Zippy (1970-present)
by Bill Griffith
REVIEW BY GENE KANNENBERG Jr:
From his early appearances in underground comics to his place in today's more discriminating newspapers, Zippy the Pinhead has scattered non sequiturs throughout Amrican culture like an addled Johnny Appleseed. Bill Griffith's range of work is wide, but Zippy is the Elmer's glue which holds it all together. Who would have guessed that this micro-encephalitic, muumuu-wearing enigma would one day supply an entry to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations? "Are we having fun yet?" indeed.
Griffith's artwork, very detailed at the start, has matured over time. The daily Zippy strip is one of the best drawn strips in syndication. No cookie-cutter profiles or Photoshop-composited environments here; each day's finely-lined instalment contains more careful detail than a week's worth of practically any other strip. A compulsive sketcher, Griffith uses his artistic skill to bring a healthy dose of realism to Zippy's rapid-fire free association.
Zippy's longevity has much to do with his accompanying cast of characters. Mr. (The) Toad, Shelf-Life, Claude Funston, Vizeen and more: their opinionated interactions provide both guffaws aplenty and food for thought. But most important is "Griffy", the cartoonist's alter-ego. An altogether credible mixture of elitist distain and acute self-awareness, Griffy is complicit in the very culture he criticises. For every strip bemoaning tacky fashion or vapid entertainment icons, there's another celebrating Jack Palance's distinctly chiseled features or including another cameo by Hello Kitty. Griffy's rants combine with Zippy's foolish inconsistency to produce comics which simultaneously critique and celebrate American culture. Griffy is the yin to Zippy's yang, the Abbott to his Costello, the taco sauce to his Ding Dongs. Are we in the Top 100 yet?
BILL GRIFFITH:
I'm not trying to do a comic for the masses. I'm not trying to appeal to every demographic slice. I'm not consciously trying to appeal to anybody but myself. Although I'm not trying to alienate people. This is not a domestic strip, a strip in which you can instantly recognize archetypes - like, for instance, For Better or For Worse. A strip in which you can say, Oh yeah - I've thought that, I have a relationship like that, I have a family, I have a cat, I have a dog. None of those things apply. You have to sort of tune into my wavelength and that might take a little while. My previous audience [for underground comics] was already convinced they liked it. But coming into daily newspapers, I was suddenly confronted with a whole range of readers who would read Garfield and who, two second later, would be reading Zippy - which never, in my wildest imagination, did I think would ever happen. So I have a whole new audience to either convince to get on my wave-length or to outrage and anger. And I get plenty of both.
FURTHER READING:
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