In 1985, a cartoonist by the name of Phil Frank decided to make a change in his life. After getting involved in local politics he approached the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and made an offer to take his comic strip Travels with Farley out of national syndication, move the character to San Francisco and make it a completely local comic strip. Instead of a five-week lead time, like he had while syndicated, the local Farley strip would only have a 24 hour turn around period. Phil could comment on local politics in his comic strip as they were happening.
So for a long time, San Francisco had it’s own comic strip, with it’s own private jokes. Phil Frank was a pioneer in the niche comic strip space that we all frequent in now.
I will not be “going local” with PvP. But I wanted to talk to you about a new character that I will be adding to our regular cast roster: The City of Seattle and her surrounding neighborhoods. Seattle has a very unique culture and beauty to it that I’ve not experienced in any other place I’ve lived. It’s inspiring to me and I want to put that into my work. You’ve already seen a bit of it with the Fremont Troll this last week. It’s right up the street from where I work and I just couldn’t resist having my troll meet Seattle’s troll. It was too much fun not to draw.
I moved around a lot as a kid. We’ve lived in many places. But we never stuck around long enough for me to feel that I’ve ever been from anywhere. The place I’ve lived the longest, Texas, never felt like where I belonged. I had a lot of friends there. I had amazing times there. I met my wife there. Started my comic strip career there. But Texas never felt like my final destination. And in hindsight, I think that if Angela and I had moved to Austin at some point I may have felt differently about things. Regardless, I’m here now and it’s the first place in my life that I’ve really wanted to plant roots.
So I’m going to plant roots here. And you’re going to be seeing more of Seattle in PvP. I’ll never be Phil Frank. And I’ll never require you to be from Seattle to understand what’s happening in PvP. But if you are familiar with Seattle, you might be getting an extra zing out of comic moving forward. I’m excited about featuring some of the amazing local people and businesses that make this area so amazing.
So if any of you are worried that PvP is going to become a comic about Seattle now, worry no longer. It’s still going to mostly about farts. But now those farts will now be taking place against the backdrop of Mount Rainier. And isn’t that classier?
There’s a bumper sticker that I used to see all the time when I lived in Dallas. And I used to roll my eyes at the sentiment it expressed, but now that I live somewhere that I feel a part of, I think I understand it better.
I wasn’t born in Seattle, but I got here as fast as I could.
