Comments on: News Briefs for December 17, 2008

By: KRANKY (JOE RANK)

KRANKY (JOE RANK) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:31:06 +0000

Serious cartoonists!

My….what is this world coming to?

By: Garey Mckee

Garey Mckee — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 07:33:28 +0000

There.

By: steve skelton

steve skelton — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:50:26 +0000

Holy Moley! Everything I said was tongue-in-cheek too!!!! You are taking my posts too seriously, Wiley.

By: Wiley Miller

Wiley Miller — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:07:47 +0000

Again, you took my posts far too seriously. Do I need to put smiley faces on everything said tongue-in-cheek?

By: steve skelton

steve skelton — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:38:29 +0000

I’m good!

I just never said anything about you doing a Garfield style strip, I was just merely trying to make a bit of a point and you turned it into a large blunt object.

Actually, I was thinking if I am having an online discussion about the maximum number of words that should be in a comic strip then I am not using my time very wisely.

By: Wiley Miller

Wiley Miller — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:03:01 +0000

Ok… Steve? You’re taking my posts waaaaaaaay too seriously. Now let’s get back to the subject, which was Karen saying she was going to try to hold BACK on her word count in her DAILIES, DOWN to 70 words… EVERY DAY. That’s what has some of us scratching our heads.

And there’s a reason my feature is called Non Sequitur. One week the dailies will be single panel gags (like this week) and the next week will be recurring character driven, four panel dialogue strips. The Sundays are almost always multi-panel, usually with dialogue, other times pantomime.

So relax. There’s nothing here to get all worked up about.

By: Rich Diesslin

Rich Diesslin — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:20:31 +0000

Steve, I think when Wiley has a one-panel gag, he draws it as a one-panel gag. I would not classify his multi-panel strips as one panel gags stretched out, they are “true” multi-panel. I attempted to break up my single panels into multi-panels for a specific project … and they definitely suffer for it. Wiley’s do not (IMHO). I’m impressed with his ease of doing that. Rhymes with Orange sort of does that, yet it’s more of a single panel (with set-up) in a comic panel space. I find going to multi-panels (from a single panel) difficult at best. Perhaps because I don’t have set characters, but it’s other aspects like timing and set-up (almost a whole mindset difference). On the other hand, to me, really wordy gags challenge my Sesame street attention span! I think of them more as ready for comic books. ;)

By: steve skelton

steve skelton — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:50:52 +0000

Word count depends upon the nature of your material. Doonesbury is a great example of a strip with more words that has been very successful.

I agree wholeheartedly that less words are more desirable when constructing a strip. Just be careful, as there are no concrete rules in cartooning. Perhaps the hardest part of doing a strip is knowing what to leave out.
( I remember Stevie Ray Vaughan saying the same thing about his notes)

By: Phil Wohlrab

Phil Wohlrab — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:45:37 +0000

What I meant was why continue the same strip now that it’s no longer in syndication. ..and i’m sure I’d get the same answer, she likes doing it. There’s nothing wrong with trying new ideas that’s all I’m saying. Unless of course this is part of a plan for a come back to print syndication

By: Josh McDonald

Josh McDonald — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:45:21 +0000

Plenty of high-quality strips keep consistently low word counts. As for Wiley’s Sunday strips, that’s an entirely different animal. The discussion began as a question of how many words can comfortably fit in a daily strip.