CSotD: New Year, new direction
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This particular installment isn't exactly a boffo laff fest, but it's a good strip-of-the-day for New Year's, because it looks like Norm Feuti is moving "Retail" in a new direction for 2011. On his blog, he says, "After 5 years, I think it’s time to shake things up a little!"
It makes me nervous because I like the strip so much, but it looks like a good move. One of the things that came up when Retail first appeared was the flexibility the mall setting gives the strip, what with the food court and other stores to draw upon, and Norm has used that from time to time, but I don't think he's exploited it to its full potential. I'll be interested to see if Marla's new place is, indeed, in a different mall, because it would limit the ability to return to Grumbel's for big-store humor. At the same time, there's no reason she can't have a cup of coffee with her former co-workers from time to time, and, meanwhile, she'll get to enjoy the pleasures of retailing from a very different perspective than that of the corporate cog.
Flexibility is inherent in the setting. Some time ago, Norm gave Cooper a second job at a convenience store, but that seems to have petered out. I don't know if that's because convenience-store humor didn't prove a deep enough well to draw from or if he had trouble focusing the character in a different role. But the advantage of the strip's overall setting is that retail workers can and do move back and forth without creating a disturbance in the Force and it's not necessary to come up with elaborate explanations for change. He's certainly taken advantage of that by adding new workers for a few story arcs and then disappearing them without mention, just like at the real mall.
This time around, he's stepping off the high board and, while Marla could ask for her old job back if it became necessary, I think the commitment to change is going to prove pretty absolute. It's a good move, because the department store setting was under two pressures: One was that the frustrations of working there had become pretty well defined and I suspect it was becoming a challenge to create new gags around them, and the other was that, the longer she worked with her boss, Stuart, the more he threatened to turn into a three-dimensional character, at which point his value as an irritant diminishes.
And so off we go on a new adventure. Retail has always been worth following, but the next several months should be even moreso.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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