Drawing cloth and clothing

[“Figuring It Out.” Zippy, July 2, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s Zippy is all about cloth and clothing and the work of the “fine artist.” Bill Griffith is of course an artist and cartoonist both.

As you may know, there are entire books about how to draw folds in fabric. For instance. And if I remember correctly, Terry Zwigoff’s documentary Crumb has a scene with Robert Crumb talking about drawing folds.

Synchronicity: there’s folding to be done in today’s Zits.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

“Writer-y”

Analog Zits : “Doing it this way feels more ‘writer-y.’”

A related post
Writing by hand (advice for students)

“In conclusion”

Today’s Zits: yes, just a mild exaggeration of how some students think about writing. It’s what they call “fluff.”

Jeremy, you need to read How to unstuff a sentence.

A sharpener sharpener

[Zits, October 31, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s Zits, Jeremy Duncan has asked Connie, his mom, if there’s anyone famous in the family tree. She cites Jeremy’s great-great-grandfather. Hyphens are already in the air.

But I think I’d hyphenate this job title as pencil-sharpener sharpener.

Connie’s joy makes me suspect that it’s her great-grandfather she’s speaking of.

Related reading
All OCA punctuation posts (Pinboard) : The Hammacher Schlemmer crazy making hyphen shortage problem. : House hyphens : “Hyphen killer” : Living on hyphens : Mr. Hyphen and Mr. Faulkner : One more from Mr. Hyphen

Editing in Zits

[Zits, March 7, 2022.]

In today’s Zits, Jeremy has asked Connie (Mom) to read his work. “I made a few edits,” she says, looking apologetic. He’s not happy about it: “When I said I was open to feedback, I meant compliments!”

It’s always a good idea to point out what a writer has done well. But a writer does not live by compliments alone. I like what Bryan Garner says about good editing:

It’s an act of friendship, not an act of hostility. Professional-level edits — the kind that would occur on the copy desks of major newsmagazines — make the writer look smarter. So if a skillful editor revises your work, be grateful, never resentful.

Say “Thanks, Mom.”

“Fellows”

[Zits, October 21, 2020.]

As D’ijon explained in yesterday’s Zits, Pierce is “experimenting with conformity.” But it’s not just his appearance that’s changed. Look at his speech balloon: he’s sounding like the old Mark Trail. And from Monday’s strip:


[Zits, October 19, 2020. Click either image for a larger view.]

I have to think Pierce’s whom is meant for laughs. Notice also his wristwatch.

Related reading
A handful of Zits posts

Cheese barn or cheesebarn

[Zits, August 30, 2020. Click for a larger cheese barn.]

“Nails R Us.” “Carpet Emporium.” In today’s Zits, Jeremy thinks of his father Walt as “the closed captioning of road trips.”

I think of “Grandpa’s Cheesebarn” as a sign that we see when we drive to the East Coast or back. Grandpa has three locations; the original, the one whose sign we pass, is in Ashland, Ohio, the (self-proclaimed) “world headquarters of nice people.” Elaine and I have stopped there just once, when we moved from Boston to Illinois. The water in the restaurant where we had a quick meal smelled powerfully of sulfur. We asked the server if there was a problem with the water. She didn’t understand what she meant. Even if she had, there was nothing she could have done to fix the water.

But there is something I can do to fix today’s Zits. Because Grandpa spells cheesebarn as one word:


[Click for a larger cheesebarn.]

At least it’s not camel-case. Not yet anyway.

Meta Zits

[Zits, April 23, 2020.]

Today’s Zits is nicely meta. Connie’s conclusion about her son’s words: “The thinnest of excuses.”

Everybody’s folding

[Zits, March 8, 2019.]

“Each piece of your clothing should be carefully folded”: Connie Duncan (Mom) just binge-watched Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. But in the strip it’s just called Tidying Up. To make things tidier? To not infringe on the Marie Kondo brand? Anyway, Mom has too many rules.

Idiomatic nickels

[Zits, November 12, 2018. Click for a larger view.]

In addition to the obvious comedy (of what our household would jokingly call “a lewd implication”), there’s a bonus misunderstanding: the absence or near absence of nickels turns into nickels.

Here’s a brief survey of the idiom.

Hedges

[Zits, November 2, 2018. Click for a larger view.]

Kinda, sorta, and so on: in linguistics they’re called hedges. They can be used to manipulate pragmatic halos, I think. Yes, that was a hedge, of a joking sort.

Jeremy’s enjoyed-ish marks a new direction in hedged assertions, IMHO.

Unity Day

[Click for a larger view.]

Today is Unity Day, an anti-bullying initiative. Its color is orange. Its focus is on kindness, acceptance, and inclusion.

[Insert dark memories of middle school and high school here.]

I read the papers (as people used to say) and watch the news. But I learned of Unity Day, only this morning, from Zippy and Zits.


[Zippy, October 24, 2018.]

Things to like in today’s Zits

[Zits , August 9, 2016. Click for a larger view.]

Left to right: Adolescent sprawl and self-absorption. Speech balloon and arm breaking panel wall. Comic-strip furnishings: vase, stand, painting. Charlie-Brown-shirt zigzag pattern on vase. (That pattern shows up everywhere in Zits .) Speech balloon and arm breaking another panel wall. Stylized but immediately recognizable Tide bottle. Comic-strip laundry basket. Speech balloon and arm breaking yet another panel wall. Middle-aged sag.

But especially the laundry basket, which follows some unnamed principle of comics: a pattern is best suggested, not worked out in its entirety. Consider the clapboards and bricks in the first three Nancy panels on this page.


[The line of Jeremy’s arm makes this little scene a panel in itself.]

Related reading
All OCA comics posts (Pinboard)