Old school. Drawn on paper with pencil, inked with the Kuretake brush pen, grey toned with grey pentel water color brush pen. Cleaned up, lettered and tweaked in Photoshop. I think it will look better if I learn to use better paper.
Yes, I have been drawing this strip for 2 years, believe it or not. Hopefully, you've all hung around through the little "breaks" and stuck with it. If you have, thanks. To help celebrate this little milestone, I asked a bunch of my favorite artist pals to draw their intrepretations of the characters. Now, these are busy folks and I asked at the last possible moment (the way I tend to do everything) so I will be posting them as they arrive. Here is the first, by my good pal Jeff Pidgeon, Pixar story artist/character designer extrordinaire, creator of the Happy Beaver vinyl toy and webcomic!!!
Jeff also maintains a highly entertaining blog where he talks about toys, movies, comics and occoasionally politics. The link is over there on the right under "Pidgeonblog". Go check it out if you haven't already.
More drawings to come! Stay tuned!!
New episode on Monday!!!
Thanks!!
-John
Ahh!!! New drawing by freind James Robertson!!! James is also a story artist here at Pixar!!! He is the incredibly talented author of the "Iron Scythe" blog. I met James via the blog 2 years ago, but finally met him face to face when he started at Pixar last year. He's also a pretty good skateboarder and has tried in vain to teach me a variety of tricks. I'm just too Old School.
Thanks James!
Whoa!!! Here is one from the Multi-talented Nick Sung, another amazing artist here at Pixar!! You probably know him from his inspiring Firehouse Blog. It's over there on the right. Check it out!!!
Back to the 4 panel format. From here on in I will adhere to the discipline of the 4 panels. If I need a page, then I post on a sunday and go for a "sunday page". There is an art to telling these kinds of stories in strip form. I'm gonna practice until I become good at it and you'll all have to just suffer along with me. Do me a favor and tell me when I've gone astray, okay?
Thanks!
-John
Holy crap!! I'd better stepp up my game. Look at these beautiful strips!!! The first is by my good pal story artist/Character designer extordinaire Jeff Pidgeon. It's called "Happy Beaver":
Damn!!! Full color and everything!!!! Funny and appealing!!!
The next is by freind Chris Sanders, famous animation writer/director/story artist/character designer. It's called "Kiskaloo":
Look at that linework!!! You don't see line work like that in the newspaper, do you? Chris and Jeff draw better than ANYONE doing comic strips today. And they are funnier!!! Both strips can be found on their respective blogs. The links are on the right.
Have fun!!!
New strip coming(and it'd better be good!)
STay tuned!!!
-John
Hey all!!! I learned something really cool this week from Kevin Smith's Smodcast. I learned about the significance of January 6th. For those of you that don't know, Jan 6 is called The Epiphany, and is observed by the Catholics as the day that the Maji visited the Christ child and bestowed the gifts of Gold, Frankenscense and myrrh. It is the 12th day of Christmas!! The LAST day of Christmas! With that in mind, this story isn't late at all!!! Right? Oh okay. Here it is the thrilling conclusion:
Afterword: As I said before, this was adapted and expanded from a story I drew for Sara 2 years ago. When I sat down to do the work of adapting this story for the blog, there were two things I that I kept rolling around in my head. The first was the account of the making of The Charlie Brown Chrismas special in the Schulz book. The book told the story of how Schulz insisted that Linus quote scripture and how nervous that made the network. Think about that: a Christmas special that actually talks about the true meaning of Christmas, that quotes the Bible, and it made them nervous.
The other was an incident that happened at Cal Arts back in 1992. It was Christmas time, and someone was screening the Charlie Brown special in "The Palace", the little theater/classroom where we viewed all our movies. The scene where Linus quotes from Luke came on, and a this girl sighed, and rolled her eyes. I asked her what her problem was. She sighed and said "I always feel bad for the little Jewish kids when this comes on". It was my turn to roll my eyes. That was 15 years ago, and yet this incident was fresh in my mind as I wrote and drew that last page. It has always bothered my that people will celebrate Christmas and yet not acknowledge the real reason we celebrate. I know this is a heavy sentiment from a little cartoon that usually celebrates dick and bukkake jokes, but that is where my head was at, and that was where my heart was at. And when I started this thing, I promised myself I'd always follow those two things as they have served me well. So I'll end this by saying Merry Be-lated Christmas and Happy New Year. May there be peace on Earth, and may we all be decent to each other. After all, THAT is what Christmas is really about.
Thanks for reading!!!!
-John
ps: Wow, that last page is tough to read!!!! That's what I get for going back and forth between Comic Life and Photoshop. The resolution got all screwed up. That page was a toughy. Damnit. Oh well, you live and you learn. I'll try to post a clearer version of that page soon. Sorry!!
pps: There, That looks better.
