Reading through archives of several comics lately that are the micro-evolutionary variety (e.g. nobody ages), I’ve been wondering a bit about when / how the artists decide to make backward jumps in time. A specific example of this question comes into play with school aged characters. To some extent, the characters do age during the school year, if only because the school year proceeds from start to finish in a reaonable fashion. That is, at the beginning of the school year, the character is starting a given grade and at the end of that same school year, the character is finishing that grade.

But, then, we’re only talking a year, so that doesn’t matter a whole lot. And, yet, each summer, at some point, the artists revert from talking about having completed a given grade to talking about starting that same grade. Which I would think would occassionally get confusing.

Naturally, there’s often a long summer story arc, a camp or something of that sort, in which school is not really mentioned. And that seems to be a key to dealing with what with otherwise be major changes. Just ignore it for a while. (No, if you’re wondering, there’s no point to this article).

Another side of the micro-evolution comics, though, is the ability to have more involved non-major-event storylines. Take For Better or For Worse, which I stopped reading years ago because it seeed like it was constantly moving through long involved story lines in which the characters’ lives completely changed (or showing a character who has grown without any notice whilst another story arc was in process). Going through the same year over and over allows the author to keep exploring different aspects of that time in the characters’ lives.

One of my favorite comic strips and one of my on-and-off favorites have jumped ship from comics.com, and now are featured on their own websites. The former, Sheldon may be the most consistently funny comic currently running. The humor reminds me a great deal of Douglass Adams, because it is enhanced by, well, knowledge. And particularly geeky knowledge. The other strip is Barkeater Lake, which I’ve blithered on about before.

On Sheldon’s website, the author/artist, Dave Kellett, keeps a blog, in which, amongst many other things, he discusses how the website is going. The blog is not the easiest to navigate, so I gave up finding the article, but as I recall, Kellett noted that the reason he had moved Sheldon to its own website was financial, and it has successfully brought him more money than hosting on comics.com. I don’t know the reasoning behind Barkeater Lake’s move, although I assume it is similar. (Barkeater includes a blog as well, which I haven’t looked through).

The single websites seems to encourage feature-added environments. On Sheldon’s site in particular, this includes a forum, full archives, the ability to purchase original artwork, etc. Which means I actually spend time at the website, as opposed to read the strip and go on at comics.com.

So, all that to say, this brings to light one of the deficiencies in the process of information aggregation on the internet, best represented, I think, by RSS feeds (which somebody assumedly uses). Aggregation can be very nice: I read most of my favorite comics at one website, for example, but of course, it can also be very limiting, forcing the strips to fit their web presence within a pre-defined system. Which statement is not at all original or particularly revelatory. But I felt like making it. That’s all.

Some time ago, I blithered on about my thoughts on “no-change” vs “changing” comics. One of those I sighted as being “no-change” was Rudy Park. This received a comment questioning whether Rudy Park should really be in that category, which got me wondering too. After all, there are at least more elements of change than, say, Family Circus.

Now, for the last month or so, the comic has been announcing that a major character will die. And then the authors took two weeks off.

I find this particularly interesting because Rudy Park, similar to Boondocks, is on that edge, where there are some major changes and yet it’s a stretch to say any are permanent (particularly because both are so young) and the characters don’t age. I’m curious to see if Bell and Heir will take Rudy Park definatively into the “change” category and how that would affect the “normal” story-lines (and how many quote-marks I can throw in here).

In Candorville, which Darrin Bell also authors, the protagonist, Lemont, has recently acheived “a real job” and is considering marrying a woman. If the first sticks and the latter happens (which I doubt, especially with how long the process towards proposal has carried on), it may have similar interesting effects as to what may happen with Rudy Park.

Well, that was a subjunctive-intensive post, neh?

Oh, by the way, my guess on the offed-character is Darlene. After all, she’s married and not much featured now. (Maybe killed by one of Mort’s plants at his and Sadie’s wedding?)

I generally find single panel comics a waste of time. They’re simply too short to develop an interesting joke or story. To me, it’s primarily the lack of development that destroys the humor. Take, for example, a recent Brevity comic, in which an elderly lady calls a couple of guys at a baseball game “Litterbugs”. The amount of information contained in the picture is significant: it’s clear we’re at a ballpark; the guys are eating peanuts in an environment where throwing the shells on the ground–as they’re doing–is appropriate; the lady likely understands the etiquette, as the man with her has one of those foam hands. A well-set scene, and your basic irony, but it’s just not funny (this is my general feeling from Brevity and similar comics), and I think it’s mainly because I know nothing about these people.  (It actually became funnier as I wrote this when I noticed that the elderly couple are Boston fans, whilst the others wear Yankees gear–but that most people will pick that up is betting a lot).

