CSotD: riverrun past maeve and susan
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Here's my take on single-panel Sunday strips: They're justified if (A) the artwork is such that it would have been wasted in a tiny weekday strip or (B) the gag is so good that you're going to want to post it on your fridge and have it stand out.
Today's Between Friends could have worked without the detail, but it's definitely poster material, and the detail is a bonus. It'll not only stand out on your fridge, but it'll look good doing it. Which, given the subject matter, is kind of ironic.
Every competent strip has gags that can only be carried out by certain characters. Even in a slapstick strip like "Pearls Before Swine," a gag that works with Pig as the central figure won't work with Goat and, more to the point, there are gags for Goat that don't work for Zebra (a more subtle distinction in a strip with very few subtle distinctions).
One of the joys of this strip, however, is that it is a strip based on the distinctions between its three main characters, and yet the overlap of their personalities preserves the credibility of their friendship. Susan (that's her in the sweats) is the one perpetually playing catch-up, never in the shape she'd like to be in, and never quite who she'd like to be, while her companion today, Maeve, is the never-a-hair-out-of-place single neurotic, with Kim, the one not seen here, somewhat in the middle, guilt-ridden over family and deadlines, but, self-doubt aside, managing a good balance.
This particular conversation can only take place between Susan and Maeve, with Kim absent. It's an area in which Kim is too level-headed, and she would blunt the gag with her presence.
The question you may ask is, "Which of the characters represents the artist?" but there are better strips wherein to do so. Obviously, Charles Schulz and Charlie Brown were one and the same, as were/are Ellie Patterson and Lynn Johnston.
It's not that clear in this case, however. Susan seems the one most given to internal monologues, and, on her blog, Sandra Bell Lundy does occasionally go on streaks over whether she's been showing up at the gym. But she's just as apt to talk about the Kim elements of her life, and I don't think Maeve is far below the surface.
To quote Stephan Dedalus, a point-of-view character from a novel in which every character expresses the author's point of view at one moment or another, "Maeterlinck says: If Socrates leave his house today he will find the sage seated on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is to Judas his steps will tend. Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves."
I've read "Ulysses" twice and I've read "Between Friends" many, many times. They're both favorites for vastly different reasons, but the common element in which every character is an extension of the author is what makes them both stand out within their very different media. And I've tried reading "Ulysses" as a graphic novel, but it just seems to take longer that way. I would not encourage Sandra to do a version of "Between Friends" in Joycean prose, because that would also take everyone longer to no particular advantage.
As for the specifics of today's strip, I love telecommuting. I can run out to the grocery store in sweats with two days' growth and I'm guaranteed not to run into a client nor anyone associated with my work at all. And yesterday, I ordered my spring and summer wardrobe from www.hanes.com which I chose over my other regular couturier, www.dickies.com.
Because I don't care how everyone else thinks I dress. Especially when they are at least 100 and as much as 2,000, miles away, a situation that lets my Susan fly free and mostly ignore the nagging of my Kim and Maeve.
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