All-purpose newspaper strips discussion

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

I didn't entirely get the intended construction of the jokes in the Sunday Bizzaro (Sp??) strip yesterday .   ( The strip appars to be not online , as it is a King Features Syndicate strip , who - Gasp !!! - appear to think they're in the comics business to make money , and keep their strips behind a wall . )

  The joke was " variations on ' I Love New York ' "...but was the panhandler's shirt supposed to be saying " I Owe New York " ?"  I Have Zero , New York " ?

  The yokel , in Middle Ages garb...Was his shirt suppost'a mean " I Love York " , as in the English county that New York was indeed named after ??? ( And Prince Charles is now considered the Duke of , if I recall correctly . )

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

During Comic Con week, Patrick McDonnell pays tribute in his Mutts strip.

Mutts July 18, 2022:

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Mutts July 19, 2022

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Mutts July 20, 2022

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Mutts July 21, 2022

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Mutts July 22, 2022

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Mutts July 23, 2022

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Mutts July 24, 2022

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Actually, the delineation between linework and coloring is much clearer on the photo Tracy took than the paper itself held at arm's length. I have traditionally been a fan of Adams and of Dilbert since the strip began, but I haven't really read the dailies for 20+ years now, nor was I aware of his reputation as alluded to (by Rob) above. 

[Richard Willis]

I haven't been following it for a while, but Mutts had San Diego Comicon tributes like this every year.

[Richard Willis]

On the coloring of the strips: My observation is that the Sunday strips (not just Dilbert) all seem to use the same coloring as you see in the actual newspaper. The daily strips are colored as an afterthought by who knows. This is particularly noticeable on the Spider-Man strip. The Sunday strip has blue Atlanteans while the dailies have pink Atlanteans. Iron Man's old golden armor is golden in the Sunday strip and haphazardly colored red and gold for the dailies. Is this coming from a single source? Probably. Is Adams doing it? I would say unlikely.

On Adams: From what I've seen outside of the Dilbert strip, he seems to lean right. I look at it the way I did Ditko. I can enjoy his work without agreeing with all of his thoughts. It's pretty easy with Adams, since it doesn't intrude on the strip. Many of the beloved creators on legacy strips had ideas we probably wouldn't like.

At the office we would pin up one of the Dilbert strips showing the pointy-haired boss. The bosses would think it was funny without recognizing themselves. 

[ClarkKent_DC]

Richard Willis said:

On the coloring of the strips: My observation is that the Sunday strips (not just Dilbert) all seem to use the same coloring as you see in the actual newspaper. The daily strips are colored as an afterthought by who knows. This is particularly noticeable on the Spider-Man strip. The Sunday strip has blue Atlanteans while the dailies have pink Atlanteans. Iron Man's old golden armor is golden in the Sunday strip and haphazardly colored red and gold for the dailies. Is this coming from a single source? Probably. Is Adams doing it? I would say unlikely.

The Sunday strips are provided in color by the features syndicates. The dailies are in color on the features syndicates' websites, but it doesn't seem like all of the subscribing papers necessarily use their coloring. Why not? Beats me. My local daily paper prints the daily strips in black-and-white, so maybe they are delivered that way to all newspapers; I don't know.

I do know that when color became a thing in daily newspapers -- thank you, USA TODAY -- some local papers would present their daily strips in color. How? The task most likely fell to someone in the production department, and the quality of the results depended on the skill, expertise and tools available to that someone.

Back when I worked for a semi-major daily newspaper, coloring the comics was done by putting tracing paper over the page layout and coloring with magic markers(!). Yes, it looked terrible. It was particularly embarrassing next to the comics page from a neighboring city's newspaper that clearly did theirs in a professional way. 

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Back in the day I know that the syndicates (or the artists themselves) would provide color guides. I don't know about the process today, but I can't explain why the printed Sunday (daily, maybe, but not Sunday) would look so different from the online version. Could Adams have provided a different color proof to the syndicate for nationwide distribution than the "official" web version?