Comments on: Lio hits 150

By: Ty Sv

Ty Sv — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:45:00 +0000

This is probably my favorite Lio strip, by far. Liz, I’m surprised you don’t see the deeper truth in your earlier statement – that it’s the readers who choose which strips stay or go. Regardless of the fact that the strips depicted on the headstones retired, the fact is that the readers have chosen the most inane, unimaginitive and un-thought-provoking strips to go on taking up space in the paper. What do you think that says about them (and by extension, you)?

Bravo, Mark Tatulli. Bravo. In the beginning I thought your strip was just another in a long line of Calvin & Hobbes ripoffs, but it’s become clear that it’s closer to a love letter.

By: Zandra K.

Zandra K. — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 18:36:06 +0000

Liz, in your one of your earlier posts you mention how being a musician, your audience expects expertiece. However that is a different thing altogether than making new symphonies using, say, Mozart’s name and charicteristics. It may not be bad music but it isn’t especially original. Mark isn’t putting these people down but he pointing out the irony.

By: liz

liz — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:47:55 +0000

Yes, the rest of the comic reading community is now watching and they cannot be expected to know just what your personal relationships with your colleagues are – they can only interperet your strip for its content. Do you feel I misunderstood your strip or are you just surprised that it provoked such a strong reaction – maybe in your opinion an over-reaction? I respect your right to swap digs at your competitors, but I have a right to let you know that I find it offensive and feel that it crosses a line of good taste. It has been said elsewhere on this site that cartoonists benefit from any kind of feedback, good or bad and my opinion is the feed back of myself and some others who read your strip in our local paper.

By: markt

markt — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 04:45:17 +0000

My intent was to point out the irony of living cartoonists with dead strips versus dead cartoonists with living strips. No more than that. That said, it really doesn’t matter what I was trying to say…people will always apply their own message. That’s the nature of comics. Some get it, some don’t. But I’m always fascinated by how deeply some will look into a strip a read things that I never intended. I especially think it’s odd that “liz” would see a scowl on Lio’s face, a character that I created with a blank expression by design. But, again, people will see what they want to see. I have no control over that.

I think it’s worth mentioning that I love Guy Gilchrist. I also have good relationships of many, many of the cartoonists I routinely make fun of. In fact, many of them request the original art. Think of it this way…friends in the 3rd grade drawing cartoons making fun of each other and passing them back and forth, trying to out-do each other. That’s how I see it and I expect they do too. I have the highest respect for anybody who can make a buck in this crazy business and I don’t begrudge anyone their success or continued income. However, I do reserve the right to make fun of them in my comic strip. That’s one of the great joys of the art I am lucky enough to engage in…passing cartoons back and forth among my peers, but now the rest of the comic-reading community is watching.

By: liz

liz — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:26:03 +0000

Dave,
I kind of agree with you but I took the whistling and the happy expressions on the faces of the legacy strip characters to mean that they were going blithely on their way cheating death. I also took the scowl on Lio’s face to express disapproval of their attitude and the flowers in his hands to express reverence for those who stepped aside. I stand by my original assertion that it was a deliberate snub and an “inside” caroonist’s snub at that. I notice that Guy Gilchrist, creator of Nancy is on an earlier part of this thread complimenting Mark on his innovative strip. Since Nancy was one of the characters in this particular Lio strip I would be curious to know if he was personally offended or not bothered at all.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 23:11:23 +0000

I think the problem with this strip was that the editorial intent was really unclear. For one thing “whistling past the graveyard” does not mean “thumbing you nose at death” it means trying to ignore that death is inevitable. But the legacy strips have avoided that fate, so they ARE kind of thumbing their noses at death, NOT whistling past the graveyard.
Meanwhile, the strips in the graveyards didn’t “die,” they retired. The depiction makes it seems as though Fox Trot and Calvin & Hobbes were somehow victims of Hagar the Horrible, which isn’t the case at all.
I *think* his point is that he respects cartoonists for retiring their strips before they become pale copies of themselves done into senility and then taken up by assembly line artists, churned out to make elderly newspaper readers happy. Fine. But the tone of the strip didn’t capture that – it made it seem like the innovative strips suffered a grisly death at the hands of legacy strips.

By: Brennamom

Brennamom — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:40:33 +0000

Well said, JM! Perfect sumarization! Thanks :)

By: JM

JM — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 14:43:39 +0000

It was just a funny contrast between living cartoonists with “dead” strips and dead cartoonists with “living” strips. The characters walking past weren’t depicted as zombies..although I’m sure Lio would’ve loved that.
Lio is always fun and innovative, thanks Mark..keep it up!

By: liz

liz — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 21:06:05 +0000

Lefitte,
Then I appologize to you for interpreting your post that way. I agree that legacy strips may not be the most innovative thing on the comics page but most of those strips are what their readers require them to be. I would recommend you to try to access an interview Brian Walker did with NPR’ s Terri Gross last year. I used to think much as you do and this interview really opened my eyes to the position these artist’s often find themselves in. If they try to deviate at all from what their readers expect they catch hell for it. I don’t think taking swipes at these guys is helpful. When strips outgrow their audience they are often replaced anyway. Cathy and BC are losing a lot of papers lately – Cathy probably because there are now several good “Chick Strips” out there competing for her demographic, and BC because he now takes positions that offend people. You should also consider that many of these strips are encouraged to continue by their syndicates. Because these legacy strips make so much money for their syndicates, the syndicates can then turn around and invest in a new strip without that strip needing to make an instant profit.Some syndicates pay their new artists a minimum salary whether they make that money back in the beginning or not.
I doubt very seriously if that practice could continue without the legacy revenue.

By: Lefitte

Lefitte — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:42:30 +0000

That’s not my implication at all.