How Many Times Has Hilary Started the Seventh Grade Anyway?
Believe it or not, this marks the very first time Hilary has started the seventh grade. It’s taken me over 15 years to move her up from the fourth grade to the middle of middle school, not so much due to poor testing on Hil’s part as the narrative requirements of a story that can only be told three panels at a time (yet somehow manages to mark a new summer and holiday season each year).
However, despite this big entry into the seventh grade, Hilary currently remains 12 years old (also due to narrative requirements). Welcome to the wonderful world of comic strip senescence.
I’d be concerned, too. All those years getting into the 6th grade groove, then BAM!
Would anyone notice/try to stop you if you started aging people in real-time, FBOFW-style? I want to see Hill in college before I die!
If you keep everyone the same age, 10 years from now, Ted and Sally were listening to the Storkes in college. JUST SAYIN’
Oh, dear. That sort of thing leads directly to Sally going through menopause. Ted will end up getting dead in an ear-splitting fashion.
My 7th grader is 12.
I recall Bill Amend’s FoxTrot using a kind of slip-and-stick method to cartoon ageing. Many points were relatively fixed, like Paige entering high school as a freshman each year, but there were some one-time events, like the Mom turning 45, which were done and never repeated.
It’s not a bad method, at least from this reader’s perspective.