Characters in cartoons almost always seem to wear the same items of clothing every day unless the plot of the cartoon involves clothes (a wedding or Homer becomes a fireman) Can anyone name a cartoon series in print or on TV where cartoon characters just wear different clothes because thats just what people do on different days and not just because of a plot point? And why is this? Could you not figure out who Lucy was if she was wearing a green dress instead of a blue one?
I see what you mean … I was going to suggest Zap comics but the characters just put the same clothes back on after sex … I think that’s sex they’re having, damn that’s a lot of maple syrup …
The *Archie *universe. Probably not at first run, but the series was kind of a defacto fashion mag for tweens when my sister collected them. Yes. My sister. Shut up. I did not read Archie.
Obviously, in superhero comics and cartoons, the hero always wears the same uniform or costume. But in private life, Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne and Steve Rogers and Clark Kent wear all kinds of clothes.
In Doonesbury, the people are people and change yearly. In fact, I’d say almost every comic strip in which time passes, like Jump Street or For Better or For Worse or Rex Morgan M.D., has their change clothing just like real people.
The OP asked about cartoons not comic strips. I think the difference is that the animation process calls for 100s if not 100s of drawings. To the extent you can reuse images – putting the same figure over a different background – you save a lot of work.
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
We had a thread on this topic about a year ago.
Repeating (and correcting a typo in) my contribution from the last thread:
The OP said specifically “in print or on TV.”
BTW, I wrote Jump Street when I meant Jump Start.
this here would be the reason. No, you cannot tell Lucy from Charlie, if they had the same clothes (and same hair).
There isn’t that much detail in a cartoon character, and so distinguishing characteristics are often times things that change more regularly on real people.
Most anime they do. I especially like Card Captor Sakura which is a fashion show combined with a magical girl show.
Doesn’t Kim Possible have a few different outfits?
Also, animated characters have very simplified facial features. They have to add other distinguishing characteristics to make it easier to tell the characters apart. In addition to wildly exaggerated facial features and weird hair shape, clothes usually end up being one of those features.
The guys on Archer wear different things, albeit variations on a theme. Archer has suits and tactical turtle necks, Lana has short skirts, etc.
Sterling Archer:
"I’m not saying I invented the turtleneck. But I was the first person to realize its potential as a tactical garment. The tactical turtleneck!..
The… tactleneck!"
Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor both started with the main characters wearing the same clothes all the time. However, more and more they have other “looks.” Disney sells both as dolls. (Sofia’s sister Amber is almost more of a fashionista than Sofia.)
Bojack Horseman is a candidate.
Because its structured around Bojack’s daily tribulations, they take care to show him in activity appropriate clothing, so he gets dressed up for a formal event, gymwear, casual etc.
There are dozens if not hundreds of people drawing a single episode of a cartoon, they have model sheets they’re supposed to reference, so they all draw the characters the same. That’s why changes of clothing/other appearance changes seldom happen unless it’s a major plot issue for the ep.
The characters in the *Luann *comic strip (especially the girls) wear a lot of different outfits.
The girls on As Told by Ginger tended to wear different clothes from one episode to the next. The boys, on the other hand, pretty much wore the same things over and over.