Week 43
Untitled Mushroom Comic Strip #1
The Fun Guys?
For a while I’ve wanted to try something I have never done before and that’s work on a comic strip. A series with recurring characters set in a confined world with little stories that play out over just a few panels. I’ve always found the idea of creating in that form to be particularly scary, even anxiety inducing. I think it’s the pressure to come up with some kind of little gag or wrap everything up neatly after 4 panels. And to keep coming up with more things for the characters to say and do day after day.
I think my mind tends towards long form. I often start with an idea that I think will be small and I keep playing it out and making more connections until it becomes so big it’s too intimidating to even begin. So now, because it scares me, I want to try it, and a perfect opportunity came up.
Rachel and I are going to Perth in July for PCAF (Perth Comic Arts Festival) and have been asked to make a comic for the free Tale Town publication that they distribute there. It’s not necessarily for kids but certainly has to be kid friendly. So I thought it might be a good opportunity to collect a few little strips and flesh out a little world.
I don’t know if this first one is too dark, and I don’t know if it’ll make it in, but it’s the actual first thing I came up with, I just sat down and put two mushrooms in a panel. I thought there might be some humour in having two mushrooms talking to each other even though they are part of the same organism.
So I’ll keep mucking around with the characters and the style etc. It might be that this first strip is like watching the first season of The Simpsons and these characters start to change in different ways. But I think I’ll keep playing it out here over the next few weeks at least and see what happens.
I broke ground on the final artwork for the book this week. I drew the panel borders and then this much of one panel when the power adapter for my lightbox exploded and I think also blew the circuitry inside the lightbox. The smoking element smelled unpleasant and I can’t help but feel the whole thing is some kind of sign.
This Week I Learned…
You might have seen recently a fact going around that horses walk on their fingers. Apparently this is true. The hoof is made of keratin like a fingernail and their knees are like wrists. Here’s helpful diagram:
And here’s an unhelpful one:
I had a conversation today with two friends about bicycles and how hard they are to draw. Maja said that if she was sent back in time and had to prove she was from the future that she would draw a bicycle and get someone to make it. I didn’t think I could draw a bike from memory, even though I (used to) ride one all the time. I also can’t draw a horse, which got me wondering why two of the hardest things to draw are also the same thing (because bicycles are really just mechanical versions of horses!).
In fact, the first bicycle was called a ‘dandy horse’, and it didn’t have pedals. Instead you strode along like a child’s balance bike and apparently walking on your tippy toes like a—you guessed it—horse! It’s horses all the way down!
I don’t know what this all means but please share your conspiracy theories in the comments. Other notoriously hard things to draw: hands. Another thing you can sit on. AND HORSES ARE MEASURED IN HANDS HOW DEEP DOES THIS THING GO???
Anyway I’ll leave you with this amazing video about the first horse, the Eohippus, which was the size of a dog and had more toes before they were whittled away by that dirtbag known as evolution.