Jump Start (comic Strip)

Jump Start (comic Strip)

Jump Start is a daily comic strip by cartoonist Robb Armstrong. Armstrong attended Syracuse University, where in 1982 he created a popular comic strip in the student newspaper The Daily Orange. That strip was called Hector and its main characters were two young men and a glasses-wearing dog. The Daily Orange now gives out awards for its comic strips every year known as "The Hector Awards."

After having no success in attempting to syndicate Hector, Armstrong created Jump Start, which was designed to have a broader appeal than the earlier strip. Jump Start entered syndication in 1989. It portrays the trials and tribulations of young African American couple Joe and Marcy Cobb as they try to balance the demands of work and raising their young children, Sunny, Jojo and twins Tommi and Teddy. It is syndicated by United Feature Syndicate, and is set in the Philadelphia area where Armstrong grew up. Joe's uniform hat is drawn with a keystone badge emblem, as many police departments in Pennsylvania use that emblem due to Pennsylvania being known as the "Keystone State".

Robb Armstrong set out to portray young black couples from his own experience. In Marcy and Joe the reader sees an average middle class couple, busy with work and raising a family. Armstrong says, "The image of young blacks is so skewed, so false. I don't know anybody who's carjacking, playing basketball, rapping. Joe and Marcy and the characters I've developed are deep and based on real life."