Introducing a new face on comics page (01/03/07)

Who is Agnes? And what's she doing on the comics page of The Commercial Review?

Good questions.

Let me try the second one first.

As close readers of the comics know by now, Bill Amend, the creator of "Foxtrot," has decided to stop drawing a daily strip and just go with Sundays from now on.

In some ways, that comes as no surprise.

For the past several months, maybe even more than a year, the copies of "Foxtrot" we receive by mail to publish in the paper have been a little erratic.

Usually, the folks who draw the comics work with a pretty long lead time, ranging from a couple of weeks to several weeks. And, usually, we receive a week's worth at a time.

But we began to suspect that Amend was facing some burnout when only half a week's worth of "Foxtrot" arrived at a time. Then, later in the week, a full set would arrive by FedEx. Clearly it was expensive and no way to run a features syndicate.

The chore of writing gags, creating characters, and producing a strip on a daily basis is enormous. It's tough enough being funny now and then in normal life; imagine what it must be like if that's your job.

So, with Amend cutting back, we needed to find a replacement.

And that's where Agnes comes in. She's the star - if that's the right word (I'm sure Agnes would think so) - of the strip.

I'd enjoyed Agnes when the strip ran several years ago in The Journal Gazette, but she has since disappeared from the Fort Wayne paper's pages.

From the beginning, she was on the short list of potential replacements. And after sampling several others and trying them out on folks in the pressroom and the newsroom, Agnes was the easy choice.

She's the creation of a guy named Tony Cochran, who is from Dayton. (Ohio, Indiana, and the rest of the Midwest seem to produce an abundance of cartoonists.)

Cochran studied art in Columbus and at Wright State. He also worked in the auto body repair business for something like 15 years; it's tough to break into syndicated cartoons.

To make it happen, you have to create original characters and breathe real life into them.

I think that's what Cochran has done with Agnes, her grandmother, and Agnes's buddy Trout.

Here's what Cochran says about his creation: "Agnes is kind of an indomitable spirit. She has a rough row to hoe. She is poor, but not stupid. She has big dreams. She wrestles with depression and swaggers when she triumphs. She picks her battles, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. I think a lot of people will identify with her."

I think so too.[[In-content Ad]]