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On Making Cartoons

6/25/2018

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Three weeks ago, I described the crazy things that can take place during rec swim. This week I reveal the hilarity of the lap swim hours. Lap swim begins at 6:00 in the morning and proceeds throughout the day, but the lively and humorous times generally start around 7:30.  I think the reason is that by 7:30, the crowd who are trying to swim and get to work have mostly left. They are literally just trying to “get-er-dun” and get to work on time.

Many of the the lap swimmers where I work know of my cartoon and quite a few of them were my earliest subscribers. It’s all one large family where they jokingly heckle one another if one of them hasn’t been in the water in a while. Sometimes they banter to take a break from swimming laps too. There are many stories that they have shared from their lives, sometimes serious stories and other times just outright funny. Some of these stories, I have made into cartoons, which makes “Suits and Guarders” a fun collaboration, especially when it comes to my “lap swimmer” character.

I printed out the first panel of this comic and posted it on the bulletin board at the pool and encouraged the lap swimmers to fill in the blank on what they thought was the reason for tearing down the diving board. Not everyone draws cartoons, but most people are gifted humorists. I was intrigued at how each response, independent of each other, ranged from being seriously thought out to completely off the wall. Here are the responses, which may become cartoons at a later date:
  1. Because If you didn’t know how to swim and you used it, you would drown.
  2. Too many swimmers were clipping their feet doing flip turns.
  3. Because it was broken!
  4. Increased insurance cost?
  5. People abused the privilege.
  6. To make way for the curly-que 15 foot slide and parachute drop.
  7. Not deep enough water? Someone got hurt?
  8. Wasn’t high enough to hang swimsuits
  9. City or State regulation regarding open deck space.
  10. Too many casualties with the kayakers below.
    Click here to see the ending of the comic above: Suits and Guarders on Tapastic.
    ​And for a great example of a “collaborative cartoon,” try “Deep Dark Fears” by Fran Krause also on Tapastic.  It will give you new things to shiver about!​
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Lessons in Laughter

6/6/2018

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Sketches of a few scenes from the day.
Currently with my summer school schedule, I am not really available to work much at the pool, except for Fridays. This Friday, I was reunited with many lap swimmers whom I have not seen in months. One even gave me a hug just because we had not talked in ages. Another lap swimmer jokingly asked me in response to my previous blog if I had been to any good picnics recently. The small community of lap swimmers is the real reason why I love working morning shifts.

But the real gift of this past  Friday came during recreational swim when a group of young guys walked in for free swim. They were all between the ages of 16 and 19 so I knew from the moment they walked out onto the pool deck that there was going to be some limit testing. There are easily eight comics here. Do you agree?

  1. A few of the guys did not bring a swimsuit, so they decided to check the lost and found hamper on the deck, wearing only their underwear! (We talked about other ways they could have handled this.)
  2. One guy jumped into the pool with his socks on and three more were going to do the same thing but I had the first guy hop out and take off his soaking wet socks.
  3. One did a backflip off the side so I had him sit out for ten minutes.
  4. Another guy was running and slipped on the deck. I checked to be sure that he was okay and then said in a cheeky tone, “I guess we just learned why we don’t run on the deck.” Of course, he and his friends all laughed.
  5. Another proceeded to run after witnessing his friend slip and fall so I sat both of them out.
  6. I told the guys to use the two step rule when jumping in the deep end. This is just a way to slow down the momentum before hitting the water.  I quizzed one of them about how many steps he really took. He hesitated and held up three fingers with a grin on his face.
  7. One guy acted like he was throwing the basketball into the hoop, but instead, threw it at another guy’s head.
  8. The second guy I sat out for running said, “I have one more minute left, right?” I shook my head with a smile and said, “Three more.”  All his friends burst out laughing.

All of the stories above are true, without fabrication or exaggeration.

One of the guys was really interested in being a better swimmer and was asking about taking swim lessons. He also had the desire to learn  how to do a flip turn. He was asking questions about how it was done. When I got off the stand on my down rotation, I hopped in the water and gave him the basics, and he probably wasn’t expecting that to happen. Once I gave some instruction to him, two more of his friends had joined in, and then another two. Sure enough, I was teaching all ten of them how to do a flip turn and how to dive from the side by the end of my shift.


Since Friday, I have spent time writing down dialog and thinking about developing a few teenage characters to add to the mix of Suits and Guarders. While I am still not sure where this will go, one thing is certain--it will be funny. And the characters will be very likeable because all of these guys were. Even though I don’t often work at the pool anymore, these strange, eventful and hilarious moments always seem to find me which is why I am still writing comic strips!

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    Ian Johnson was born with a crazy cartoon character perspective on the real world. “Suits and Guarders” is loosely based on his life as a lifeguard and swim instructor at a local pool. Any resemblance of characters in this work to persons, drawn or imagined, is purely coincidental.

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