Getting Carried Away

Product Differentiation

Another Fine Mess

Healthy (?) Marketplace Competition

Can't We All Just Get Along?

So Happy Together

Ever since I started resurrecting Stickles, I've been toying with the idea of creating an entirely new cartoon. After all, Stickles was created over 40 years ago, and the last strip was drawn back in 1985. Things have changed quite a bit in 25 years, which makes it hard to just pick up where things stopped. So I decided to invent some new characters and create a whole new dynamic. Fortunately, I have a couple of real-world examples to draw from - literally.

Bela is a five-pound toy dog. He's the newcomer in a household that up to now has been the home of a genteel, retiring cat. Vivian is the cat, and she outweighs Bela by about 2 to 1. But she has never encountered a Type-A personality before, and she has to adjust to an Alpha Dog asserting his turf in ways that should be familiar to anyone who has had to live with an aggressive co-worker or a high-strung room-mate. In our household, the dog is also outweighed by the cat, but he still insists on chasing her all around the house and eating her food.

I'm still developing a style for the characters, so their appearances may vary from strip to strip until I establish the way they're supposed to look. Here is the first cartoon. Enjoy!