Heart of the City by Steenz for May 01, 2020

What Dean said sure is a way of putting it.

TGIF Heart, maybe next week will go better.

OK, the colored version is better than the freaky shading B&W version but, still less cute than the original version.

It’s good to know grades are still a major concern in Heart’s life.

I must say, I really feel sorry for Christina Stewart.

It’s beyond doubt she has talent, and I really wish her the best. However, this way of entering the scene is probably the most terrible I can imagine.

No matter how beautiful a piece of art you are capable of making, if you destroy an already known and appreciated treasure in the process, some people are going to hate you and your works.

Let me put it this way: Most of us like roast pork, and most of us like chocolate. But if we are served roast pork and it taste like chocolate, alarm bells are ringing: Something is wrong!

And that is exactly what happens here. We expect something we love and admire, and are given something completely different. Few takes the time to consider if this new appearance is good or not, it is simply not what we expected, and we choke on it.

Sorry Christina, I liked Heart. This is not Heart.

I gave it a week. I’m out. Goodbye, Heart, you shall be missed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph1GU1qQ1zQ

I am not liking this new style – LOOKS LIKE A WHOLE NEW STRIP TO ME!!!

I just don’t find it funny. I will give it a few more days, but I don’t see anything changing. It isn’t about the new art, it is the completely different story line.

In other Heart news, our friends at the Daily Cartoonist report on an interview with Steenz on St. Louis Public Radio. You can read the details here:

http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2020/04/30/new-heart-of-the-city-cartoonist-steenz-to-be-interviewed-friday-on-st-louis-public-radio/

finally Color!

oooo mom is not gonna be happy

I feel like I’ve had this exact convo with myself. Except a d+ on test is a butt load of work thrown in my lap. Poor heart!

Oooohhh, way better in color! The characters are a little more distinguished from each other. Glad I hung in there

Hi Steenz, sorry for the rough reception. Now that the comic is showing up in color I really like the art. As others have said, it’s not really “Heart of the City” to me either. But that doesn’t matter, I am enjoying your “new” strip. Keep up the good work.

Alright I’m used to it now. I’ll miss the old art style but it had to end at some point. It’s not like Mark could do this strip like the Peanuts and keep it going forever.

THAT didn’t take long! Yay for color, I can read it now!

I agree with previous comment. Once you expect one thing, then get another, that’s a tough adjustment. I will say that color REALLY helps, and I am pretty sure I recognize the characters now.

Keep up the good work! I’m enjoying your new look.

No longer on the fence: with color, I love the new look! Sure, I still miss Mr. Tatulli’s esthetic, but I don’t have to let that get in the way of my enjoyment of Ms. Stewart’s fresh take.

Looking better today. For some reason, my computer had been displaying the strip small and black & white only. Larger panel today and in color – excellent! …and the previous days have fixed, or I wasn’t paying attention…?

What HenrikEriksen said ! Metallica started losing their audience when they “evolved” but got it back when they resumed giving their fans what the wanted. We want the 2019 version of Heart. Please don’t evolve and leave us behind. We’re not going there with you !

So much better in color. It definitely wouldn’t have hit as badly if it had been like this from the first day. I’m trying.

I’m enjoying the new look, thank you Steenz!

I wanted to break out a point in response to HenrikEriksen’s lead item up top.I agree to some extent about it being rough on Christina. In an ideal world, they’d be saying to newcomer something closer to “Let’s publish what you’d create!” rather than “let’s see what you can do starting off with somebody else’s creation”.Look at it from a couple of other angles, though.It’s not all the anonymous authors of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys stuck behind the pen name of the franchise. It’s not Dick Sprang’s (and a lot of other people’s) work being credited solely to Bob Kane.It’s more like later stages of the superhero comic book genre. Where the creator isn’t there anymore but the character lives on, written in different styles by different creative teams over time (and those different teams getting credited for their work!). Look at Batman – Some of them have been duds, yes. But – you also have had turns with Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, Walt Simonson, Mike Barr, Jim Aparo, Frank Miller, Denny O’Neil.. The list goes on and on.

Agreed!

I really didn’t like the “Newheart”. The black and white art was awful. So I dropped it for a couple of days, and decided to give it one more try.

Adding color was like going from a console TV (if you remember them!) to an LED. It certainly helps – a lot. But what we loved about Heart was not her school experience, but her creativity, quirkiness – her personality. If the strip just becomes a “day in the life” of a middle schooler, it’s going to get old, quick.

Christina – please try to maintain Heart’s personality. That was the part we liked the most. Your artistic style is quite different from Mark’s, but we can adjust to that (although maybe not Kat’s nose!) but we want Heart’s personality back.

I’ll keep watching…for a while.

the last comment was right I liked heart the way she was not the new way. why change boats in the middle of the stream. go back to the old heart because I`m not going to be reading this one at all.

There are just some people that need to get over themselves. Reminds me of Cal Smith ‘Lord Knows Im Drinking’ and the self righteous bitty who had to get in everybody’s business whether ask or not.

