Comics are approaching a crossroads very soon, and I don’t think many creators are quite ready to accept or even admit this, but it is something we’re facing in the very near future. Comics are struggling; many creators cobble together various bits of income from their work to make a living, and there are plenty of cartoonists that will never see a dime for their hard work.

There are many theories for this: Syndicates block real creativity and anything that could be considered “edgy”. The web allows content to be given away, so why pay the cartoonist anything when they’re giving it away for free? Newspapers are dying. Cartoonists don’t have any business sense. While most of these are true and contribute to the overall problems facing modern cartoonists, there is another issue we face, and one that is growing quickly. This is just one more theory to throw on the pile, but it’s one I think should be given some consideration.

The audience is changing, and comedy just isn’t that funny anymore. How can we expect to make money on our work if we can’t provide content that makes people want to pay for it?

I don’t mean that humor in general is becoming passé, but rather that there is not enough creativity and innovation in humor comics today. There are reasons for this, such as syndicate editors blocking controversial humor, but let’s examine some of the problems for humor comics, and what might help to fix them.

Bland Humor: The most persistent problem humor strips face, bland humor is both unentertaining and boring. Puns, pointing out the obvious, and calling somebody stupid are some of the lowest forms of comedy, yet they are some of the most practiced forms of humor. This affects the majority of strips both in newspapers and on the web, and despite a general resentment towards bland jokes, cartoonists frequently turn to them, as they are, simply put, easy jokes. Cartoonists under syndication deals need to get a little more edgy, because that is what the new audience craves, not the same old jokes that have been staples for so long. The biggest problem facing newspaper strips, in my opinion, is the lack of turnover that allows comics well past their prime to continue despite settling into a well-defined state of mediocrity. These strips, some of which are run by the descendents of the original, late creators, play it safe, play it boring, and rely on familiarity alone to survive. It’s an exploitation of the audience, and it prevents so many new cartoonists from getting a chance.

Webcomics suffer from bland humor even more so than newspaper strips simply because they vastly outnumber print strips. Webcomics offer the potential for new and exciting methods of storytelling, yet there is so much dirt to sift through before finding a golden nugget. Web cartoonists, for example, have taken the Abbot and Costello formula of the straight man and goofy sidekick and run it so far into the ground it popped out in Beijing. Bud and Lou have been spinning in their graves so long they’ve ground their bones to dust. Random humor is also a dead form of comedy that wasn’t too funny to begin with. Just because it worked on TV for the Monty Python guys does not mean it will translate well to a comic strip. It really hasn’t, and it likely never will, yet there are thousands of comics that rely on random.

Comics need to break free from these tired stand-bys and get more inventive. Rather than two guys on a couch, create and ensemble cast. Rather than going random, actually set up a joke and deliver an unexpected punchline. Don’t use puns, and don’t hate Mondays; those jokes just aren’t funny.

The majority of webcomics are simply knock-offs of more popular and successful comics, even going so far as to copy the humor, which brings us to a problem unique to webcomics…

Imitation and Over-Saturation: Webcomics present the opportunity for anyone to create and share a webcomic with the world. They can do something new and bold, and don’t have to be limited in format, storytelling, and don’t have to worry about editors.

Unfortunately, most of the cartoonists would rather make someone else’s comic.

Imitation is perhaps the worst problem facing webcomics. It works like this: one webcomic hits on a formula or idea that works, and within two months, there’s about one hundred shameless knock-offs on the net, too. These underachieving copycats tend to be far less talented that the original creator they’re imitating, and potential readers recognize this. Now here’s the interesting part – hostility is directed not only the copycats, but at the original creator, as well! The good, original comic is lumped in with the knock-offs even when readers know the original strip was the first. There’s an apathy that develops, and it hurts the medium. How many strips about two guys making fun of videogames are out there? How many stick figures are making math and engineering jokes? See what I mean? If you’re an avid webcomic reader, how do you feel about these kinds of strips? Do you feel the same way about the original strips they’re based on? The net has a strange mentality, and it can be easily turned against any cartoonist. People without creativity and a “me too” attitude are damaging webcomics with watered down rip-offs.

