery, similar panels from other comic strips, or existing footage of known characters, the compositors will assemble the paste-ups with tape and Glu-Stic so that the creative team can have a rough vision of what the final product will look like.

Paste-up (click for bigger)

Only one strip will go to press, but as many as four may be focus-grouped in the final stage of selection. The process of focus-group studies, in which quantity values are assigned to every possible facet of every reaction expressed by a generally unopinionated group of otherwise-engaged mall patrons, helps the creative team cull the inferior concepts. Focus-group testing produces a matrix of numerical scores, determining empirically which homogenized product seems to be marginally better than the others.

IV. REVISIONS

Once the spec scripts have been turned into paste-ups, the process enters the long and soul-sucking process known as “executive revisions”. Every image is scrutinized; every line of dialogue is tweaked and double-tweaked; every element is examined until all involved have lost every shred of objectivity.

you should see some of the other dialogue

Detail from paste-up

When this occurs, the “marking” process begins: each link in the chain of command, from Executive V. P. to Line Cook, will make a small, insignificant and possibly detrimental change to the product, thereby “marking their territory”, much like a dog does. Since this process by definition requires the input of each person, everyone’s job is secured.

When the strips are satisfactory to all involved, they go “to test.” This is the aforementioned process by which otherwise-unemployed individuals will stand in a shopping mall in an otherwise-ignored region of the country and accost passers-by, soliciting their everyman opinion. Experience has proven that this practice is the only possible way to determine the reaction of humans to the product, and therefore its quality or lack thereof.

V. THE DECISION

Finally, the Moment arrives. A specially-certified auditing agency compiles the testing results and delivers the scores to the Executive V. P., who makes the Decision of which strip to produce. Creating a kinda-weekly comic strip is a time-consuming and expensive process, so once the Decision is made and the actual strip finishing has begun, there’s No Going Back. For a strip with such a high standard of quality, the finishing process is very intensive. Its success is dependent largely on instinct borne from years of experience judging the temerity of the public consciousness.

The Decision arrives at the finishing campus in a sealed envelope. The above-the-line team, by virtue of this envelope, have symbolically passed the baton to the below-the-line craftsmen, having done everything possible to pave the way to artistic magnificence (and its close, burly cousin, commercial success).

The creation of the approved strip begins. Click here for Part II (of III)

#1549; A Bargain at Any Price

— July 17th, 2024