Size matters

I did an escalator cartoon on Sunday that was hard to see. [For those who read it and couldn't make out what was happening, the woman rides the escalator down, but instead of getting off at the bottom, disappears into the escalator, then reappears at the top, presumably riding down and up as long as she wants. I liked the idea as a whimsical reverie on what might happen if one didn't get off at the bottom.]

Actually, I drew it several years ago. I've been so busy lately that I hauled it out of the files, scanned it, touched it up and uploaded it to the site. Then, after all that work (sometimes using an old cartoon takes longer than just drawing a new one from scratch!), I realized that it might be hard to make out the details, but it was too late to do another one, so I left it as is and hoped for the best. I was looking at it on a 24" screen and it was a little small to me, so I could imagine what it'd be like on a small laptop--or, worse yet, a cell phone. Sure enough, some people mentioned that they couldn't make it out and one person thought the woman was male. It's making me rethink the whole approach to doing cartoons. Some of them, I figure they'll be easy to read when they come out in a book, but that doesn't help now, when they're only appearing online. I still have the goal of getting the strip into newspapers, but that'll always be secondary to appearing on the internet, I expect. So cartoons with nice little details may be a bad idea.

I also realized that I sometimes draw the characters smaller than I should in the space I'm using, even as I grumble to myself that I need a bigger area in which to draw, so I'm trying to adjust the way I've always drawn. I'm still grappling with the square vs. strip format, too---doesn't it make more sense to use a square if a lot of readers will be viewing it on a cell phone? As far as T shirts go, I'm not sure. A square can fit nicely on the pocket area of a polo shirt and be relatively discreet, but do most people who wear cartoons on their clothes care about subtlety anyway?

One cartoonist told me, "Do whatever feels natural for the strip. If you tend to do one-panel comics, use a square. Strips tend to be more linear storytelling, with several panels in a strip." I think my natural inclination was always to do a square panel, but my gut has always said, "Do a strip. There are more opportunities in newspapers for strips." So my guts are fighting with my brain, which is bad during flu season.

Anyway, my hope is that all future QlownTown cartoons will be clear enough that you can see everything if you're viewing them on your computer. On iPhones, it may occasionally be an issue, but when that happens, you can check it out at home. Maybe I should offer a special QlownTown magnifying glass in the store...