When Campbell takes up some of the more difficult issues older people face in real life, she does it with a light touch. I’ve never been into controversy anyway.” My joy in life is that I have a career where I can make people laugh. Like many cartoonists, Campbell steers clear of politics and religion - “anything that’s going to spawn hate mail. The characters have evolved into really good friends of mine.” “I just turned 65 last year, so the strip is becoming more and more autobiographical. “When I started, I thought ’65, that’s old,’ so I made Flo 65,” Campbell says with a laugh. When Gibel unexpectedly died of a stroke in 2005, at just 56, his family signed the strip over to Campbell, for what she says now was roughly the price of a Starbucks Grande Caffè Latte. He brought in Jenny Campbell, a local writer and artist, as a collaborator. The comic was the brainchild of John Gibel, an Akron, Ohio businessman and active volunteer who wanted to create a strip focusing on older adults. “Flo & Friends,” which marks its 20th anniversary this year, carries the subtitle “ Aging with an Attitude!” Title character Flo is a 65-year-old raising her teenage granddaughter.
“Now I’m pretty much writing about myself.” ‘Flo & Friends’ Now 72, with seven children and 21 grandchildren, Crane has plenty of material to draw on and no plans to retire. “My philosophy is that if you can laugh at it, you can live with it.” “My usual response is that I am simply looking to find the humor amidst the trials of getting older,” he says. The humor in “Pickles ” often involves a bit of bickering between Earl and Opal, although Crane says he’s tried to mellow the two over the years.Ĭrane says he rarely gets complaints that he’s portraying older people in a negative way - and when he does, they typically come from younger readers.
“Pickles” made its debut in April 1990 and now appears in some 900 papers around the world, as well as online.Īlthough legend has it that Earl and Opal were modeled on Crane’s in-laws, he says he drew his inspiration from “in-laws, outlaws, everybody.” Increasingly, he says, that includes his wife and himself.
When Brian Crane set out to become a cartoonist in the late 1980s, his goal was to find “something nobody else was doing.” The result was “ Pickles,” a strip that centers on a retirement-age couple, Earl and Opal Pickles, and their family, including grandson Nelson, an elementary school student. Here are some of the comics and creators at the forefront of this trend: ‘Pickles’ Mike Doonesbury, for example, has aged from college freshman to graying granddad - and he has never seemed more contented with life. Some popular strips, such as Garry Trudeau’s “ Doonesbury,” are allowing their characters to age by the year, a phenomenon that was once virtually unheard-of.