I think perhaps that the artist should request that comments be disabled—-temporarily—-due to people just not willing to accept change and the fact that what is now here is not going to revert back while seeming to demand and ended to the artist’s career as well. They see this as nothing more than their chance to degrade someone while claiming to dislike what they feel they should have control over because they can’t easily accept change.And while I will miss the old Heart I’m seeing a different Heart with a lot of new potential. And I like it.

Going to color is a huge improvement. The crosshatch black and white was as visually impenetrable as a really jumbled Zippy strip. This makes it easier to give the new run more time to settle in.

I’m glad I decided to check back in today. While the art is still jarring to me and I preferred the original style I have to say seeing Christina’s work IN COLOR makes a HUGE difference! I am impressed. In fact I’m going to sign back up to follow this for a while and see where it leads. Maybe this new artist can actually make Middle School interesting for me. Good luck, Christina. I’m willing to give you a chance, Girl!!!! : )

The color makes it a lot easier to read!

But since when is Heart a poor student? I don’t remember her struggling before.

And I agree with a point someone made the other day that it’s odd to see Dean and Heart with curly hair since in the old comic their hair was straight.

I like the color version much better!

Ooh, color. Huge difference. I wonder if the lack of it before was just a mistake because it’s so much better visually with it.

Still on the give-it-a-chance side. New strips always take time get their footing and I’m considering this to be a new strip with familiar names. Instead of being annoyed at the changes, I’m gonna enjoy it as new and hope that it becomes absolutely amazing…and that Steenz isn’t reading the comments.

Bad week. Isn’t that the truth! Chin up Ms. Stewart!

I am guessing this is a computer program. By hand is better.

I’m staying. I enjoy the new look. Change happens. Heart could have been stopped and dropped completely and there would have been no discussion whatsoever about losing it. I’m glad that Heart will continue and as long as our new artist doesn’t go the route of Luann (since we already have a Luann) I think this strip will do fine and in time and accumulate new readers. But if there are those who are leaving because they can’t embrace change, best of luck to you in your future in the comic realm.

One of the first rules of creative work is to know your audience and try to give them what they want. The comics audience is about the comfort food element of daily comics in the same way as small kids want the same bedtime book every night. They will accept small changes, and bigger changes must be brought in gradually. (Just read the comments here and on other cartoons to see my point.) What has happened here is the absolute worst thing that they could have done for those comfort food comics readers. Poor Stentz has no chance to keep many readers, and she’ll have to bring in new readers fast for her syndicate to keep her. Sad.

I wondered what happened.

Ah, color! Much better!!

I’m outta here.

Most old farts stopped watching James Bond years ago for the very reasons you outline. If you want something different – go do something completely different. Trying to capitalize on the name recognition but totally changing the strip is just plain bad. You can say we’re re-imagining the strip but you’re not. You can’t make a cow pie a re-imagined chocolate pie just by saying we need to make some changes. Taking this one off the watch list.

So why does this show up black-and-white in my daily email, but in color here? It’s still jarringly different but with color it actually looks pretty good.

Love it. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to further installments. And Sundays are going to be so much fun.

All those fine people telling any of us who may not care for the change…. do not need to keep telling us that if we don’t like it, to be quiet and just don’t keep it in your feed….!!! …… We know that. We are probably ALL adults here and ARE free to voice our opinions. Bottom line….the baton in the artist change was dropped and could have been handled in a little less jarring way. That said, Hundreds of comments is a great thing. Lots of time to write for all of us Comics Aficionados.

I appreciate that today’s strip is less visually busy. The last few were difficult for my damaged eyes.

Seeing a new perspective has potential. I will miss the tried and true, but that does not mean that I can not explore a new viewpoint.

I’m liking the in-color version. Couldn’t parse the B+W, for some reason. No problem now.

At least it isn’t a D-. I heard some people claim they lie in wait and leap on you.

put the original drawing of characters back please!!!!

One of my favorite comics has lost all it’s charm and humor. I will read it for a while to see what the new comic is like, but everything that was enjoyable is now gone

I’ve been reflecting on the four B&W versions of the strips we saw earlier this week and why I found them a bit “busy”. For me, at least, the problem was that the foreground characters don’t pop out from the background, and I’m guessing that was due to the heavy use of identical screentone in both. I conjecture that just changing the screen-tone in the background elements to a finer pattern (more squares per inch) would have made them recede and let the foreground stand out in the B&W versions.

One job of the comic artist is to guide the eye of the reader to the important things first. Usually that’s the foreground or speaking characters—but not always. Guidance can be done with placement, shape, shading, large blobs of black, and/or color. Now that the colorist has redone the last four Heart strips, we can see how the colorist has used darker color in exactly the areas where there had been screentone—but different darker colors for foreground and background. So in Thursday’s strip there is a noticeable difference between the wall at the end of the hallway and the shading in Kat’s and Heart’s hair, which helps to distinguish them visually. It’s subtle, but it makes all the difference. I’m liking what I see.

I think this is Heart, alright. I can imagine Dean and her both delivering today’s lines in Mark’s strip.