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| (left to right) Their version; my version. |
Leroy and Loretta Lockhorn hate each other, and their marriage is a miserable sham. They sublimate in various ways: Leroy drinks, Loretta shops. They both use words to wound each other. That's the way it is now. That's the way it was back in 1968, when The Lockhorns debuted. That's the way it will be when the newspaper industry completely vanishes in six or seven months. (I kid. The ol' gal will last at least another year and a half.) I thought a panel from today's strip was actually pretty great from an art standpoint, but the "joke" -- a really lame, forced pun on the word "thesaurus" -- ruined it. So I got rid of the joke and turned it into a quiet, contemplative moment: Leroy and Loretta wordlessly, sadly eying one another in a bookstore. For some reason, I like it even better when the image is flipped horizontally.
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| Peak Lockhorns. |
And just for good measure, I created a little four-panel vignette using this artwork.
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| Sometimes, emotional cruelty needs no words. |