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Friday, February 22, 2008

Killer Comics


I read over at the Daily Cartoonist that Tony Carrillo plans to kill off a character in his strip, F Minus.

Pretty funny, because there aren't any regular characters in Tony's strip.

I wish I coud use that gimmick, but I routinely kill off people in EEK! and more than half the characters are in various stages of being undead.
What can I do for shock value?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Scott,
I also read about the "F Minus" thing at the Daily Cartoonist and I wasn't surprised that Tony Carillo would do a gag like that. His panel is one of the funniest in newspapers today, probably because he has a very unique sense of humor so you easily realize that you're not reading a "Far Side" clone, as the untrained eye might not realize when reading, say, "Close to Home." Which is no knock on them; I think that of all the so-called "Far Side clones" that may be the best of the bunch.

Anyway, "F Minus" doesn't truly have any recurring characters although there is that guy with the glasses who appears in the "F Minus" logo at Comics.com and has turned up in the strip a few times. It will probably just be some random guy who dies though. I'm looking forward to it (man, that sounded less weird in my head).

What can YOU do for shock value? Good question. That'll be difficult in a strip already full of zombies, mummies, Frankenstein monsters, vampires, and doomed birds. I'm stumped.

Anonymous said...

By the way -- the cartoon accompanying this post is hilarious! And THAT would get you some shock value...if it got by the censors!

Scott Nickel said...

Chris,

I agree about F-Minus. Tony’s got a wonderfully skewed sense of humor. It, along with The Argyle Sweater, is one of my favorite single panel cartoons.

Both Tony and Scott owe a big debt to Gary Larson, but don't we all? Tony's clean line and simple art gives F-Minus a modern look and separates it from the pack of "Far Side" inspired features (which currently number more than 20!).

Glad you liked the death cartoon. I submitted it to Playboy, which, in retrospect, was probably a mistake. (Hey! Death and Viagra is no laughing matter to an 81-year-old publisher.)

It's definitely too strong for EEK! (at least the syndicated version that runs online). Maybe it'll show up in the first book.