stonesoup: November 2015

On November 20th, 20 years ago, Stone Soup launched as a daily comic strip. Check out GoComics for a celebration of that, some giveaways and blogs posts, at the end of this week.

Very soon after the launch, at a meeting of the National Cartoonist Society, Charles Schulz announced that newspaper comics were doomed, and, in his words, "when we're gone it's over". He was referring to his generation of cartoonists who made their fortunes on the funny pages after World War II.

Having just begun, that was not something I wanted to hear. Not that I believed that the future was rosy. It's not. But despite the dire prediction, I still had a 20 year career. For that I'm extremely grateful… it's been amazing.

Now web comics are flourishing… the desire to create comics doesn't die as venues change. The web provides a nearly infinite canvass for artwork and story. As you all know, one of the things that is killing newspaper funnies is the constant diminishment of their size. Where's the fun in reading them when you can barely read them? You can't really appreciate the artistry of beautiful cartoons like Non Sequitor. The comic strip Zits mostly uses its Sunday space for a single gag rather than a story…more room for the beautiful artwork, but a loss in the character and story development of the strip. Bill Watterson retired Calvin & Hobbes for many reasons, but a big one was space. The lack of it.

I'm working on my next book, #11, and in reviewing the strips that will be included I came across this series. I guess that there was a day when I just had to say something about space as well. (I know it's futile, but still…) I'd forgotten that I included myself in the last strip. Fun to see how I drew me...