Whazzup with Down South?

A letter from Stephen Enzweiler to Readers

Dear Friends,

First of all, I would like to thank the readers of the Down South comic strip for their patronage and loyalty over these last 18 months it has been in publication. I would also like to thank my publisher and editors at Y'all Magazine for their faith in the strip's long-term potential and for not giving me the pink slip.

This past week, the strip reached another milestone: one year on the world wide web!

This milestone does not come without some reflection. In 2003, I came up with the crazy idea of doing a simple, single-panel cartoon about the South. It was originally about a couple of hapless northerners and their strange encounters with people and situations while traveling in the culture of the deep South. When it first appeared in the June 2007 issue of Y'all Magazine, I really had no idea where it was going to go. Yet, every cartoonist likes to know his or her work will grow into something to be enjoyed and appreciated by others.

Few things in life ever happen to you that make you really sit up and pay attention (with the exception of death, taxes, and root canal surgery), but the steady increase in the cartoon's popularity and readership over time did just that. Email began coming in telling us what people liked, what they didn't like, what was funny, and what bombed (the big ka-BOOM). I’ve always been impressed how my readers pay so much attention to the detail of what’s going on and to the characters in each and every cartoon. It's kind of puzzling sometimes when someone writes in and asks a question about an aspect of a character that I never ever thought of. For example, some folks emailed in wanting the recipe for “turkey buzzard soup,” and a gentleman asked what brand of cigarettes Maude smoked. I even had someone want to know if Gordon prefers boxers or briefs? (I showed that one to my wife, who turned to me and replied with a straight face, "Well, what DOES he wear?")

I created a monster. Maybe I should change my name to Frankenstein. My seemingly small and insular cartoon was taking on a life all its own. Scary stuff, especially when you've been drinking.

Getting back to the subject...I was aware all along that the single panel cartoon format had its limitations. There was only so much you can do with a single drawing. The best and most enduring comics are those which readers can relate to - oddball reflections of real life and real people told in story form. The traditional comic strip (3 or 4 panel dailies and expanded color Sunday editions ) are ideal for this purpose. They can give the characters enough strength and dimension to become real and personal to readers; otherwise, they will remain flat and relatively uninteresting.

So, I began experimenting with this last November, and over time I became more satisfied with the result. So did you, the readers. Email poured in. The characters took on greater dimension and expression and their stories began to flow better and were much funnier than before. I found a greater flexibility in creative expression and felt that such a change would not only enhance the characters and their story, but be far more entertaining for you, my readers. Along the way, the drawing and technical aspects of producing a strip improved as well.

For the time being, Down South will continue in its "Sunday edition" format. The comic strip will still appear in Y'all and go out weekly to our subscribers. As time goes by, we hope other publications will become interested and want to publish it.

I hope you like the new website, too. It took a lot of elbow grease and fine Kentucky bourbon to get it running. It will be upgraded and improved on a continuing basis. We also have an online store where folks can shop for genuine Down South stuff, all of which is "MADE IN USA". The store is a work in progress, so check back from time to time for new products.

There is nothing more to say at this point. I consider it a privilege to be able to do a kind of work I enjoy on a regular basis, and I am grateful to all my readers for their continuing support of the strip, and to my publisher for not giving me the pink slip.

Thank you all!

Stephen Enzweiler
Kudzuville
23 February 2009