Blog for Suits and Guarders--a cartoon by Ian Johnson - Suits and Guarders

One Happy Camper!

5/1/2018

Here is an idea I have had for quite a few years now. Many of the short stories that I’ve written for Suits and Guarders are between 4 and 10 comic gags before the story wraps up, but now I am considering a much longer story. I am still not entirely sure as to how long the story will be. The premise for this story will be built around the lifeguards temporarily leaving the city pool to work at a mountain lake over the summer. I am also considering that they win a talent show contest and the prize is the opportunity to go away to this lake camp to work. Ellen is driven to win this competition because this is the same camp of her childhood. The story will have several efforts by the lifeguards to come up with ideas for winning the contest like forming an a cappella group, a garage band and perhaps even a comedy skit. After much contemplation and work, they manage to pull through, and Ellen gets to revisit her summer memories.

The lifeguards of "Suits and Guarders" harmonize on the pool deck. This is a Norman Rockwell tribute too.

There are a long list of things that needs to be figured out like the format of the cartoon and the flow itself. For the last three years, I have done my work on 9x12 Bristol Board in landscape view which works well for comics but if I switch to making a graphic novel, I may need to consider rotating to a portrait view and perhaps even moving to a larger scale. Oh, and of course, then I have to consider scanning something that is in a larger format. Because a true graphic novel is vague in description, I don’t plan on changing the flow of the cartoon. It will still have the typical punchline and gag humor to it and the same sweet charm that it has. One of the upsides to doing a webcomic that isn’t syndicated is that you have free reign in choosing the size comic you want, portrait or landscape. The downside is later you may have to change it.

The inspiration to write about camping stemmed from taking a short camping trip every year with a youth group I was in many years back. My brother and I always looked forward to it, because there were numerous shenanigans that took place along with a few pranks. I was one happy camper! On this note, I invite all of my readers to share with me some of your fondest memories that you have from summer camp. It would be great fun to see how many I can include in the story.

The Art of Observance

4/23/2018

Julie's correct! Guys observe too much!

I’m not going to lie. The comment made by Thomas has been true on numerous occasions, so I won’t go into detail on that one. The word Liz might be looking for is something more along the lines of relatable. Of course that would never happen, because if it did, there would be no mystery in the process of girl meets boy and guys might become bored with the whole process of interaction. Gee, imagine that?!

In this case, Julie is right, as always. Guys can be too observant, and yet, it still doesn’t make us more relatable. I know this because guys still go out and make fools of themselves. You may be asking yourself why? It’s plain and simple. We’re guys. Just think of all the entertainment that takes place whenever a guy says to another guy, “Hey, watch this!” I’d say Julie is pretty observant. Anyway, score one for Julie and zip for Liz!

What Did the Lifeguard Say?

4/16/2018

The truth is, Kurt didn’t tell him yes or no. Probably because he would have tried to pull the same stunt when he was this kid’s age.

If you want to inspire yourself to laugh more, being around kids is the best way to accomplish this. A kid asked me something similar to this once, however, it was much more skilled towards trickery and less obvious like it’s written here. The kid was sneaky and quite a handful, but what gave it away was the cheeky grin on his face which he was trying to hide when he asked the question. I replied back to him with something along the lines of, “Do you think that’s a good idea?” He knew it was wrong, but no one can blame a kid for genuinely asking a question---no matter how profound it may be. Overall, I think the kid was just curious to see what my response was.

It’s funny how children act towards lifeguards. Many of them know the rules because they are there frequently in the summertime, but they still enjoy pushing the boundaries just a little further each time. If the lifeguards handle this well and enforce the rules consistently, there is actually more respect between the kids and lifeguards, not at first, but overtime. Every child wants attention, but what they really want is someone who’s almost like a mentor, someone who accepts them. When they come to a pool, that authority figure is the lifeguard. If they obey the pool rules, they get to stay there all day, well, at least until closing time. You don’t have to do too much as a lifeguard to be liked by kids. Sometimes just giving a sincere look like Kurt does in the third panel is all that is needed.

