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Step 1
Look to daily life as your number one source of material and inspiration as Chic Young did with his comics "Blondie," "The Affairs of Jane," "Dumb Dora" and many others. Topics of dating, marriage, work and even eating were important to Chic Young and served him as great resources for material.
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Step 2
Mix proportional realism with stylized cartooning as Chic Young did in almost all of his comics, but most famously with Blondie. Blondie Boopadoop's fairly realistic look enhanced Dagwood's signature straight-wire hairstyle and oval eyes. Use signatures like this to make some characters more visual while keeping others more verbal to get a dynamic comic strip.
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Step 3
Capitalize on the zany adventures of daily life to formulate recurring themes and the plot lines for the daily comic strip. Chic Young did just this by putting Dagwood Bumstead's pursuit of the perfect sandwich, for instance, as one of the defining characteristics of Dagwood's happy-go-lucky, pleasure- and comfort-seeking nature.
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Step 4
Control the time of your comics and use the time element to spur new interest in the story as Young did by eventually marrying Dagwood and Blondie in the comic. As you create new interest and plot potentials by staging a big event like the marriage in Chic Young's comics, keep other characters frozen in time as Chic Young did with some of "Blondie's" teenage characters.
