The Round Stable

rip peridot, tho

also, remember how SU episode promo arts were sometimes set in an anime high school AU?





the loop is closed

LWA is actually v bad

it was meant to be ironic my god I still have this avatar people

Inkie wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 23, 2019 4:57 am

So I technically own a book publishing imprint, which I started to publish my webcomics into books.

But lately I realize there are old obscure newspaper strips I enjoy that still has cult following with fans, but no major publishers are interested in reprinting.

I'm thinking, maybe I can go through the hassle of getting the rights (assuming they're cheap enough to obtain) and try my hand at putting out those collections myself. I have a few strips in mind that I want to try out, maybe I'll get lucky...

what if video games

are bad

Remember how the back cover of "The Giving Tree" has a REALLY terrifying photo of author Shel Silverstein?



Why did they went with that photo? Was that really the least creepy picture they had of him?

read my book or else

DaikatunaRevengeance wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 25, 2019 9:20 am

what if video games

are bad

wow and they say gamers arent oppressed

but what if video games are bad?

ok you got me there

So you know how Bill Watterson complained about how Sunday strips are constrained because they had to be super flexible for newspapers so they can rearrange panels to however they wanted? Specifically, the first row had to be expendable so they can be removed.

Well, there were a TON more ways Sunday strips had to be flexible than the example Watterson showcased. Here's one from Pogo:



Standard three rows. If a paper wanted to, they could've removed the first row entirely.

But what if you wanted to rearrange the panels so it's two WIDE rows? You can! You notice that panel right smack in the middle? Well, you can cut that off and:



That's not all. So, here's an "Arnold" Sunday



You notice that the 1st and 4th panels are exactly the same size? That was intentional. See, some strips did that so you can crop it further like this:



Note that they intentionally wrote the dialogues so you can remove those panels without losing anything.

By making it flexible, newspapers could squeeze in as many strips as they wanted.

You can see why Watterson hated this, right?

I have always wondered what Bill Watterson must think of the advent of webcomics. They represent freedom from the syndicate, both in terms of formatting requirements and in pressure on him to authorize merchandise.

Fizzbuzz wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 28, 2019 9:13 pm

I have always wondered what Bill Watterson must think of the advent of webcomics. They represent freedom from the syndicate, both in terms of formatting requirements and in pressure on him to authorize merchandise.

Irony is, these days webcomics has to be even more flexible in order to be "seen", especially since they have to be mobile friendly on social media. Like if you want a comic to be readable on Instagram, you would need to post them one panel at a time (preferably square-shaped panels).

Interesting. I'm not aware of any other strips that used Pogo's layout. It seems like the most inconvenient way you could possibly go about it, and doesn't really give the layout editor any more options than the Calvin and Hobbes format (which just divided the middle row clean in half) did. Less inconvenient was the way strips like Peanuts and Garfield handled it, which was to have mandatory divisions at the two-thirds mark on the first two rows, and then at the one-third mark on the last row. To fit these into a wider format, the second panel had to be doubly-superfluous, allowing whatever was going on in the top row to make sense without it. For example, I'll just grab the first one that comes up on Google Image Search:



...and futz around with it a bit in Photoshop.



I'm...not sure why the top row is taller than the others, but there you go. Roughly the same aspect ratio as the rejiggered Pogo strip, but not quite.

I do wonder why anyone would agree to the ridiculous limitations put on Arnold when no other strip would have been printed that way. Leverage for getting newspapers to buy a comic that was viewed as unmarketable, maybe? There's also the unique case of Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean, which in "full size" are only two rows, the entire top of which can be removed. I've never seen it printed that way, though. In fact, a good bit of the time Funky Winkerbean will be drawn as a single giant panel instead.

I've seen a few strips that did a layout similar to "Pogo", although it wasn't common. I think it was limited to only two syndicates: Publishers-Hall Syndicate (which syndicated "Pogo") and Register and Tribune Syndicate. As you pointed out, it was super inconvenient, which is probably why not many did it.