Counting Heads

4/9/2018

Surveillance is and should be the practice of any diligent lifeguard. This method of scanning consists of counting the number of people that are in the water and watching their facial expressions. The common problem that lifeguards face is that every once in awhile, the pool will become so busy that it’s hard to complete a thorough headcount of patrons in the water and have a consistently steady result each time. This is why they set a ratio for a number of guards to patrons. Even though this makes the job easier, it’s still cumbersome because you still need to know exactly how many people you have in the water, what the limit is and what you can handle with the staff that you have.

It’s important to scan the pool quite frequently. In my almost six years of working as a lifeguard, there have been multiple times where I have realized that I am two or three people short. The first time this happened to me, I almost panicked and began asking myself “Why do they even trust 16 year olds like myself with this job?” After I got used to the fact that people actually move around in a pool, the startling sensation kind of went away. Now, whenever I have miscounted the number of patrons in the pool, I end up saying things like, “Well, no one is lying on the bottom so we’re doing great on that end of things.” Always after a minute passes, the two or three missing people reappear from the locker rooms. Hey, I’d much rather scare myself counting patrons that disappear from the premises temporarily than have a bunch of kids stay in the water for hours and hours for my sake because then I start to wonder if they’ve really “held it” that long. Don’t think about that one or you’ll never get in a pool again. Okay, to answer Jonathan’s question: “Why can’t they just stand still?!” The answer is simple: It’s water.

Ya Think?!!

3/12/2018

The lap swimmer in panel four looks like Dilbert's pointy-haired boss, but he never swims in this comic.

At the aquatic facility where I work, we are notorious for our lock collection. There have been as many as 15 locks at once in the lost and found. It would be great if lap swimmers told us the combinations before they decide to leave them. That way lifeguards wouldn’t be sitting in the office trying to crack the code, with our ears pressed against the tumbler. Just imagine, if a lap swimmer was on his way out the door and commented, “By the way, I left my combination lock on locker 24 and I’ve taken the pleasure of writing down the combination for you and here it is.” This would sure save lifeguards a heap of time because then we could stop fiddling with all those combination locks. And I could stop telling patrons, “We do provide locks, but they don’t open.” Also in the legal sense, it’s a little disconcerting to full time staff if one of the lifeguards actually cracks a lock open. I don’t want to go through another background check, do you?

Yet Another Complaint Letter

2/26/2018

If Kurt were a little more subtle, perhaps his supervisors wouldn’t reach a conclusion quite so quickly. On the other hand, nothing escapes the judgment of those water aerobic ladies. So Kurt, just relax. You will be blamed regardless!

It is no joke that supervisors receive complaint letters from patrons, but the subjects are mostly about appliances and equipment that need fixing rather than pool personnel. I’m not sure if I was supposed to know anything about complaint letters, but as a lifeguard who barged in on supervisors every once in awhile, I sure had my “inside track” of the low-down that was happening at the aquatic facility. While Kurt is based on a real person, I cannot divulge if any of these complaint letters have an ounce of truth hidden in them. In the meantime, the real question is going to be whether or not Kurt knows what the supervisors are thinking when they give him that look. What do you think?

A brief update on the creative process of Suits and Guarders:
I managed to complete eight comics in the month of January and ten in the month of February all while bouncing back and forth to school and work. And I plan to submit my comic to several syndicates again this spring.

Career Moves

2/19/2018

What? Did you think Kurt wasn't involved in this?

Kurt just couldn’t keep his hands out of the peanut butter on this one. And as one can see, Jonathan was already suspicious of Kurt at the moment Arnold jumped from his seat. This is exactly why a pool needs to stay busy; otherwise lifeguards will find trouble to pass the mundane hours. I’m not sure at this point if it’s the trunks or the chair that is more salvageable, but either way, it’s going to be a chore to wash the nuttiness out of this rampage. If Arnold ever figures out what happened, Kurt may seriously have to consider making that “career move.”

