FurBabies, February 14, 2024
The Therapy Dog Test storyline began a month after Stella made her resolution on December 31. While some of the delay was due to the need to get the Dog Family licensed and vaccinated (and the proof of vaccination must be provided next year—you have been warned, Shawm!) I started it on February 5 so that Item 8, “Reaction to another dog” would fall on Valentine’s day.
The characters receive a surprise tomorrow and the story goes in a new direction. I did not plan this originally. It grew directly out of my research, particularly an email exchange I had with a local provider of Therapy Dogs.
The resolution makes the story line so much better. Oddly enough they were looking for neighborhood people to help conduct the Therapy Dog tests in a local dog park this weekend. Their service is in demand. I may go to observe them if the snow and ice are not sticking. We got some snow today, not as bad as reported but it may be slippery.
I work about four weeks ahead of publication date. March is fully scripted and I have finished the cartoons up to St. Patrick’s Day. This gives me the option to work out of sequence. I jumped ahead and drew two strips about the eclipse on April 8 since the idea presented itself yesterday and you must strike when the iron, or pencil, is hot. April has not been scripted, although I have a few Sunday stories and dailies that I moved from earlier dates.
Most comics do seasonal repetition with variation (think of Charlie Brown with his kite, Lucy with the football, and Calvin’s weird snowmen). My Spring themes appear for the first time since the FurBabies debuted in June. I block out themes for the season and develop the scripts piecemeal, changing the order frequently.
There are a few cartoonists who do multiple strips and I am amazed that anyone is able to do this. It’s a very difficult job, even more so for online cartoonists who get instant feedback from readers on the GoComics or Comics Kingdom sites.
One reader wrote me that ‘reaction to another dog’ was meant to be to a strange dog. I replied that Shawm and Stella were both ‘strange’ and that the Item was worded in such a way that they could ‘react’ to one another.
And I scheduled it on Valentine’s Day because it was funny. There is a grain of truth in the stories, but when all is said and done, this is just a comic strip. If comic strips were reality, we’d all have a lot more fun.
This is a terrific essay on what it takes to create an entertaining and successful comic strip. It is every bit like researching for animation, and sculpture. And, creative license is significant because we speak with our own voices through our art. You have a lot to express, and in a really fun way, so draw on!
Charles Schulz was a wee bit dismayed that people wrote to him to give him solutions for Peppermint Patty’s constant falling asleep in class. But he countered that by saying that it’s funnier if she falls asleep. For if she never fell asleep in class, how would that ever be funny? The dogs are very funny just the way you wrote them, Ms. Beiman! At least feedback occurred more slowly in the 1980s for Sparky Schulz!