Tina's Groove

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Tina's Groove
Tinasgroove12912.jpg
Rina Piccolo's Tina's Groove (January 29, 2012).
Author(s) Rina Piccolo
Launch date2002 (2002)
End dateJuly 2, 2017 (July 2, 2017)
Syndicate(s) King Features Syndicate
Publisher(s) Andrews & McMeel
Genre(s)Humor

Tina's Groove is a comic strip by Rina Piccolo with a restaurant setting. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it began in 2002. [1] [2] The comic strip ended its run on July 2, 2017. [3]

Contents

Characters and story

"Tina’s Groove chronicled the personal and workplace adventures of a single, smart, attractive waitress who worked at Pepper’s restaurant. Shrewdly self-aware, Tina refuted clichéd notions of single women as neurotics obsessed with career or marriage. Tina found her groove and empowered herself by embracing life and everyone she met head-on." [4]

Piccolo offered her description of the characters on July 4, 2012:

Tina’s imperfections, if she has any, are of the kind that are quirky, and therefore endearing. This is good for a cartoon character. I believe the main character of a comic strip should be one that’s likable. But does that mean the main character should be flawless? It’s the weaknesses, or fixations, that make characters interesting. The other characters of the strip all have fixations that make them imperfect. Rob, the manager of Pepper’s Restaurant, is a misfit neat/control freak who hasn’t yet realized that it’s now cool to be a geek. Carlos is a sack of testosterone who must prove himself to be the manliest at any cost. Suzanne is a spoiled 30 something flake who has so many weaknesses she’s created a personality out of being less than perfect. And then there’s Monica. If you read the strip then I don’t have to waste my words on Monica. Tina stands apart. One good reason for this is that Tina is what’s known in the comedy world as the “Straight Man”. She’s the only sane character in a world of insanity. In the strip she represents logic, the voice of reason, while every one else is crazy. This is where most of the humor comes from. [10]

Readers have wondered if Tina is depressed or deeply worried about something, but Piccolo explains that this impression is mistaken and may be an inadvertent effect of Tina's hairstyle, specifically the hair bangs being drawn "at the same angle that you’d use to draw a 'worried eyebrow' expression".

"Tina’s not depressed — no more than any other person. When I started the strip I didn’t know a lot about her, but I did know what I didn’t want her to be. I didn’t want my main character to be sappy and sickeningly sweet. I wanted to write her as a girl who had real-world traits who just happened to be nice in a normal, non-mushy way... The thing is, I don’t want Tina to be smiling in every situation — that would be sappy." [11]

The strip ran in such newspapers as the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Arizona Republic and the Toronto Star, and it is also available through King Features' DailyINK email service. [12]

Books

In 2006, Andrews & McMeel published Tina’s Groove: A Cartoon Collection ( ISBN   978-0740756979), collecting selected strips from its first few years. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "About Tina's Groove". DailyINK. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  2. Dean Mullaney, Bruce Canwell and Brian Walker, King of the Comics : One Hundred Years of King Features Syndicate. San Diego : IDW Publishing, 2015. ISBN   9781631403736 (pp.276,303)
  3. Piccolo, Rina (2017-06-24). "Farewell, Tina" . Retrieved 2017-07-03.
  4. Tina's Groove: About
  5. "Tina's Groove". DailyINK. 2012-11-06. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  6. "Tina's Groove - About the Characters". TinasGroove.com. Retrieved March 21, 2014.
  7. "Tina's Groove". DailyINK. 2013-09-30. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  8. "Tina's Groove". DailyINK. 2013-09-03. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  9. "Tina's Groove". DailyINK. 2013-09-18. Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  10. Piccolo, Rina (2012-07-04). "Is Tina Too Perfect?" . Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  11. Piccolo, Rina (2012-07-20). "Readers Ask Why Tina Never Smiles" . Retrieved 2013-10-08.
  12. Tina's Groove