Six -

I really hope you don't take this in the wrong spirit, because I am blown away ecstatic that you're making this strip. But I think you need some more development on the characters, some of whom are bogging down the strip. I wanted to offer some suggestions for a different direction you could go with some of the cast so that they become more identifiable.

Tom Blockham

As I mentioned in today's DD, you've got Tom, who I presume is you, pretty much down. However, he's almost too identifiable. By that I mean he's almost too much of an MGoBlog reader so that he overshadows the rest of the cast whenever he's on stage. If you're going to have him be, well, you, then he ought to be the strip's lead, and the rest of the characters should be seen through his eyes (see: Calvin & Hobbes). If your intention however is to have this be more of a Peanuts style (where each character can star with their own POV) then Tom needs to be a little off, perhaps a Lloydist, or an ESPN-er rather than an MGoBlogger (which he thinks is for Desmond).

Tom, despite being the golden child, is actually the least invested in his immediate family, and the least likely to get philosophical--his focus is all taken up by his wife and kid and job and Michigan.

Glenn Blockham

So far is just an asshole. I know it's a cartoon, but he's too much of a cartoon character, i.e. a characterization of what a 25-year-old thinks an 80-year-old acts like. This one is going to be tough because to "get" Glenn you're going to have to get inside his head more to find his real motivation. This is a man who has his priorities straightened out, and considering his familiy is always around him I think it's a good bet he figured out long ago that his familiy is more important to him than being a "die-hard" fan. Whereas Tom will sit with bloodshot eyes pounding his fist on the coffee table at every 3rd and long the defense gives up to VT, Glenn can't be that emotional. You're going to have to figure out who this man is, because Rule One of having old people for characters is that they are blunt in decision-making but very subtle in action.

For example with the (pretty good) episode where he gets Three & Out for Christmas, he goes off on a rant and makes metaphors. Think about this: how many old people do you know who think metaphorically? That is a thing more prevalent in younger minds--all the comparing things to things is the enquiries of a mind still trying to figure out what's what. Not to mention old guys have to be stingy with the energy they expend. Going off on a rant at his son for buying a Christmas gift tells us this man cares so much about HIS Michigan fandom that he'll use up the limited air in his lungs to make his kid feel bad about it. This just makes him unlikeable. Where I would have liked to see that one go is to find Glenn reading the cover out loud, and then before he can react Donna swoops in to take the book away and warn him "Remember what Doctor Cohen said: no Rich Rodriguez!"

Same with when he went off on his Sparty son. I'll cover that with Chalmers.

Chalmers "Bump" "Chas":

This is by far your worst character but could be your best. Right now you've made him nothing more than a lightning rod for the worst kind of Sparty trolling. I'm begging you to re-write this character to make him someone we can empathize with. Take the latest strip, which is the first where Bump is featured:

Panel 1: Chalmers starts in on the "it's not fair Michigan went to the Sugar Bowl" thing.

Panel 2: Now he's going off about it but he's crying! (this is wrong).

Panel 3: Glenn comes in to holler at him and make him feel unloved.

Panel 4: Chalmers says he's got to go work, then the punchline is he's a pizza delivery boy.

So the punchline is...wait, that has nothing to do with the question Bump asked. Bump asked a fair question, while crying, and then the answer from Michigan is to ignore the question because his father doesn't love him for having gone to State. So Bump says "okay, I gotta go make my living" and then we laugh at him for that job being a shitty job any kid with a driver's license can do.

Man are we assholes!

Bump's question is fair: if Michigan is graduating seniors who never beat Michigan State, and if national relevance is all about winning football games, why haven't the tables turned?

The answer is because that's not all that goes into national relevence. The answer is because only at Michigan State is a 3-loss season where you beat Michigan and won the Outback Bowl considered a National Championship. The answer is because if Michigan had that same season we would be bitching about our safety play in coverage and the stupid Lions-esque penalties our eminently unlikeable players keep taking, not whining about comparative national respect with another conference team.

