The Bikini

I was inking this strip last week while Tim was in my studio cruising Ebay.  I casually wondered out loud how this drawing was going to go over in some of the countries where my strip appears.  Tim swung around to my drawing table and said maybe I should change it.

Of course, I didn't.  Changing the bikini would have meant rewriting two strips for the week and I was already at the inking stage.  Besides that, my characters are western women and culturally, Maeve in a bikini is not a big deal.  In fact, it's not any kind of deal at all.

If there's one thing a cartoonist has to learn, it's that you have to write for yourself and that your work is not going to appeal to everyone.  When I was working with my editor, Jay Kennedy during the development stage of my cartoon strip, I would fax my ideas to him and he would call me back with a critique  of my work.  He'd tell me why this strip worked and that one didn't and if he thought a particular strip was very funny.  Every so often, I would catch myself writing my strips according to what I thought Jay would find funny.  And you know what? ...not once did he tell me that the strip I wrote trying to appeal to his funny bone "was very funny".  After a few times, it dawned on me that I should just write what I  thought was funny.  If someone else found it funny, well...consider it gravy.

And do you know what occupied my thoughts while I finished inking those two strips? ... that there is a 19 year old woman on the other side of the world who is fighting to appeal a sentence of 200 lashes for sitting in a car with her ex-boyfriend and then having the audacity to call on the media in an effort to bring attention to her plight.

This doesn't have anything to do with the content of the above strip...but yes, damn it, the bikini stays.

Comments

[danielle]

I always appreciate it when authors stay true to their ideals, even when I don't agree. It just helps promote the integrity of the characters and the story, and comics in general. Thank you for not changing the panel in question.