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Triple Take to Come to an End
Scott Nickel, the artist behind Triple Take announced on his blog that the feature he shares with Todd Clark will end on August 26tH. According to Scott, King Features pulled the plug.
The strip was probably doomed from the start. It was too gimmicky and I’m sure the multiple punch lines from a single character sometimes confused readers. It often looked like a sort of cartoon Tourette’s Syndrome, where the guy just couldn’t shut up. I think the strips that featured lists or multiple characters delivering separate punch lines worked best.
Triple Take was Jay Kennedy’s idea (based on one of my submissions that included the “Things John Wayne Would Never Say” gag) and the strip outlived him by only a few months. I actually got the call that TT was being axed just 10 weeks after Jay’s untimely demise.
We were still in 29 papers, including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Seattle P-I. We’d lost a few big papers, however, and the sales trend definitely wasn’t on the upswing. Oh, well. That’s the way this business works. Most new strips don’t make it, running only a few years and then quietly vanishing.
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Community Comments
August/9/2007 @ 10:45 am
Though it was a unique idea, I didn’t care for the strip at all. It was in my paper.
I am pushing my paper to pick-up Edison Lee.
August/9/2007 @ 4:14 pm
Though Jeff M is a unique person, I never cared for him at all. He’s on my planet. I am pushing God to replace him with a Cocker Spaniel.
August/9/2007 @ 9:53 pm
Never saw “Triple Take” in the Chicago Sun-Times. It would have been a nice addition to their great comic pages. Sorry to hear the bad news. I enjoyed the concept.
August/9/2007 @ 11:00 pm
Scott,
Sorry to here that sir.
Your strip was a regular on my ‘Daily Ink’.
OT: I have heard you have 2 other projects coming up. Is that right? If so myspace me the info when you have it.
Again, sorry for the bad news. :(
-Ed
August/10/2007 @ 3:44 pm
The end of “Triple Take” begs the question: What will Scott and Todd do now?
A. Pursue a less stressful careers such as neurosurgeon or flight controller.
B. Take turns being the local clock tower sniper.
C. Create a hybrid/prequel called “Double Take.”
August/10/2007 @ 4:36 pm
Well, Todd Clark has another strip called “Lola,” which is still in papers. And Scott Nickle will have two other strips in his sleeve.
August/10/2007 @ 6:44 pm
I’m very sorry to hear that because it was a pretty good comic, althought the fact is that it was a very gimmicky premise.
No offense to Todd, but I think another problem is that a lot of times it was easy to pick out which one would be the gag used if it was your typical panel, and all too easy to pick out which one was there just to fill the three-punchline quota.
Which isn’t to say that there weren’t many exceptions. A lot of times all three punchlines were great. Also the art was good, too.
Scott’s new online strip, “His and Hers,” looks good so far, and I wish him good luck with his second, “Go Team Bob,” as well.
Todd has a good thing going with “Lola”; unlike “Triple Take,” I don’t see that one ending anytime soon.
September/12/2007 @ 6:04 pm
Was I the only one who, when first seeing Triple Take, immediately thought of Mad Magazine’s “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”?
(Also, when I heard that TT was ending, I was expecting the last strip to be along the lines of, “Scott and Todd Had a Bad Feeling About This Meeting”…)
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