I’m writing this late because I’m still adjusting to the news. Last week Tom Brazleton announced that he would be ending “Theater Hopper” on August 6th, which will be one day after the 10th anniversary of the site. His reasons for ending it have left me with mixed feelings though, and I want to address those before I get on to his choice to end the comic. First of all there’s this:
But the point is that I don't think I can evolve my art or my technique to a point that will improve the comic or lessen my time investment. If I can't grow or improve, then it makes it hard to justify continuing. The frustration of those limitations strips all the fun right out of it.
No offense to Brazleton, but I don’t feel his art was ever really “Theater Hopper” main draw. The art does what it needs to do to support the jokes, but I’ve never once heard the complaint that his art just “stopped evolving.” Art CAN evolve, but there are situations where art also settles because that “look” had been achieved! I mean, “Garfield” and “Peanuts” started out looking funny because neither Jim Davis nor Charles Schulz had gotten into their grove. After a while though a look was defined for both strips and now you can’t imagine them looking any other way.
I think Brazleton underestimates how good a settled look can be for a comic strip. Once the look has been settled on you CAN focus more on the content of the strip itself, so I don’t see his lack of “evolving art” as a crippling point as he seems to! It just happens. From Mickey Mouse to “For Better or for Worse,” there comes a point where constantly changing the look and feel of something would come at a price rather than help it, and I feel this is where “Theater Hopper” is at right now.
I've talked to a few of my contemporaries about this and they've suggested going to black and white as a way to streamline things. The see no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. To jettison the investment I've made in building up the brand and viability of the domain. They've made strong cases for me to reformat the comic in order to salvage it.
I've considered it. Switching to black and white would improve my attitude toward the work significantly. Truthfully, it might even increase my output to more than one comic a week. When you get down to brass tacks, all people really want is more content. They probably aren't overtly concerned about all the bells and whistles thrown into the coloring and shading of a comic. I mean, look at XKCD, for God's sake!
But, to me, that's a step backwards. Going to black and white kind of spits in the face of the effort I've made so far to build my art up to what it is toady.
Actually, with all due respect, going to black & white wouldn’t be throwing away what you’ve built up, it would probably improve your art. Let me explain: Black and white is better than color. I know some people might say that’s an opinion, but the truth of matter is it can be. This is especially true for comedy, where the look doesn’t matter nearly as much as the writing. Color tends to be “information overload.” Not having the color there makes it funnier in a way because there’s less information for the brain to sort out, thus the brain focuses more on the joke.
If you don’t believe me, go download your five favorite “Penny Arcade” comics. Now go drain the color from them. Notice how, in a strange way, the comics are actually funnier? More attention can be paid to the facial expressions and writing, and not only do you find you don’t miss the color at all, you realize just how not necessary the color was in the first place. If not wanting to continue the strip is largely because you don’t want to go to black and white. That would be a mistake in my opinion. There are many reasons “Theater Hopper” became successful, and I’d list color as the thing that least helped it.
I feel like I still have stories to tell. But the conceit that Theater Hopper is "a comic about movies" has handcuffed me. Once Cami and I had kids, the amount of movies we went to see dropped off dramatically. I don't think this would come as a surprise to anyone. But it kind of creates a situation when you write a comic that's about movies.
As a result of this life change, Theater Hopper became less about movies and more about how movies are marketed. And while marketing is a personal interest of mine, I can't deny that this evolution has made me feel somewhat fraudulent over the years.
Truthfully, I thought like Theater Hopper would end after Henry was born.
This is a more valid concern for the direction the comic has taken, but there’s still a lot to be mined from this aspect. Many movie fans do find some interest in the marketing of movies, so I don’t see how this handcuffs the comics in any real way. It just means the focus of the comic has changed ever so slightly.
But there comes a time when one realizes that you can't go on forever. I realize now that it's time to move on. This post is just as much as head's up for you as it is for me. Believe me - it's going to take me a while to get used to the idea, too.
This is where I come to the end of my editorial. I give this free advice to Brazleton because I’m a fan of the strip too and part of me doesn’t want to see it end, but at the end of the day it’s HIS comic! He spends the time doing it and things can’t go on forever. As much as I loved writing for The Comic Book Guy.com, once this position at Examiner opened up so I could get paid for my comic articles, there was little reason to keep updating that site. So I get it. Sometimes life gets to the point where you need to let things go.
And ten years is a GREAT run for a comic strip! Even Bill Waterson knew that ten years was the most he could do “Calvin & Hobbes” before the quality of the strip would start to suffer. So he retired the comic at the height of its success. And “Theater Hopper” has been consistently good for ten years, so going out on a high note is not a bad way to do things. So, that’s that. I’ve given my two cents on some of the concerns Bralzeton had about ending the strip, but if this is truly the end then it was a great ride and I wish him all the best for his future endeavors (maybe a new comic?).
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