"I really love My Guardian Grandpa much better."
- Newspaper reader in an email dated April 2, 2017
Context. Prior to Buddy and Romeo’s Mates and Dates comic strip, I drew a heartfelt, story-driven comic series called My Guardian Grandpa, which was published daily from 2011-2015. The readers of My Guardian Grandpa were devoted and generous and I think they felt a little hurt to have Buddy and Romeo take the place of the characters they’d become emotionally invested in after four years. My Guardian Grandpa connected with a family audience of all ages (from elementary school to senior citizens)
Mates and Dates, on the other hand, was aimed squarely at 20 to 30-something-year-old Millennials. I think you can see the contrasting tones in this strip, which was published April 1, 2015 seven months after Buddy and Romeo took up residency in the spot Judy and Levi had called home for the previous 1,064 days.
This was the first of what would become an annual April Fools Day tradition in Mates and Dates: bringing Judy and Levi from My Guardian Grandpa back to the comic pages to interact with Buddy and Romeo. It was intended to be a treat for readers to see Judy and Levi in the comic section again (and a treat for me to be able to draw them again!) but I fear it served as an annual reminder of a strip that had been taken from readers. Judy and Levi’s April 1, 2017 guest appearance prompted the reader email from which this post’s title is derived.
Over 1,200 My Guardian Grandpa strips are compiled in four book collections. Check them out here!
Speaking of future plans, this might be a good time to talk about the future of this Substack. So far, each post title has presented amusing non-praise of the series from the original 2015-2018 newspaper run. But today’s post marks the last of such quotes from that era and all we have left are positive reader quotes. Those are nice, of course, but for a strip about rejection and failure, it’s funnier to stick with non-praise.
Do you want to contribute a title for a future post? Here’s how this could work:
Tell us what you think of the comic strip.
Tell us what you think of Buddy and Romeo! Do you think they are destined to be alone forever and, if “obviously yes,” why?
Ask your friends why they vehemently refuse to subscribe to this Substack and then tell us their reasoning! We demand to know!
Alternatively, you could also take the following approach:
Ask a question about the series and/or characters and we’ll provide comic evidence as answers.
Tell Buddy and Romeo what they are doing wrong and why they are doomed to remain single if they keep going on the path they’re on.
Your participation is appreciated! Please leave a comment with your quote (or quotes!) below!
This strip was written while I was trying to fall asleep the night we found out we were going to become parents.
I’ve gotten better at naming cartoon and theatre characters since I started in the mid-1990s. Maybe it was all practice for eventually naming actual people.
Whether they’re conspiring together or at each other’s throats, it’s always fun to see Buddy and Romeo stuck on a tandem bike together.
If you’re enjoying yourself at Buddy and Romeo’s expense so far, please subscribe and share this Substack with your friends. As always, thanks for reading!
Want two more strips this week? Consider upgrading to a paid membership to unlock the rest of this post and the entire Buddy and Romeo cartoon archive.