FINDING READERS

When Nick and I came up with the idea of Skid Avenue, it wasn’t long before we wondered: who will read it? Who would be interested in the everyday lives of a middle-aged couple?

Looking back, there are plenty of examples couples-based strips throughout cartoon history. From famous Northerner Andy Capp:

 To former socialite Blondie Boopadoop, married to the upper-crust-but-disinherited Dagwood Bumstead:

And not forgetting the couple at the centre of Bringing up Father, Maggie and Jiggs, where nouveau-riche Jiggs still enjoys corned beef and cabbage, to the frustration of his social-climbing, rolling pin-brandishing wife:

The stories told in these strips find humor in family conflict, which sometimes even transcends into physical violence. Our parents and grandparents laughed at situations which today are a no-go area, but the point remains that without conflict there is no satire, and no humour.

John and Jo Smith, the stars of Skid Avenue, were originally created by John Freeman and Nick Miller for their long-running strip The Really Heavy Greatcoat. They are a mixed-race couple - Jo’s ancestry is Carribbean while John is white British. They were based on two people Nick and John both knew, although the ‘real’ John and Jo never lived as a couple and, as far as anybody knows, never actually met.

As with all the strips mentioned above, The Really Heavy Greatcoat was featured in newspapers and magazines. But now technology has changed the game. Prof. Naomi S Baron questioned whether computers, tablets and smartphones – the “new media” – are changing the way we read. We certainly had to take this into account when we launched the strip, which is why Skid Avenue is now available on the sharing platform Tapastic, and also has its own dedicated website and blog, in hopes of reaching a good number of readers.

And there’s the trouble: the strip finds humor the everyday problems of a middle-aged couple, including their struggle with new technology. If the strip’s typical readership is anything like John and Jo, they themselves will be struggling to get the hang of social media. And who’ll read our strip if they have difficulty finding it?

Are there any interested newspapers out there?