Author Archives: Shannon Menu

Tuesday September 14, 2021

Lynn's Comments: This cartoon shows how "motion" can be suggested by not having the wheels of a vehicle touch the ground. If you were to take a piece of tracing paper, trace the outline of the car and move the image down so that the wheels touch the curve of the road, you would instantly see the car standing still. A shadow underneath adds to the illusion. This is one little trick of the trade!

Thursday September 9, 2021

Lynn's Comments: Around this time, the newspapers began to colourize the daily strips and often without consulting the cartoonists' own colour charts. This meant mismatched hair colours and different clothing in different papers. One newspaper colourist made the Miss Edwards character Black, which made a change back to caucasian rather difficult. Readers in that area appreciated seeing a Black teacher in the mix. Eventually, correct colour palettes were established, but not before some interesting errors had been made!

Tuesday August 31, 2021

Lynn's Comments: When the name "The Bentwood Rockers" came to mind for a senior citizen's band, I laughed out loud. Some ideas come from "out there" somewhere. Cartoonists are forever looking up and saying, "Whoever you are...Thanks!"

Friday August 27, 2021

Lynn's Comments: A better punch line would have been if the woman on the left says, "Why do kids do that?" and the other one answers, "It's a mating call." Crafting the dialogue is important. I should have noticed this before I finished the strip. It would have been better as a Sunday page!

Wednesday August 25, 2021

Lynn's Comments: The Patterson kids were now starting to have lives outside of the home. This meant adding new characters: friends, teachers and acquaintances—some of whom needed to be "fleshed out" and given substantial roles.

Thursday August 19, 2021

Lynn's Comments: There's a song in "A Chorus Line" where one of the dancers talks about a teacher who was cruel and menacing, and when he died, she felt nothing. This line just seared into my brain because it is so profound. How can a person you have loved to distraction become someone for whom you feel nothing? It's hard to imagine when you are in the throes of romance that you might, one day, feel nothing at all.