What started as informal brainstorming sessions between friends has now become a formal partnership on Steve Breen’s Grande Avenue comic strip. As of January 1st of this year, Detroit Free Press editorial cartoonist Mike Thompson is being credited for his work on the strip which began over the last couple of years.
Steve tells me that he and Mike would hang out at AAEC conventions and during one convention, “I told [Mike] I had to go back to the hotel room to work on GA and he came along and offered some good gags. I was pretty impressed with his understanding of the characters and his talent for brainstorming and idea generation. I was looking for help with the strip because I was starting to also do children’s books ( this was around 05 or 06) so it worked out nicely.”
The current workload of writing and art is shared by both cartoonists.
Grande Avenue is a strip about a grandma tasked with raising two rambunctious twins.
Breen has been brilliant, but everyone can use a new prospective from time to time to keep things from getting stale. Glad to see Breen getting some help on GA. Too many cartoonists get stale and they don’t know it. Garfield was awful for years until Jon got a serious romance which has furnished fodder for a lot of new gags. Bravo to Breen and company.
My father was a Veteran, as was my husband’s father. Your strip on May 30, 2010 was, I know, meant to honor those who served and those who lost their lives in that service. Your “thank-you’s” were mostly thought out well. Hawaiian, Israeli, Finnish, Icelandic, Apache, and Russian (Siberian?) all have their place, but after WWII, Japanese does not belong in the list. I took offense to the inclusion of that thank-you and feel that it is an offense to any Veteran who served in the Pacific Theater during WWII.
In the latest strip in the Milwaukee Journal, you have the children and Grandma on a plane. You have not pictured any of them with seat belts, let alone same fastened.I hope this is just an oversight as it gives the wrong impression of flight precautions.
The comic (and I dare to call it a comic) in The Oregonian on Sunday December 14, 2014 was a wonderful tribute to the love of a Grandmother caring for her grandchildren. It made me want to hug you for giving us a real look at the love that is given always and easily to the children. I can not say enough about the strip that day. Love it. I want to always remember that “EASIER ISN’T ALWAYS BETTER.”