Then there’s Ballard Street, which is consistently very funny. In fact, I find myself laughing out loud at it far more often than any other comic. Same basic principle, a single panel visual and possibly a one-liner. The difference to me is that I know the people in Ballard Street. Although the characters change with each day, I know them all, because I see parts of me in them. It’s a look at people with some social expectation removed, either doing something not socially condoned or responding outside of cultural norms. It’s the things we do when nobody’s looking that aren’t wrong or foolish, but that we don’t do in front of others because it’s not a part of our social selves. And because of that, I almost always identify with the characters.  And so, the one-liner works.

Note: I am no expert on comic strips, and I fully expect that anyone actually in that industry will laugh at this article. But I got to thinking about Barkeater Lake’s recent strips, and thought I’d share with the world. Blogging is healthy for me. Apologies to Mr. Pandolph.

Barkeater Lake has had some funny and clever moments in it’s 2½ years. Launched in February of 04¹, it’s initial story arc, to the best of my memory, focuses on Delores, a NYC native who moves to the small town of Barkeater Lake. Fish out of water. Hilarity ensues.

A little over two years later, it went downhill in a hurry. The last two to three months has been full of half-finished stories, reruns, characters-as-spoiled-actors, pop-up comics, etc. There’s no continuity and the new stuff just isn’t funny. It’s a little sad to see this comic so quickly degrade. I would not be surprised that the root issue here is that Corey Pandolph, the author, needed some r&r. Which is cool, and I imagine when he is past this, the comic (or a different one), will take off. But it has led me to ponder what happens to comic strips before they die. Some thoughts, with Barkeater Lake as focus.

• New artist: According to the comics.com’s About the Artist page, this is Pandolph’s first syndicated strip. I would imagine that most artist’s first strip fails. That’s part of doing pretty much anything.
• Wrong Focus: The About the Artist page also states that Pandolph “realized the perfect idea for a comic: his hometown.” It’s both too personal and too wide a scope. First, writing about your hometown is a great idea, if you don’t ever plan on going there again. Personal stories are difficult, because the funniest ones are often embarassing to your friends and family (or self). Second, the scope is way too wide. For Better or for Worse and Doonesbury can pull off a scope bridging, well, worldwide. But they’re established comics and they’re not gag-focused (NB: I don’t know what the focus of FBOFW is. I can barely bring myself to read it anymore). For Barkeater Lake, there’s too many locations and too quick jumps through them. The scenes lose their relevance.
• Too many characters: Unfortunately, Pandolph seems too quick to create new characters and let them be responsible for the new stories. Actually, I think the current difficulties may be a result of trying to cleanse this. The last few days have seen something of an explaining-away of some of these characters.
• Not sure if it’s a no-growth strip: I tend to divide comics into two arenas: Growth and no-growth strips. Growth strips (Doonesbury, FBOFW, 9 Chickweed Lane, Luann) see permanent changes in the lives of the characters. This is a key to their humor. Hence they tend to be more witty and often require an understanding of the storyline. No-growth comics are the ones where the basics stay the same (Nate, Frazz, Wizard of Id, Rudy Park). Most often, it includes children who never get older, but of course the greats in this arena are Peanuts and Garfield. Trust me, I’ve read Garfield for years. The only major change ever was the arrival of Odie (note: Garfield pretty much survives on only two characters). Few comics try to cross these lines (I wonder if this issue has not also influenced Aaron McGruder’s hiatus; the political subject matter begs growth, the characters are too non-growth). In either event, Barkeater Lake seems to straddle these two, and I imagine that would extremely frustrating for its author.

Well, then, those are some of my thoughts, such as they are. Hopefully, Barkeater will get back on track. For a time, it was one of my favorite strips.

Update 8/24/06 I’m happy to say that Barkeater Lake is getting back to its former quality. Whatever the problem was, the comic looks poised to once again become one of my favorites. And the downturn gave me a chance to engage in the wonderful opportunity of the blogosphere: uninformed speculation. Yay.