Zits?! Comic Strip Focuses On Teen Angst

You probably know a Jeremy.

He’s 15. He’s a freshman in high school. He likes to play loud music. He’s self-absorbed.

Actually, maybe you were a Jeremy. Or still are.

Whatever, you’ll start experiencing the life of a specific Jeremy on Monday when The Spokesman-Review starts running a new comic strip titled “Zits.”

That’s such a Jeremy kind of title.

At least Jerry Scott thinks it is. Scott, co-creator of the strip with cartoonist Jim Borgman, says “Zits” wasn’t the first choice. The original title actually was “Work in Progress.”

But when the syndicate representative wanted something a little more, well, visceral, “Zits” seemed to be the perfect compromise.

Especially when the syndicate reps liked it even less.

Not a bad start for guys in their 40s who, for the past year, have steeped themselves in something that smells like teen spirit.

“We had to wrestle with the issue of how do these 40-something guys not look like a couple of old geezers trying to keep with Generation X language and dress and all that kind of thing,” says Borgman, 43. “We made a pretty conscious decision that while we want Jeremy to be very much a part of his generation and of today’s world, we were not going to masquerade as experts on Generation X and try to stay on top of every lingo development and stuff. It’s just a losing battle.”

Instead, he says, “We’re trying to develop a character that people can like and hopefully relate to from their own years as a teenager.”

It shouldn’t be too much of a stretch. The setting of “Zits” is pure Americana, middle-class and ‘90s-conscious in a way that is far more clever than your average television sitcom.

Most of the strip’s humor evolves from Jeremy’s biggest struggle: putting up with parents who still have to clean up after him but no longer get to dress him in cowboy pajamas.

“I’m 15 years old, OK?! I can take care of myself!” Jeremy screams at his mother. “Just do me a favor and stay out of my life!!” he adds, slamming his bedroom door.

A beat. Then the door opens.

“But first,” he asks, “could you drive me to school?”

Aside from Jeremy, there are his parents - she a “flextime” worker who has plenty of time to be a modern June Cleaver, he an orthodontist who preaches the need for flossing and who still wears his favorite Moby Grape T-shirt.

Chad, who is Jeremy’s older brother, represents the sorts of expectations that Jeremy - all of us, in fact - can never live up to. Now at college, Chad is your typical 4.0 student, all-state athlete, student body president, etc.

“Living up to Chad,” the authors say, “is hopeless.”

And there are Jeremy’s pals - Hector Garcia, who has been Jeremy’s constant companion since fifth grade; and Sarah Toomey, not quite a love interest but still more than a friend.

The mix seems to work well enough. So well, in fact, that you’d never know that it took more than a year to iron out the rough points.

It was last summer when Scott, a cartoonist living near Phoenix, Ariz., and Borgman, a newspaper editorial cartoonist living in Cincinnati, Ohio, got together for what was meant to be nothing more than a simple vacation.

But when Scott broke out his sketchbook, the two began talking about the idea that Scott was working on.

“It just wasn’t working the way I wanted,” Scott says.

With just a few strokes of his pen, Borgman nailed the character of Jeremy, and the rest seemed to fall in place.

Scott, 42, and Borgman, 43, bring a full range of experiences to “Zits.” Scott drew the strip “Nancy” for 12 years after creator Ernie Bushmiller died, and he is co-author (with Rick Kirkman) of the nationally syndicated strip “Baby Blues.”

Borgman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Cincinnati Enquirer, has never worked in a panel-type format. Despite his sterling credentials, he’s found the work challenging.

“With an editorial cartoon, the issue is to be provocative and to engage readers in a debate of the issues, to be timely and as topical as you can be,” he says. “To weave different parts of the news together in creative ways. To capture the moment, if it’s a tragedy, of something heavy in the air.”

With a four-panel strip, he says, “The mission is entirely different. You’re telling a story, and I’ve had to learn that I’m very much on the steep part of the learning curve of learning how to walk a viewer through an action that develops before their very eyes.”

Scott and Borgman, who live at opposite ends of the country, talk daily on the phone. Following a conversation, Scott generally sketches out an idea, faxes it to Borgman, who then makes adjustments and faxes it back. This goes on until they both feel the strip is right, and then Borgman does the final inking.

They get their material from life around them, from their own life experiences, from what they read and even from the movies they see (both laugh at the portrayal of cartoon artists in “Chasing Amy”).

At least some of Borgman’s material comes courtesy of his 14-year-old son, Dylan.

“We’re kind of like Dian Fossey looking through the leaves at the specimen there in the house,” Borgman says with a laugh.

But, he adds, “My son’s role is not so much to model for Jeremy, who is a distinct personality from my son. But he does parade teenagers through our house, and I get to stay sharp with what they are dressing like and how they sound, and I’m developing an ear for what they would and wouldn’t say.”

If all this sounds like fun, neither Scott nor Borgman would disagree.

“I guess what’s really at work here is that I basically love this stuff,” Borgman says.

Which helps alleviate all the pressure that comes from adding one more deadline to lives already pushed to the limit by job obligations.

“The math doesn’t work on how I’m getting all this done,” Borgman says.

“My life is on deadline,” adds Scott.

Sounds like high school all over again.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 color photos