CSotD: Watching the process unfold
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It's been interesting, over the past few months, to watch the evolution of Rhymes With Orange as it went from the singular brainchild of Hilary Price to a collaboration between her and Rina Piccolo, who closed down Tina's Groove to make the changeover.
The diagram of these two established cartoonists would have a circle for "Ironic Social Observation" and another for "Gag Writer," which are both honorable aspects of cartooning in which both have long had a stake, but Price would loom larger in the former and Piccolo in the latter, and the part that has been fluctuating but growing since they joined forces has been the crossover bit in the middle.
My opinion is not the only one that matters, and perhaps it's one that doesn't matter at all, but in the last little while I have seen a balance that pleased me and caused me to pause over RWO several times.
Very few strips are fabulous right away. Sometimes, that's a case of the reader needing to get into the flow of the strip, and sometimes it's a case of a new strip needing to find its legs.
For this re-invented, re-energized strip, while your mileage may indeed vary, I think it's been a combination of those factors, and I'd love to have been a fly on the wall or a Russian tapped into the emails or however I might have listened in on the collaborative process.
However that unfolded, today's strip provided a chuckle in which I felt the influence of both women and I hope it's a sign that things are settling in because I like what I'm seeing.
I also like a chance to plug the annual Open Studio event at the artists' building (Arts & Industry Building, 221 Pine Street, Florence, MA 01062) where the Hilary half of the strip happens, which is always a fun, informal event with not even slightly stale Halloween candy and wine aged about the same amount.
Also, I hate those faucets. Not sure the cursing really helps, but I've certainly tried it.
Also on the cartooning process, I hope everybody checked back with Brian Fies for the now-completed report on the loss of his house and most of his neighborhood. It's a valuable document that brings the story home in a way news reports — perhaps I should say "news reports in other media" — can't.
Michael Cavna spoke with Brian and you should go read that article, in which Brian explains his purpose and thinking.
There are a lot of postings of videos in which we get to watch an artist draw, but this is a case of getting to watch an artist think, and that portion of the process also matters.
Meanwhile, over at Bug Martini, Adam Huber is cartooning now from the perspective of a new, first-time father, and that's a process, too. Becoming a father, but also working it into your cartooning. Both those things.
The strip has always been a wry take on whatever he's got on his mind and now this is something he's got on his mind and, boy, that gordian sleeper resonates with me. It's like somebody skinned a starfish and then just added random snaps all around the edges.
Part of being a grandfather is the boffo laffs you can have watching your kids go through the things you went through with them, and a particularly large part of that is the fact that now you don't have to.
Another new father in my social networks asked about diapering difficulties and it reminded me of spending some time babysitting a very young grandson, which included a process I have since described as trying to diaper a salmon.
Attempting to hold him down while figuring out a gordian sleeper was a memory I had been working to repress.
It will be interesting to watch Huber go through this, and I hope it doesn't dull the edge of his oft-inappropriate sense of humor, because the world is full of observational humor about parenting and I'd be disappointed if his strip lapsed into good taste and lost what has made it so worth keeping on my daily list.
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This non-cartoon represents what should be said about the #MeToo movement on social media.
I've seen a couple of cartoons on the topic, but, while I have commented on the Weinstein issue itself, my response to #MeToo is to quote the aphorism "Never miss a good chance to shut up."
Even supportive comments from guys are an example of the "problem solving" response that frequently isn't called for when women tell you something that's on their minds, but, even beyond that, in this case it falls into the category of those times when less is more.
As I noted when I posted the first part of Brian Fies's piece on the fire, I've known him for about 20 years, but that doesn't change the fact that I have nothing to say to him except "Sorry."
It's also true at funerals. "I'm so sorry" is pretty much the best thing you can say, and pretty much the only thing you should say, though a casserole may be welcome, too.
At my brother's wake, I stepped outside during the Rosary, and a fellow who worked with my dad arrived. As we spoke, he bombarded me with every cliche in the book of things you probably shouldn't say: That the Lord only takes the good ones, that there is a plan, that … well, you're heard them.
I knew he was a good engineer but a comically inarticulate guy and so I was already cutting him some slack, but then I remembered that he had backed over his own toddler son a quarter century earlier, and I realized he was desperately, sincerely, painfully doing his best to find something to say.
Which story I tell to assure guys out there that their good intentions are noted.
But STFU.
Really.
Just shut the fuck up and listen.
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