This problem is not only limited to writing and construction of a comic strip. Art is also “poached” by imitators seeking to copy the success of others. You’ll see some of these copycats claiming they’re “learning art” from imitating another artist’s style, or that they didn’t know anything about the artist they’re imitating. It’s often a load, and even though this article is about humor, this is a major part of the imitation problem. It steals the originality and uniqueness of the original comic – it makes it bland by association.

Character Development: By “character development”, I mean a distinct lack thereof. Cartoonists are just too willing to settle for cookie cutter characters or stereotypes. The emo guy, the goth girl, and the whiny nerdy friend with a Star Wars obsession – these have been done to death and really don’t allow for any kind of character development or exploration of personality. While some are content with things always returning to the status quo, it’s just not enough now. There’s no better way to fall into a rut or to settle for mediocrity that to intentionally not advance the comic. There seems to be a mentality that if things don’t return to some kind of starting line, then new readers won’t be able to get into a comic. That may be true, but even telling short stories, rather than seeking to create epic, sprawling narratives can still create a situation where new readers can still jump on. Not only that, they’ll likely want to read previous work to catch up. For webcaroonists, this means readers go through the archives, and likely get hooked. For print strip cartoonists, the chances are fairly good that these new fans will be more tempted to go out and buy printed collections of strips. Make people want to read the strip – give them something more than a standard set of jokes. Readers make connections with characters, from the goody-two-shoes to the meanest bastard, and that’s an incredibly important and oft-overlooked part of comic creation. Gag a day strips

In some cases, creators simply can’t do this. It’s not a matter of creating realistic characters – it’s a matter of creating complete and believable characters that encourage the suspension of belief necessary to read and get hooked on a comic. These characters are not just the vehicle for the humor, they are your living element. Give them distinct personalities, quirks, and traits.

I also can recommend this to editorial cartoonists, who have been hit very hard by the slow slide and massive cutbacks of newspapers. Editorial cartoonists can attempt to recover by creating a cast of characters that can deliver the humor or message the artist would usually deliver in one panel as a one shot gag. Characters give an editorial cartoonist an edge – there’s a deeper connection with the audience, and something that helps gain a bit more reader loyalty. Doonesbury has been successful with this approach over the years. Even if it is one consistent character delivering the jokes, an editorial cartoonist offers something more, and that can pay dividends when it comes to creating and maintaining a loyal audience.

Fixing Humor: There’s no easy solution to “fix” humor – the current situation calls for more experimentation and innovation in the approach to making jokes more than anything else. Print cartoonists need to break away from the standard jokes they’ve relied on for so long – the people who eat that kind of humor up – generally the middle-aged and the elderly, aren’t going to be around forever, and they certainly won’t be replaceable as a new generation of readers has come up with their own ideas about just what is funny.

Webcartoonists need to get some originality. Don’t copy other artists, and don’t go for painfully obvious jokes about violence or random acts. Set up some actual punch lines and deliver something clever. Don’t write characters that have been done to death – it’s not entertaining and it’s not going to help you establish a reputation as a creator with talent.

Basically, what humor strips need more than ever is just a bit of freshness. There needs to be more exploration of humor, and what is funny. Humor evolves, and changes, and doesn’t remain constant. Cartoonists need to accept that relying on what has worked is no longer an option. Newspapers are dropping strips because they don’t have reader interest anymore. Garfield can only hate Mondays so many times before some of the big papers, like the Boston Globe, but him loose. Webcomics face a backlash from repeating the same jokes over and over. Really, did Questionable Content need over two hundred blue-balls jokes before the story started to advance itself. By relying on the same jokes, creators are losing their audiences, who have come to desire fresh material.

Before we blame readers, or syndicates, or even the emergence of new media, let’s examine the content we produce and the changing needs of the audience. There has always been a desire and need for cartoons, but it’s up to the cartoonist to fulfill that need, and now, this means updating our material and trying new things.