Hey all.
Sorry it has taken me so long to finish part 2 of the Late Christmas story, but it turned out a bit longer than I expected. Anyway, it'll be up tomorrow, (um..today) which is (will be) New Year's Day.
In the meantime, I'll share a few of my favorite things from 2007:
-Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier's Smodcast: Writer/Director Kevin Smith and his producer Scott Mosier shoot the shit. Funny and interesting. I've been a Smith fan since Clerks. I can't help it, I like his movies and think he is really entertaining in his own right.
-The Van Halen Reunion tour-Please, let it last and please, let ups get at least one full studio album's worth of new material out of it.
-Cormac McCarthy: Thanks to freind and colleague Ted Mathot, I discovered the books of Cormac McCarthy this year. "The Road", "No Country for Old men" and "Blood Meridian". Truly great books by a powerful storyteller.
-Ratatouille: Yes, I work for Pixar, but I was still blown away by this movie. Favorite movie of the year, in fact.
I want to thank everyone for continuing to read the strip. I also want to apologize for what was at best a very inconsistant year in terms of posting new episodes. I won't let that happen in the New Year. I will post a new episode once a week starting in February. I will be posting new strips in January, but I can't guarantee just how regular they will be because I will be going full speed on the "Afterworks" storyI have completed the script and I will begin pencillng on the 2nd.
Wish me luck. This is going to be a lot of work.
Thanks again!!!
Happy 2008!
-John
Yes, yes, I know Christmas was a few days ago but I just couldn't get this done in time. I was going to save it for next year, but Sara insisted I finish it and post it any way, pointing out that we often watch "It's a Wonderful Life" on New Year's Eve. So here it is, a bit rough, but all there, well, at least part one is all here. Part 2 will be up tommorow. This story is based on a story I wrote for Sara 2 years ago for Christmas. We have a bit of a tradition in our house, every Christmas, I write and board a little story for Sara. This one pre-dates Chippy and Loopus, but was easy to insert the C&L cast into the story. After that, it was a matter of re-drawing and expanding.
So here you go. The regular strip will be back next week.
Thank you and Merry Christmas!!!
END OF PART ONE!!
Hey all. The Orangina video I am refering too is this one. :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck14LKBI9GM
If you have never seen "Two Girls One Cup", well consider yourself fortunate.
I saw it and I am truly scarred.
The horror...
Wow, time flies.
Work has been busy, home has been busier.
The last month and a half have been difficult and heart wrenching.
You see, sometime back in October, our Beloved English bulldog Pogo began behaving oddly. He forgot how to sit. He lost interest in going for walks. He'd sleep all day and pace the house at night restlessly. He was cranky. We intially chalked this up to being in a new house. Then, he began to scream in pain for no reason, and seem to forget where he was. We took him to a vet. The gave him a clean bill of health physically, but said he was probably arthritic, since he was 8 years old (old for an English bulldog, since they usually live to be 10. Then, his condition worsened. He'd fall over on his side and be unable to right himself. When you would attempt to aid him, he'd scream. He became increasingly difficult for Sara to handle, as he weighed a little over 60 pounds. His sleep patterns became more erratic. I began sitting up with him all night in order to calm him down so he could sleep. This may sound extreme to those of you who do not own dogs, but you must understand, Pogo was like a son to us.
Finally, after a particularly difficult night, we took him to the vet to discuss options. After consulting with this new vet for 2 hours and our previous vet down in Burbank by phone, we decided it was best for Pogo that we put him to sleep and let him go. You have no idea how quiet the house is without him. Sara has spent many a night crying. It's hard to sit down and do the strip when that familiar load isn't laying across your feet snoring, as Pogo often did when I drew the strip. He was a comforting presence in my little drawing studio. It feels so empty without him. Sara says sometimes she can still hear him, snoring in his bed in the entertainment room, barking at a coyote in the back yard. Just this morning I thought I heard his nails scraping up the stairs. Pogo was a truly wonderful dog, smart, loving sensitive, incredibly loyal and fiercdly protective of his family, particularly Sara. Anyone who came to the house to do any type of work, be they plumber or carpenter knew they had to be respectful of Pogo and should not do anything that might be in any way percieved as an attack towards Sara as Pogo remained ever vigilant and would launch himself at a hapless craftsman at a moments notice, the most terrifying rumble issuing from deep within his chest.
We miss him terribly.
The strip will be back soon. I have one roughed out and ready to go.
Sorry it's taken so long. Thank you all for your patience. Perhaps a little later, I'll write up a few thoughts I have on the Schulz book, good and bad, and recommend a few other things that have inspired and intrigued me.
Thanks for listening. See you again soon.
-John
ps I posted a little 2x8 strip with some new characters over at Storyboredom. The link is on the right. Go check it out if you wish.
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