Michigan State is petty and provinicial, but they're not losers; if there never was a Michigan, they would be Wisconsin.

So Bump Chalmer rewritten: First of all he hates that he's named for Bump Elliott and asks people to call him Chas (Glenn and Tom and Desmond and Charlie still call him "Bump" but Pam calls him Chas and his mother calls him Chalmers).

He's the strip's tragic hero. He is close enough in age to Tom that they competed against each other growing up, but far enough away that Tom always won. He looks up to his brother, though he won't admit this to himself, and he is also jealous of Tom's position as the family's golden child. Little things like his mother fauning over Charlie secretly bug Chas, and make him feel uncomfortable, often leading to him doing something comic-worthy.

Chas's problem is not intelligence: he is actually very smart, but not very practically smart -- more of a dreamer and liberal artsy mind as opposed to Tom's literal engineering mind. His ultimate failing is that he is just a little bit too lazy. He's also a little bit unlucky (Sparty NO!), e.g. when he was applying to Michigan he got his application turned in just a day late for fall admissions in '97, and then Michigan won the National Championship and suddenly he was wait-listed as Michigan was flooded with 3.8 GPA kids with 32s on their ACTs.

He is an innately good person but this conflicts with the petty Spartanhood and this is a constant struggle for him. He doesn't go for Sparty trolling, but he does often send up test balloons that he's heard from other Sparties, and which the Michigan fans around him take as evidence he's stupid (when really he's desperately trying to create a philosophical basis for Michigan State fandom within the framework of what he's been told Michigan fandom is about, which is hopeless).

His mother is fiercely protective of him. His job is a bad fit for him -- perhaps he has gone to work for his father (this would give him and Glenn an interesting relationship since they are such different people).

Chas also has a SMOKING HOT female friend from college who is obviously in love with him, but Chas is too caught up in his own insecurities to realize it. Chas also got used to being smarter than the other kids in his class at State and thus has a bit of arrogance around other MSU folks. The girl friend however is the perfect patsy to be the butt of the Spartan jokes that wouldn't work on Chas, since she is kind of dumb, likes drinking and partying, has a fine appreciation of basketball and the proper method of igniting a couch, and is always ready to troll Michigan fans (especially if she thinks Chas needs to be defended) despite not having any clue what she's talking about.

In a future strip, Chas has a dream in which he is a Michigan student having a profound debate about philosophy. Michigan-Bump is also extremely arrogant and unlikeable, and we get the sense that this is really what he would have been like.

Desmond

THIS is your MGoBlog reader, except not the diary-writing kind but the kind who knows Lloyd Brady and avidly follows recruiting and finds excuses in conversations to bring up the fact that Richard Ash and Delonte Hollowell are in his History lecture. Whereas for the rest of the Blockhams a Michigan game is inner monologue is "don't lose, don't lose, don't lose," for Desmond it's "please win, please win. AAAHHHHHHWWWWESOME!!!!!!!" Desmond is the complete opposite of Chas -- he is alive in the now, easy and eager to be pleased, athletic, energetic, and constantly starved for attention and his father's approval. In his NCAA Dynasty Michigan has never lost.

Every year when Michigan beats Notre Dame by 4 points in some incredibly preposterous manner, Desmond goes insane for a week.

Donna

Like Glenn, she's too much of a caricature, and not enough of a character. If Donna plays like a foil out of a Norman Rockwell painting her act will get cliche really fast.

Suggestion: Give Donna a makeover so that she's more Ann Arbor former hippy baby boomer than Iowa WWII generation. At the same time her husband was trying to survive Southeast Asia, Donna was on the Diag (and was there for the '69 Ohio State game). Dye that hair (you can leave the gray streak if you like) and have random famous people about the Michigan program (Dave Brandon, Jim Shaeffer the owner of Blimpy Burger, the barbers on State Street, Coach Jackson) recognize her as if they know her a little too well, though she never ever name-drops (hinting that she may have been "known" for other things than cherry pies at one time in her life).

Hope this helps.