LAWRENCE, Kansas – As some of you may know, my boyfriend Todd and I have collaborated on a comic strip for the last two years – he illustrates, I write.

We began doing “Little Scottie” in October 2008 as a color webcomic with no consistent format or structure and only a self-imposed weekly deadline. Since then, we’ve completed 150 strips. 118 of them appeared in The University Daily Kansan newspaper over the course of three full semesters and a summer.

Yesterday, our final strip ran in the paper, ending what has been the most interesting, challenging, baffling and frustrating period in the time we’ve done the comic.

First, it’s worth noting that, although I may be the more outspoken of us, Todd is undoubtedly the creative force behind the comic. He knows comics; I don’t. So, when he says the characters need to be better defined, a change must be made. And, because his responsibility as illustrator is far more time consuming than mine as writer, our schedule for doing comics inevitably depended on how much time he could devote to it.

In the end, Todd was willing to do the comic under a few conditions: 1) we cut back on doing the comic two days a week instead of three, 2) we work ahead to ease his workload during the semester and 3) we develop our characters better. So, that’s what we did.

Our work began over the summer, revamping characters, storylines and artwork to create something that would stand on its own two feet that people would want to read. We worked together to create the storylines and establish connections between characters that we could reveal over the course of the semester. Then, we focused in on individual characters to give each one a more specific identity.

Todd then went to work developing more stylized versions of existing characters as well as new characters. One major change was that he would draw nearly every panel from scratch, while we had the luxury of time, instead of pulling from previous comics. We also agreed on a new, more condensed font that would allow text to take up less space.

By the time classes began, we were about six weeks ahead. It had made for a lot more work for both of us in a very short period of time. But the goal was for it to get progressively easier throughout the semester. Before long, however, it became increasingly obvious that we wouldn’t be able to keep up with the comic for another semester on top of our other obligations.

No sooner had we reached that conclusion than we were suddenly under fire for one of our comics. We vigorously defended our work and made every effort to reach out to groups that had felt offended. Before then, I had always been the one most enthusiastic about doing the comic. But, as responses quickly became personal, I grew disenchanted with the whole idea of doing the comic.

Doing the comic allowed us a unique opportunity to discuss issues that might otherwise not be in the newspaper. But I never wanted our comics to become the story. Sure, there were times when I hoped a comic might make people think or even make people uncomfortable. But they were always meant to be funny. If people couldn’t have a sense of humor about themselves and accept the criticism within our satire, then maybe we had outstayed our welcome.

That having been said, it was encouraging to see others that we didn’t even know express their support for us and our right to express our viewpoint. But for as uplifting as the positive response has been, the negativity simply removed any doubt that we were making the right choice to end the comic.

And so we end “Little Scottie,” trying not to take our work too seriously while being proud of our efforts nonetheless.

Filed under: College, Opinion/Editorial