Michael: Browse The Strips

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Lynn's Comments: One of the things I love to do is sound effects. Trying to come up with the phonetic spelling for the sound a head makes as it hits a pillow, for example, is so much fun. ("FWUMPP" would do it). I think the sound effect I am most proud of is the sound of a toilet plunger. It goes: "Ka_FLOOMP-a-GUSH." Sometimes you have to decide whether to repeat a letter as in "FWAPPPP!" One "P" just won't do it. A smack with a wet towel, for example has to sting. This requires several P's.

If you are a fan of Mad magazine, you'll remember the wonderful comic art of Don Martin. His sound effects were fabulous. I think he coined "Fwoooommmm!," and "Ka-chingggg!" One of the weirdest letters I ever received was from Don Martin's wife accusing me of stealing her husband's sound effects. I didn't think I had. The sounds I wrote all came from my head. Then again, can you really lay claim to a cartoon sound? WHHHHOOOOO!!! I sure hope not!

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Lynn's Comments: One day, I got tired of seeing the pile of single socks and mittens that had accumulated next to the dryer, and I threw them all out. A while later, I was cleaning out the storage room, going through camping gear, old toys, and outdoor clothing, and I found a collection of single socks and mittens--mates to the ones I had thrown out. I wished I had looked through the camping gear first--but I might have tossed out all the single things only to discover their mates in the laundry.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I think I gave Larry and Marilyn the original strips for this story. It was something I liked to do when I embarrassed a friend in public!

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This part of the story was entirely made up. This is what's fun about a comic strip storyline--the possibilities are endless. This is where the ability to fantasize comes in: a fantasy could take me completely away from reality--to places I didn't even know I could go!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I once saw my mother-in-law flapping her apron at the top of the basement stairs. I asked her what in the world she was doing, and she explained that the menfolk were in the middle of a project down there and she wanted them to come up for dinner. She was wafting the smell of roast beef, mash, and gravy down into the basement. It worked!

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This is me. This is my teenage room, and my way of doing things. Some strips I did from memory, and with renewed respect for my mother.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My mother often said that she wished we would go to other people's houses and make a mess there for a change. It was true. Our friends always came over to our house. Maybe it was because Mom worked at home, and was kind enough to let everyone in. Maybe she permitted herself to be the local daycare provider so she would always know where we were. Other moms were at home, too, so it always bothered her that they never took their turn. They never offered. Maybe it's because she just never asked.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Lynn's Comments: When this strip appeared, I was criticized for stereotyping the Enjo family: they were Asian, therefore they were intellectuals. It was interesting to note that the complaints didn't come from people of Asian descent!

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I was so happy while drawing this. A good gag gave me great expressions to work with as I built up to the punch line. Not only did I enjoy the process here, but I was getting back at my mother and all the teachers who told me to "get down to business and hit the books." This strip was a cleansing experience.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Writing about the trials and tribulations of being a student brought memories flooding back. Here, I relived the anxiety of writing exams. Like everyone else, I hated them. There is an art to studying, which I didn't learn until high school, and that is: there will always be questions asked about things which aren't covered in class--studying your class notes is never enough. If you want to ace an exam, you have to thoroughly read your textbooks, take notes, and memorize anything you think might be relevant. Before I started to do this, I would study my notes, get an average mark, and feel cheated! I knew what was in my class notes--but exams proved that I didn't know the subject.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I wanted Brian to be someone who felt a bit alienated by his intelligence. He would rather work on a school project than join in team sports or hang out at the corner with"the guys." Gordon was on the "outside"because he was mechanical. Academic subjects were a waste of time for someone who preferred to be under a car or taking apart a machine in his mother's kitchen. Michael was frustrated by his inability to concentrate. Even though he was a bright kid, he never achieved top marks in class--he was a dreamer! These three boys all felt inadequate for different reasons, and yet, they all had something in common: they lived in the same neighbourhood, and they got along with each other. Friendship ultimately overshadowed their differences.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Lynn's Comments: I have always loved making up names on things like cereal boxes. In art school, one of the things we had to do for commercial design was to come up with an entire cereal box--from the size to the ingredients to the illustration on the cover. This meant we had to figure out how much space we needed for type (in two official languages): brand name, logos, contents, weight, nutritional value, and directions. Packaging is a whole industry of its own, so this was a really good exercise. The cereal I came up with was "Sugar Soggs." The art showed a kid eating some gruesome candy-coated gruel. It was okay, but the best design was done by one of the guys in the class; he called his cereal "Uncle Brian's Grumpies." On the cover was a grimacing caricature of the instructor, whose name was Brian, and the ingredients he made up were hilarious. In terms of funny, he had me beat by a mile. Neither of us got a good mark because we hadn't taken the project seriously. It seemed to us that despite the prof's objections, cartoons do sell!

