As the big-footed teenager Jeremy Duncan might say: �Sweet!� As in Sixteen.

This week, King Features will officially announce that Jeremy � who�s been 15 years old since the popular strip �ZITS� launched in 1997 � will be allowed, at last, to turn 16.
Driving! Car dates! The freedom to careen far away from parents Walt and Connie Duncan! Think back to when you were 16 � or for some of you, forward to when you�ll be 16 � and just imagine the possibilities. Jeremy�s lifestyle � sometimes as immobile as that Volkswagen van he and Hector have up on blocks � can soon hit the open road.
�I do look forward to some new scenery within the strip � I imagine the van will become more of a character and there will likely be more parentless adventures,� the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Jim Borgman tells Comic Riffs. �After freezing Jeremy at 15 for over a decade, it just felt like time to cut the kid a break and move on to a different set of challenges and frustrations.�
Jerry Scott, Borgman�s co-creator on the strip � which is syndicated to more than 1,500 newspapers � tells Comic Riffs that he relishes the creative terrain that letting Jeremy turn 16 can bring.
�I think it�s going to give us new writing opportunities,� Scott says. For years, �We felt (15) was the maximum frustration age. You think you can run the world and you can�t even drive a car. ... Driving a car is going to rachet up the tension between his parents and him. There�s the newfound freedom � there will be more strips that don�t involve his parents. That�s going to create a whole new challenge that�s kind of exciting � we�re going to get inside his head a little more.�
Scott and Borgman weren�t the only ones ready to see Jeremy get behind the wheel. Scott recounts a recent incident in which a �Zits� reader came up to Borgman at an Ohio cartoon museum event and said: �You got to let the kid drive!�
So when will Jeremy�s exact birthday be? Scott went back over the upcoming strips to figure it out. �It�ll be Aug. 14,� Scott says. �That�s the day Jeremy will show up at the DMV.�
Jeremy�s look has changed over the years, perhaps most notably his hairstyle. So will Jeremy�s appearance change now that he�s of driving age?
�I don�t see dramatic visual changes immediately ahead,� Borgman says. �Truth is, Jeremy has already �aged� within 15, gradually developing an older, shaggier, slouchier look over the years we�ve been drawing him. Chronologically he�s now 16, but I think his look now covers most of teenagerhood.�

Cavna writes the �Comic Riffs� blog on washingtonpost.com, from which this article is adapted.