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The following is a short list of the characters (other than political figures) in this strip. There have been others, but none have had speaking parts. Many listed here are minor characters.
1) Cellia – Cellia Cohen is the second of Cohen’s three children. She’s four and loves princess dresses and playing with her older brother Martin.
2) Cohen – Perry Cohen is a convert to the church in his youth from Cleveland, Ohio. He is married with three children. His best friend, who also married his sister, is Johnson even if they are political opposites. He has a Ph.D. in American History and teaches in Utah Valley. He met the other primary characters while on his mission. By a weird perversion of transfers in his mission, he and his companions lived together in the same apartment, without killing each other, for eighteen months.
3) Flanagan – Walter Flanagan is the only of the primary characters from Utah. He grew up in Provo and teaches seminary at Provo High, his alma mater. His wife graduated with him and waited for him while he was serving in the Seoul West Mission with Cohen, Johnson, and Kwan.
4) Gramma – Since all ten of her grandchildren are living in Utah, Gramma Cohen moved here surprising her son, Cohen, by just showing up.
5) Joey – Kyong-Min Joey Kwan is Kwan’s only son. He is seven years old and goes to Toad Mountain Elementary. His best friend is Perry J who shares the same birthday and lives across the street.
6) Johnson – Dallas Nachadoches Johnson is from Texes. He married his best friend Cohen’s only sister and then had seven kids. She’s been telling him she wants more, but stays out of that discussion.
7) Kwan – Hong-Un Kwan was oddly left out growing up in UiJongBu, South Korea and never really had any friends until he met Flanagan on his mission, who he served with for nine months before transferring in apartment to be companions with Cohen for six months and then with Johnson for three more. He is married and has one son.
Martin – Martin Cohen is five years old and begins kindergarten in the fall. He follows Perry J and Joey around mostly and is in turn followed around by his sister Cillia.
9) Perry J – Perry J is named after Johnson’s best friend Perry Cohen. He is seven years old. He has six sisters. Two are older than he is.
Yesterday and today, I brushed at least one of the images – p4 today “At the Barbershop” and p4 yesterday “The Uruguayan Soccer Team”. The one for today worked a lot better. Ink goes on quickly and for the most part the ink goes on very evenly. I’m going to start using pens only to crosshatch and add small details. I really like how the brushed lines feel and can see how they become an emotional part of the art compared with pens where lines are simply boarders. The interesting thing about today’s strip is that the brushed image only took a little longer than the pen-drawn image “Woot!!!”. This was also the case yesterday. Actually, the brushed image yesterday went much faster than the pen-drawn image. Both were fast and so that was nice, but if I can keep this up, I hope to be able to brush everything. Quality is the main reason. Pen-drawn the line quality takes too long.
I think I might go back to photo-safe blue mechanical-pencils soon. I had to re-ink several lines after erasing. The next step will be to do everything on bristol. Not yet, I still have to work on my handwriting (I am working on it, but I’m not satisfied with how the handwriting works - it takes as long to tighten-up handwritten text as does to do anything else, so I have to perfect it before I try to put it in the strip (maybe dip pens?)).