In my last post I lamented the increasingly common shrinking of the comics to an unreadable size.
It is important to note hear that "readable" applies not just to the type.
Art must be "readable" as well in a cartoon. A cartoon relies on the visual gag as well as the printed words. Some of my favorite comics by highly accomplished artists are no longer "readable" in the less-than 5" width afforded them by some newspapers.
In a recent Zits cartoon, Pierce is ridding himself of everything he took into his brain during the school year by holding his nose and blowing out his ears. Then he plugs in his ear buds, turns on the tunes, fills up his head, and says "let the vacation begin".
Except, without really close inspection, I couldn't tell that this was what was happening. In my paper, the strip runs at a width of 4 7/8.
In the comments from the previous post, a reader asked about this strip:
There's quite a bit going on in the background. It helps set the scene for the gag, and makes the drawing more fun to look at.
But as we shrink it...
... all that becomes a muddle. What to do? Well, backgrounds become one of the first casualties in a shrinking comic.