Later, when I worked for Standard Engravers, a packaging firm in Hamilton, Ontario, I was given the opportunity to design a giveaway on a cereal box. I thought this would be neat, until I was given a space about 2 inches square on the bottom right corner. This was a real challenge--and that's good. If you give a cartoonist or graphic artist a blank page and say "draw something," they have to think for a while. Give them a tiny, awkward space, and suddenly the ideas come out of the blue. A great example of this is Sergio Aragones' "marginals"--the tiny cartoons that tumble around the page borders in Mad magazine. When he suggested he be hired to do these, he was told that he'd run out of ideas. Some 45 years later, he's still producing them, and each one is wonderfully different.

For the small corner space on the cereal box, I designed finger puppets, pencil toppers, decals, and "spinners" (a top made from paper). It was fun. I thought this could be a surprisingly satisfying career, but things went in other directions. I still get to work on cereal boxes but in a different way!

Monday, February 23, 2015

Lynn's Comments: My mom (who was good at business and bookkeeping) tried repeatedly to explain simple math to me. I was never able to get it. Years later, my husband, who was also frustrated by my aversion to math said, "The reason you don't like numbers is because they make SENSE!!!" At the time, I was making a good living, daydreaming and making stuff up, so I took this as a compliment!

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Saying thanks was something I tried to hammer into my kids and now, my grandchildren. It's a simple word, takes no time to say and it means so much to the person who has done you a good service. Sadly it's something not heard enough. The other thing we should hear more often are the words "I'm sorry".

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Lynn's Comments: During the few times I worked as my husband's dental assistant, I was fortunate to have two wonderful parents in law, living a mere 5 minute walk away (from both the clinic and the house). Ruth and Tom's home was set up for children and the care was constant as we moved the kids from one house to the other. At the end of the day, we might stay at "Ruth's" for dinner or we'd pick up the kids and come home--exhausted. Either way, it was "mom" who put on the grub!

Monday, March 9, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Letting my kids stay home alone happened rarely and only when I knew I could trust them! This meant not letting a bunch of friends in or digging into the liquor cabinet or calling someone in China as a prank. Another adult always knew where they were and had a key to the house. Still, Aaron's desire to hit the snacks before dinner was always a hazard of being home alone. I know the feeling. If there's a bag of Doritos in the house, it will go down before I heat up the leftovers.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Lynn's Comments: Michael, being five years older than Elizabeth, was allowed to stay at home alone for a couple of hours after school--before his mother came home from work. The sitter (and good friend) lived next door and kept an eye on him, but still, I got complaints about this "unhealthy situation."

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Lynn's Comments: This isn't so much a scene from my son's adolescence, but my own. My parents both worked at our jewellery store and would be home around 6:00 pm. I was supposed to have the dinner on by the time they arrived--everything was set out for me and easy instructions were left on the counter. Even so, I thought it as the biggest imposition in the world; unfair, because my younger brother didn't have to do ANYTHING! Eventually, I started to have some pride in the fact that I could cook! This gave me some real confidence, since many of my friends couldn't even make a sandwich.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Lynn's Comments: With both parents working, my brother and I stayed in the house after school by ourselves. We had strict rules of conduct and some serious responsibilities! We took pride in our roles, which made us surprisingly compatible. We fought less when we were unsupervised. Who would have guessed!

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Lynn's Comments: The strip was starting to realistically show a family's weaknesses as well as its strengths, which I think made it more believable. I was trying to show real life: What happened to me and to the character, Michael, happens all the time. In an ideal world, I guess someone should be there to chaperone a child at all times, but like me, Mike was a responsible kid who was capable of helping out. Sometimes we could all use an extra hand to help make ends meet!