What’s really amusing about this cartoon is the backstory behind it. As if anyone would ever consider lifeguarding to be a career, the actual lifeguard that Kurt is solely based on said this comedic-like punchline word for word. Yes, Kurt is a real person. I always tell people that all of my characters are composites based on several individuals, but Kurt is the one exception. As a matter of fact, he was the driving force that caused me to create the cartoon “Suits and Guarders.” Because this story was etched deep in my mind long ago, I tend to think of this cartoon as one of the first comics. But because time was needed to develop the personalities, I pushed it back until later in the series so that everyone was familiar with the characters. This prank never happened in real life. In fact, I don’t really know what caused the real Kurt to express these words or even to whom he was referring. I just know that upon hearing this, I thought, “Now this should be in a comic strip!”

Be Careful Where You Put Your Belongings

2/12/2018

Arnold is sure that someone picked the lock!

The only true story I can tell about mischief around lockers is that when I was a kid on a swim team, one of the older guys would open all the lockers before he left the locker room and run past them with his hand extended out. Bang-bang-bang-bang! was the sound that echoed through the drafty room, because at the time, the lockers were made out metal. It’s safe to say this is probably why all the lockers were replaced with plastic later on because over the years they had really taken a beating. On the other hand, a middle schooler on the same swim team told me that some guys at his school had applied oil to the interior of a locker and practically the whole thing had gone up in a blaze. So that’s what you learn in middle school. So it may be that around swimmers, lockers will eventually be lost to impact, flame, or perhaps, a leak coming from the ceiling.

This particular cartoon is completely fictional, though I would not be surprised if someone encountered something very similar. The previous high jinks of my fellow swimmers are fun to look back on, but I don’t think assisting kids in new ways to make a racket or introducing Arsonry 101 through my comic is a good idea. I’m pretty sure that one day a comic strip of mine will spark some mischief in someone but I’m hoping it will just involve the mischief of humor.

The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing?

1/30/2018

No dancers or swimmers were injured in the making of this comic.

I don’t think any dancers follow my blog. But If they did, they might have a good laugh over this cartoon! Or maybe just point out that I don’t know my dance moves.

Swim coaches highly encourage stretching exercises before every meet or practice. Stretching not only decreases your chance of injury in the water, but nearly eliminates injuries on dry land too. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a kid, or an adult for that matter, say, “Ouch! I just hurt myself stretching!” On the other hand, I wouldn’t say it’s not possible. So if you’re going to try to prove that point, please don’t injure yourself.

If you guessed that this is based on a true story, then you would be correct. A group of high school swimmers decided that they were going to take up dancing one day and started performing pirouettes across the pool deck. Sure, lifeguards have to tell kids on occasion not to run. And of course, high school swimmers know not to run on the pool deck. However, from a teenager’s perspective, the pool rules don’t say anything about dancing, and I don’t think they ever will, unless jumping three feet in the air over a puddle of standing water becomes a regular dance move. So while you might say this wasn’t smart, it was actually very graceful. I tried to capture that grace here and the total reckless abandon of possibly falling and breaking a limb. How did I do?

Thankfully no characters (real high school swimmers or cartoon swimmers) were injured that day because the dancing was stopped by a lifeguard before it happened (inside or outside of the cartoon panels). I think it’s safe to say that only in a comic strip where the gag is fabricated beyond reality, will an incident like this ever appear to be funny.

The Big Leap

1/23/2018

I drew this cartoon from the child's perspective. I hope I captured the feeling of making a big leap.

Life has moments like this where we all take a leap at something. The way I see it, just jump when you’re ready; unless someone is waiting around to catch you. In that case, you now have the obligation of telling them, “Okay, fine! I’m going to do it now!”

I’m not going to pretend to be one of those people who writes inspirational posts for a living, because I don’t think the above statement is going to brighten anyone’s day. Instead, I think my forte is invoking people to laugh at my terrible humor.

This cartoon best explains how a swim instructor usually spends their time in the water with a beginner: half of the effort is merely consoling the swimmer and telling them that everything will be alright, and the other half is actually performing the task. The same is true for any teacher or coach in life. I chose to apply the panel angles from the child’s view in order to relate to the person taking the leap, instead of the one who is watching. It takes a lot of patience, but when they take that leap, it is so worth watching the expression on their faces. With many kids, I have successfully gotten them to overcome their fears in the water, not due to how I teach, but because I visualize what they might be going through. Okay, I guess that was some kind of inspirational writing, but I still refuse to be categorized in that realm.