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Posts Tagged ‘newspaper’
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JUSTIN: What a mess this strip turned out to be. We had far too many ideas and tried to cram them all into one strip. The resulting mess doesn’t work at all, and is barely even readable. You can’t win them all. We did fight with the newspaper staff, yet again, over the Tourette line. The eventual version that ran in the paper actually changed that line, making the strip even more confusing. We’re still unsure how a joke Jay Leno does on The Tonight Show could be "too controversial" for a college paper.
OFTEN MISSED: This may be the strip that breaks the fourth wall the most of any. First off, the fake "real world" Loree returns. Second, Rick draws attention to the fact that the comic is in black and white. Third, Holly notes she’s too short to fit into frame. If you’re going to do a bad strip, at least call attention to it.
APPEARING:
Megan
JUSTIN: This strip has been called everything from creepy to classic. It features the first introduction of Bonafide T. Gator, a character we had created in a notebook months earlier but had never known exactly how to integrate into the comic strip. Then one night the inspiration came to make a creepy alligator character into the strip’s centerpiece of misunderstanding and a lesson on tolerance. We later learned the newspaper staff debated whether or not he was a stereotype…of something.
OFTEN MISSED: Evil Beard’s niece is introduced in this strip and will turn up again later. Also of note is that it was the first strip that ever crossed over from one week to the next. The ending hints at the next strip, which we had begun work on early.
APPEARING:
Bonafide T. Gator
Dr. Klownus
JUSTIN: This strip always amused us as it was the first strip the newspaper ever ran a footnote with. A footnote for what, you may ask? To explain what temporal physics was. In fact, it so baffled the staff (with the apparent exception of the Editor-in-Chief) that the footnote contained a web site that readers could visit to read up more on the subject. Professor Hobo, educating young minds one scientific field at a time.
OFTEN MISSED: If Rick is supposed to be so dumb (and he isn’t just supposed to be, he really is), then why does he instantly know what a temporal physics lab is when real college students do not? Was Rick just pretending he knew? Is he really not that dumb? Or was this whole incident a comment on Murray State’s students?
APPEARING:
JUSTIN: We always assumed this was a not-at-all-subtle jab at the editors of the newspaper, who were having fits week to week complaining about different strips. It turned out to be quite offensive to the administrators at Murray State, as well. Apparently, it was too subtle for them and they read it as a personal attack on them. Considering this strip was published long before any controversy brewed up, we’re not exactly sure why they thought it was about them. This strip marked the premiere of Alpha and Beta.
OFTEN MISSED: One of the issues raised about this strip was that the term "Bestiality-Americans" was not grammatically correct. Copy editors for the paper wanted us to change it to "Beast-Loving-Americans," instead. We found that at least five times dirtier but were afraid it would simply confuse most readers.
APPEARING:
