Bill Watterson is one of the artistic icons of the past 50 years and one of the biggest influences on my art as a child. As a result, I’ve always wanted to do a straight-up, old-fashioned comic strip that drew from the elements of his brilliant Calvin & Hobbes work (one of the most fun, warm-hearted, and absolutely rolling-on-the-floor funny comics strips ever created), along with other great strip creators I followed such as Walt Kelly (Pogo… just fantastic) and Breathed (Bloom County, Outland… political, yet still charming). But, alas, my talent compared to these men is limited and despite thinking about ideas for a strip off-and-on for 20 years, I never found the correct mix of biting humor and cutesy charm that all of these strips possess. A few weeks ago, I was dozing off and it suddenly hit me:
I really hate talking animals. Why? They’re cutesy (nothing wrong with that, I suppose) and most of the “jokes” that surround their situations in strips I see online and in newspapers (when I manage to pick up a newspaper, that is… they still make them, right?) are geared for either children or people who frequent the adult diaper aisle (take that as you will). On the other end of the spectrum, we have things such as Happy Tree Friends, which is just a bunch of cute animals beating the living shit out of one another. Juxtaposition is fun for awhile but it’s a one trick pony. After a bit, you realize that there just isn’t really anything there that makes you want to continue following along.
With the sudden realization that talking animal strips don’t have to be like that (just take a look at the comics listed in the first paragraph), I started thinking of a place where talking animals could live together, face awkward situations, and would be just politically incorrect enough to give me plenty of material from which to pull strip ideas. That idea followed rather quickly:
An animal testing facility.
So, there it was. An idea for a comic strip, started after I fell asleep and nearly finalized by the time I woke up the following morning. It would be called “for the good of the people”, a play on the supposed role that these animals would provide for humanity. The comic won’t portray the animals in an overly sympathetic light, nor will it show them as complete blundering fools, though there will be a fair mix of both. My goal is not to make a political statement about animal testing (generally, I’m against it), it’s to provide comedic situations by placing characters in bizarre situations and letting their personalities dictate the development of the comic.
The main characters have been outlined and developed distinct personalities rather quickly. There will be sarcastic chimpanzees, energetic mice, obedient dogs, reckless frogs, oblivious rabbits, and haughty felines. There are 8-9 characters that will have speaking roles and the last step is to cartoonize these animals to get the proper feel for their looks to complement their individual attitudes. What you’ll see here is the first draft of many of these animals. As expected, the initial drawings are a mix of realism and cartoons. As these revisions turn to the second, third, and fourth iterations, the realism will fade away and the characters should skew more toward the cartoon side of things.
Anyway, here are four first-run character comps for the strip. I love the frog and doubt he will change much as he developed. I feel the mouse is pretty solid as well. The dog needs more work (but the general idea is there) but the cat is a disaster. Complete do-over on that one.
Plans are to release the comic in approximately two months. Check in on this blog to see progress as it happens along with the continued updates for the long form webcomic, Variables.
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