So what’s your take? Does there need to be a new funny - would it help comics? Share your thoughts in the comments section, and join in the discussion.

If you liked that, try...

1. Untitled Comic #34 by J.D Wenzel and James Taylor
2. Your Webcomic Review is Bad and You Should Feel Bad
3. The Way of the Geek Guide to Webcomic Creation - Lesson One - The Concept
4. Polymer City Chronicles by Chris Morrison
5. A New Comic Review and some Webcomic Idol Stuff

1 Comment »

1. 
   Devin de Gruyl
   April 17, 2008 at 10:25 pm

   Interesting you mention Doonesbury as an example of a successful “editorial cartoon” with a recurring cast of characters. I do think Trudeau is highly underrated as a comic artist, and he certainly can push the envelope of what’s “acceptable” in the highly conservative (in the dictionary, rather than political, sense) world of newspaper syndication. And then there’s Tom Batiuk, who has done some pretty daring things with Funky Winkerbean over the years, even above and beyond letting one of his core characters succumb to breast cancer last October. You don’t always have to agree with their views or the directions they take their creations, but you can’t deny that they are trying, within the limitations laid down by syndicates and newspapers, to do interesting things with their chosen medium. It’s not all Garfield and Dilbert out there, thankfully…

   Baby steps? Perhaps. But as someone once told me, “Any forward progress, no matter how small, is still a move in the right direction.”

   The medium had a chance to redefine itself in the ’80s, when a new breed of cartoonists with names like Larson, Breathed, and Watterson came along and shook things up with their strips. Of course, you could argue that they all started treading familiar territory; The Far Side was nothing really special in its early days, Bloom County started out as a rural Doonesbury clone, and even Calvin’s overactive imagination was subdued and downplayed when he first appeared in newspapers. But following those familiar formulae in the early going helped establish them as successes, from which the artists were granted a certain amount of artistic latitude to work within; talking animals and Seussian landscapes began to invade the Bloom Boarding House, Calvin became nothing if not a modern, brattier version of Winsor McCay’s seminal Little Nemo, and cows and anthropoligists began populating Gary Larson’s single-panel world.

   For any new strip - web or print - to make any sort of positive impact on the medium, in all likelihood it must first pretend to be something a bit more conventional, just to let the artist get his or her foot in the door. Then, once it gets a strong fan following going, that’s when you should start shaking up the status quo. I’m not saying you should be out to clone Sluggy Freelance or MegaTokyo or Penny Arcade or some other über-successful webcomic, but it should still follow a somewhat familiar pattern… at first. Once you’ve drawn readers in with a familiar bait, that’s when you should produce the hook.

   Any strip that does not evolve with time is doomed, at least from a creative standpoint. Believe it or not, Garfield actually started out as a really good strip, focusing on life as seen through the eyes of a cynical, lazy cat. This gave it a perspective few other cartoonists had at the time, with the possible exception of Fred Bassett and maybe Peanuts whenever it focused on Snoopy. I’d even go so far as to say the first year to 18 months of Garfield were some of the most entertaining stuff on the comics page at that time. Even ignoring the purely profit-driven, cynical motivation behind its creation, Jim Davis seemed to be on to something here. The problem, of course, was that the strip never moved beyond what worked in that first year; the only thing that’s noticeably changed since then was Lyman, Jon’s roommate in those early days, quietly being dropped from the strip after some conservative (in the political, rather than dictionary, sense) markets complained about the obvious “implications” of two single men sharing a living space. And thus Garfield stands as a shining example of what happens when a strip succumbs to hardening of the creative arteries for the sake of continued business. It’s like Nancy used to be, only without the charming sight gags that were Ernie Bushmiller’s trademark even at his most monotonously formulaic.

   …Wow, I really went on and on, didn’t I? o_O Anyway, tl;dr - Sometimes, before you can change the rules, you have to play the game. Just make sure the game doesn’t end up playing you…

   [Reply]

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