Michael Jantze

One of the earliest webcomics I remember reading was “The Norm” by Michael Jantze. I don't remember how or where I found it, but I remember being hooked instantly. I enjoyed the story and the artwork which (in many ways reminds me of Charles Schulz's work)...but above all the characters, especially Norm and Reine. Michael created characters that felt real, like our friends, co-workers, neighbors, or that crazy guy outside the 7-11 talking to the trash can. In other words his characters felt like we could easily recognize ourselves in. The Norm follows the main character, Norm's, life and his journey to try to figure it all out. This particular issue “The 12 steps of marriage,” was a special issue to show what happened during the missing year of Norm’s life when Norm got married. Because in the comic we jumped directly from the proposal into the second month of Norm’s marriage. Michael at one point wrote because he was more interested in telling those stories than what went on (can’t find the post, but I know it’s there somewhere.) Anyway this is an interesting journey.

As I mentioned above this issue covers the courtship, the proposal, planning of the wedding, and the wedding itself. See Michael decided to skip all of the above. We knew Norm and Reine were in love (and frankly I think most of the readers had been waiting a good while for the characters to realize that,) but what happened after they got married? And that’s what this covers. While it would have been interesting to see everything play out in the comic, Michael was right, it is much more interesting to see what happens afterwards rather than seeing them go on dates and what leads up to it (although I do remember at the time going “wait...what?? I want to know what happened!” And so this short comic gives us the inside scoop of how Norm and Reine got married.

I think what attracted me to the comic most of all is the fact that The Norm is everyman. There’s something about his character that everyone can find something to relate to and how he handles his world around him. Yes of course he’s an artist so he’s a bit different (in one series in the strip he storyboarded his entire day...which put him way behind when he was storyboarding lunch and it was time to go home) but even so he functions as the rest of us. Which is something that at the time was difficult to find in the comic strip world (still is in some cases.) Even better Norm had his...inner characters...that he could talk to, most famous of them was Boy Norm, his inner child, that he could talk problems through (of course at the 6 year old perspective.) And the other characters that show up were also ones that we could recognize.

I like Michael’s simple line drawing style. it captures just the right amount without being overwhelming. I think one of my favorite things about his depictions of the characters though are that we never really see Norm’s parents. We see them as off body voices, the backs of heads, or even in one case in the series as Norm’s childhood crayon depictions of them. For me, it meant that it was easier to imagine they were my own parents, or at least aspects of them. Because by being off body voices it was very easy to see my own parents there.

The Norm was, and still is, one of my favorite strips. Michael has moved on to doing other projects but the book collections can still be found on Amazon and the strip is still running in repeats on gocomics.com. If you’re looking for a quirky, funny, daily strip that has characters that represent you then this is one that you’ll enjoy.… (mais)

I'm a huge fan of Michael Jantze's comic "the Norm" and I've missed it greatly since he ended it a few years ago. Luckily I have this collection to feed my Norm addiction. The artwork, while simple, is always excellently drawn and the strip is consistently funny day after day, which is high praise for any comic strip. In this collection we get to the see the continued development of the characters, and watch as Norm and Reine grow together. If you've never read the strip before pick up this collection and give it a try. You won't be disappointed.… (mais)