"Garfield" used to have a layout similar to "Arnold" during its early years, but Jim Davis later switched to the layout used in "Peanuts". Here's an early example:




"Tiger" by Bud Blake was another strip that did this. My newspaper actually did take off the first panels in each row when they ran the strip on Sundays, so the practice was definitely used in some papers. However, I've never encountered any paper that cropped "Arnold" like that when searching through newspaper archives; quite a few even ran the title panel (which was the same every week anyway). But the strip never ran in that many papers anyway.

I have seen a couple of papers that did take out the top row with the Tom Batiuk strips (it was more common with "Crankshaft", which is probably why "Funky Winkerbean" sometimes did one giant panel) but that's rare. That format, really, just makes the Sunday strip a glorified daily, maybe printed slightly bigger. Another comic that did that format was "Conchy" by James Childress.

Talking about all this, it just highlights how headache-inducing planning a Sunday strip used to be Weirdly, there's a bit more freedom today. You get 1/3 format and you can do however you want with it.

had anyone considered the alternative approach of beating newspaper editors into submission with a rubber hose

Bigdog wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 29, 2019 2:42 am

had anyone considered the alternative approach of beating newspaper editors into submission with a rubber hose

I'm pretty sure that's what Bill Watterson thinks about while he beats his rubber hose into submission

Since I posted "Conchy", this strip is MOOD

Mr. Big wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:26 am

"Garfield" used to have a layout similar to "Arnold" during its early years, but Jim Davis later switched to the layout used in "Peanuts". Here's an early example:

That explains why the first two Sunday treasuries have uneven layouts! I'd completely forgotten about that.

Something else I forgot to bring up: Blondie currently uses the same Sunday format as Peanuts, though usually they just divide it up into nine equal-sized panels (which is handy for publishers that want a strip they can stack down the side). However, I once found a Sunday comic section from 1980 where it was a whopping 12 panels, like this:



I guess being one of the oldest comics in print gives you some clout. And no, I'm pretty sure I don't still have that paper although I also have no idea who got rid of it and when.

Oh yeah, Blondie Sundays used to have an insane number of panels like that. You can still rearrange to different formats to fit a desired layout as well.

There's another way you can layout the format similar to Peanuts: for the top row, divide at one-third mark, with the first panel being a title panel you can reuse. That way, when you rearrange the panels for the 1/4 format you can take the title panel out and use both throwaway panels. You then add a little vertical box with the strip's name on the side.

Here's an example with "Hagar the Horrible":



I used to have a book "Your Career in Comics", which was all about the newspaper comic business, and they listed every single possible layouts for Sunday comics at the time. I might still have the book in the attic. Should dig it out.

This one is for weekday strips, but I thought I'd mention it



On the first panel, the dialogues are always indented like that, seemingly for no reason. This was so, if a newspaper wanted to stack as many strips as possible in a single page, they can add the title in that empty space. Like this (using Photoshop):



This is especially noticeable in "Peanuts" because, for a long time, the strip's title was printed directly on the strip in the top left corner (current reruns remove the title in the corner).

Thought for the day: If Tumblr's userbase had known the site was only worth $3 million, they probably could have crowdfunded a buyout of their own and turned it into a nonprofit thing.

I'm curious, how many people here knew that "Rugrats" had a newspaper strip? My local paper used it run it when it was around (the strip ran 1998-2003).

Yeah, used to be in the Washington Post.

Like most Rugrats things, it was bad.

I was thinking about it because THERE ARE STILL PAPERS RERUNNING THE STRIP. Like, not very many (the strip never had a big list of newspapers to begin with), but there's still like 3-4 papers rerunning the comic.

I'm just wondering why? The strip didn't run very long and the TV show has been off the air for ages by now. At least "Peanuts" has 50 years worth of materials.

While I'm at it, "Dr. Katz" had a comic strip as well around the same time, although that one's not being rerun. I think even fewer papers ran that strip.

Cheaper to license than other strips?

I guess Nickelodeon really need that syndication money

ToastGhost wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:07 am

Yeah, used to be in the Washington Post.

Like most Rugrats things, it was bad.

so is your posting a rugrats thing or is that unrelated

Lol damn

Bigdog wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:15 am

so is your posting a rugrats thing or is that unrelated

owned

f

mecha anime needs more blocky chunky mechas