P.R.A.T.S.: FLY 'Special'
THE FLY is back with a vengeance at the moment, readers, in this intruiging [visually] cartoon tableaux: this one illustrates the benefits of building up your own supply of original 'stock' characters. Once your characters are nicely defined and instantly-recognizable [likes mines hopefully are] , the cartoonist can enjoy the freedom of putting together mix-and-match jobs of the various personalities/cliches/elements, which is far, far easier---and more natural---than having to keep thinking up strong new ideas and gags every waking day, which is what you have to do if you do not invest time in creating your own original characters. Just look at the BEANO: a lot of their self-same characters have been running since the 50s, with variations/updates on essentially the same themes still going strong. Are my characters in the same sort of league, then? Well, others can decide on that one. I am not claiming to be any sort of creative genius, I am j...