student: Browse The Strips

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Lynn's Comments: I could have done a better job on this strip. The trick is to put an ironical twist into the dialogue which involves the reader. I missed the mark here, by not having Elly thinking in crass, basic and unacceptable terms- ie: "#@**!#*" and then ...dropping the punch line. At the time, I thought words like: "lousy, stupid, crummy" were enough to make the ending work- but they aren't basic enough! I needed some...well, garbage!! With luck I can help other writers improve their dialogue by pointing out my mistakes.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Lynn's Comments: I do feel that a writer must also be an entertainer. This is why there is structure in a sentence, and cadence in dialogue. I soon discovered that poetry is an essential ingredient in writing- especially as it applies to comic strips wherein the reader has less than 30 seconds to visually ingest an idea. Any "speed bump" in the writing has to be smoothed out. If the punch line here was, for example; "Let me think, now.....when did we decide to get a dog?" the cadence would be interrupted and the last line less effective.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Lynn's Comments: When I did this strip I hadn't written an exam in years, but the memory of the challenge, the anxiety, and the thrill of getting it over with will never be forgotten. Having finished a difficult exam I would panic and wish I could go over it just once more. Turns out that your first answer is almost always the right one and there's danger in having time to "fix" what you thought was an error!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Lynn's Comments: My folks had a jewelry store. They carried china, glassware and other gift items as well. This meant they were often asked to provide gifts for our teacher and they would ask me to help them decide what to give to whom. It was difficult to choose something for a teacher I wasn't fond of and the first thing that came to mind was to select something DUMB! I found myself, instead, choosing something beautiful, and in so doing I would rethink my feelings for the person it was for. Gift giving is such an important gesture, and for many more reasons than you'd think!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Lynn's Comments: These children were part of a group of friends including Deanna Sobinski who were always in the background and never part of the story. It wasn't until the kids became teenagers that their friends took on personalities and played a role. This was a good thing, because the story was already becoming complicated with the introduction of relatives and the developing relationships with the adults' friends.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Lynn's Comments: This is a small glimpse into a day in my life. My grade three teacher kept me after school on the last day to tell me that after all the conflict we had endured together during the year, she thought I was basically a good kid. This was the attitude that most of my teachers had....and when Aaron's teachers gave him "the talk" I knew exactly where they were coming from.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Lynn's Comments: For the new release of this strip, the dialogue was changed to read, "Hey, guys, what's short and round--" I knew I would still get negative mail but perhaps fewer complaints than when it was first printed. People don't want to see derogatory remarks of any kind, even if it's exactly what two little boys would say. I could have deleted the strip, but I rather liked the gag!

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Lynn's Comments: When scratch and sniff first appeared in books and magazines and other fun places, I thought it had great cartoon potential. Imagined a dog sending another dog a greeting card, which was, naturally, scratch and sniff.

Thursday August 31, 2017

Lynn's Comments: I remember so clearly moving from Ridgeway Elementary School to Sutherland Senior Secondary. The girls were all beginning to mature. Our bodies were changing faster than the boys’ were, and suddenly our bodies were on display. This was my impression anyway. We had gone from being almost unisex beings–bumping into each other and roughhousing without too much interest in shape or size, to being physically checked out. Checked out, as in what are you wearing under what you are wearing? It wasn’t just the boys checking out the girls, it was everyone checking out everyone else. We were all changing and we wanted to know who was in the lead and who was lagging.

Wednesday October 11, 2017

Lynn's Comments: After I’d made some pretty sarcastic remarks, my dad asked me if I lay awake at night thinking of nasty things to say. I didn’t, but it was a great idea. After that, I did lie awake thinking of smart aleck remarks—my way of getting back at "the big kids." After awhile, I got pretty good at it and words were my weapon of choice. Sometimes they outlasted a bruising.