Volume 18 – Cameras and Calendars

Behind-the-scene commentary from Greg Evans:
” The Brad and Toni saga has now been going on for eight years! Little did I know when I introduced Toni Daytona …Read More

Behind-the-scene commentary from Greg Evans:
The Brad and Toni saga has now been going on for eight years! Little did I know when I introduced Toni Daytona what an impact she’d have on Brad – and on LUANN. This story attracted a huge fan base and began to take over the strip. Any time I left their story and did something about Luann, fans would complain about how “boring” the Luann segments were and how I needed to rush right back to Brad and Toni.

It was a challenge to dream up new ways to keep the “will they/won’t they” thing going. That’s the trouble with romance stories: once you get to “…and they lived happily ever after…” then what?

I’d read about firefighter calendars and thought this would work great in LUANN. This turned out to be a premise rich in humor, drama and steamy scenes. Not to mention several months of storylines, especially once Tiffany got involved.

I like to use real names in the strip wherever it naturally fits. In the 9-27 strip, I used the name of my local fire chief, Todd Newman. He’d become a valuable asset whenever I needed firefighter info.

I also like to drop in “easter eggs” – those little visual bits that sharp-eyed readers like to spot. Have you ever noticed that when computers are shown in movies and TV shows, they’re almost always Macs? I wanted to be equally trendy in LUANN, thus the Apple logos on the laptop here. Plus, I was kinda hoping Steve Jobs would send me a nice new MacBook. No luck.

It’s interesting to see the opposite way that males and females perceive intimacy. Women generally seem calm and controlled. Men (particularly ones like Brad) totally lose it. Witness the racy photo shoot…