My First Week of “Sally Forth”: Day Six

To start from the beginning please go to Day One.
Saturday, January 3, 1998

And so with one panel left to go in the week, Ted Forth finally makes a pop culture reference. Granted a Baby Boomer reference as opposed to one of his current-day Gen X flashbacks (“I saw this episode of Punky Brewster where this kid could simply not find a pair of matching socks”), but a pop culture reference nonetheless.

And then comes Sally’s punchline.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, in the beginning the edict was that Sally always had the last say, always had the final joke. After all, the strip had Sally’s name as did most likely the deed to the house, given Ted’s rather indifferent, immature attitude to professional and financial concerns. But “Greenland”? “Greenland”? What the hell kind of closer is that?! In truth, I always like it when there can be two funny (or at least supposedly funny) lines at the end of a strip. It helps prevent the comic from having the ba-dum-dum rhythm of a Dixie Riddles Cup. I also alway liked how in such strips as Doonsebury, the punchline is almost always followed by a counterpoint, a confirmation or an additional closing insight. It makes it feel as if the characters are having an actual dialogue, are duplicating the give-and-take of normal conversation, as opposed to the set-up/knock-down of a joke broadly told on stage.

Still, unlike the above strip I’d rather not end this week of flashbacks on a weak note. Instead, I’d like to say how much I greatly, dearly appreciate each and every one of you who read this week and, more importantly, read Sally Forth. I’m not oblivious to the fact that the comic is nowhere near the bleeding edge of cool and that Sally Forth has a lot of vehement critics–some of who may have actually read the strip–who think that this is the very reason God smites man. But I sincerely love doing the comic. The characters now feel like my family rather than someone else’s relatives I’ve been entertaining all these years. And a tremendous part of that is the feedback I get from all of you. Like I said before, I believe that once a comic is printed it belongs as much to the reader as the creator. That’s why I never take any negative remarks as a personal slight nor do I assume every positive statement is proof that I know what the hell I’m doing. Instead each is a valid opinion for that person and each allows me to have that quite rare and remarkably fortunate chance to have an ongoing dialogue every single day with people who love the strip, people who hate the strip, and people who think it’s called Mary Worth. I consider myself very, very lucky to have such an opportunity and I thank each and every one of you.

So let’s wrap this entire look back on the most positive, triumphant image I can think of–Ted Forth about to make out with a softball trophy.

Thank you!

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