Archive for February, 2008
12 items.
Growing up, I always wanted to draw a comic about an animal that speaks. It seems every strip had one (at least, every strip I really liked). Then, when I got older, I realized — Lots of strips already had talking/thinking animals.
When I originally wrote in the lobster, he was a
one-shot gag
. On a side note, man, the art has REALLY improved. Anyway, after a large response I decided to keep him around. But what to do about his communication ability?
We already know he can
write
, which was kind of an oversight on my part, but something I`m going to stick with. He probably writes very slowly. Beyond that, however, I`m keeping his ability to communicate on a short leash. This gives him added depth, since he is clearly quite intelligent but unable to convey that. It`s understandably frustrating, and that gives cause to his mean streaks. I`ll reveal more about how I see him later.
I never dreamed I would have gotten this kind of mileage out of the character, not to mention a lot of fun drawing to boot. The comic about the lobster writing, linked above, was a pleasure to draw, as was
this one
.
I`m about to wrap this story line up, so don`t get too concerned that this is going nowhere or that it`s going to be yet another arrest story. The news story in the background is just for flavor and sensationalism.
I also found the Expand Selection tool in Photoshop Elements 3.0, and man, it makes laying color sooo much easier, but it`s so many more clicks and there`s no shortcut! My tunnel is really carpaling right now.
I kind of lost my way on this one, and I was over deadline, so I had to put up what I had. I thought this format would be pretty neat, but instead it is too cramped and I have too much of the same…lines. You, the Internet population in general, are quite educated and don`t need to see six separate lines. I tried to mix it up, and now I have an array of small, disconnected panels. In the future, I`d use fewer, larger panels and change up the layout to break flow and draw attention to each separate point (perhaps vertically staggering the panels). Anyway, enjoy.
Originally, I planned this to be the woman talking to the lobster, wondering how he was doing, then he would show up yelling, “I`m going to Disney World!”. The pacing was all wrong, and I couldn`t write it the way I wanted to. Instead, I did this, which used the same format as the day before. I felt kind of weird about that, but I really liked this joke, so here it is.
I am of course referring to the following quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”. You may be more familiar with its bastardized form where “Essential Liberty” is replaced with “anything in any way inconvenient”, which is commonly bandied around the Internet. It is especially common among those who anthropomorphize data, describing them as having the will to be free. But I digress.
The program Cutsies here is clearly in reference to the program Clear, as seen at
www.flyclear.com
. For a $128 annual fee and unique personally identifying information (iris scan AND fingerprint) they will let you cut ahead in the security line. This bothers me for several reasons:
This company has no compelling reason NOT to turn over this information to the federal government.
All you get is cutsies. Frankly, I`d rather have known terrorists skip the line and go straight to screening — Then I won`t be standing next to them in line. And shouldn`t they need screening the most?
The federal government is implicitly saying that, by paying this fee ($28 of which is a TSA vetting fee) they are okay with you skipping the security line. They`re endorsing a classed, separate and unequal society.
There`s more to it than that, but frankly I`m a comic strip artist, not a political commentator, so I`ll let you draw your own conclusions.
In terms of the comic, I`m really impressed with how the crowd in the first panel turned out. coloring has always been my big problem, and I really think I`ve been making large strides in that lately. I`m getting better with hair highlights, too, see panels two and three. Plus, I`ve tried the hair going over the shoulder. You may see some character model changes soon, but I have to sketch more first.
This is the first time I have really gone out on a limb with different text styles, including the dripping word bubble. I think I`ll be doing this more. Also, I changed the way I color things. It takes a little longer, but it looks like it may yield better results. I used to have two copies of the line art, in the linework and paint layers. Now, I am painting on a blank layer using selections from the linework layer. Though it wasn`t colored, I really like the third panel in this, though the more I look at it the more confusing I think it is. Ignore the terrible perspective in the first panel.
A simple idea kicked off a bunch of strip ideas for lampooning airports. Easy targets? Yes, but I hope to be treading territory that is relatively uncharted. Maybe you`ll see some funny new twists on it, maybe it`s been done to death and I just don`t know about it. Stay tuned.
I like playing with formats, because the traditional panel is so formal. I have to go back and read more Calvin and Hobbes, because Bill Watterson broke format fairly often. In this strip, the lower-right snapshot captures his fear that someone will grab the last donut of the batch, and he will only get donuts
twice
. The horror!
