NOTE: Here's ALL I NEED IS 8 PAGES, Part 1.
Saturday, December 26, 3:11 am
So, it's really late. I should go to bed, but I don't wanna.
I also want to compulsively eat a bologna sandwich, but recently I impulsively made a spontaneous resolution to stop eating after midnight, so... DAMMIT.
Anyway, I fell asleep on the couch earlier and then woke up around midnight.
I've been on the computer more or less since then.
I don't want to go to bed because I feel like I haven't accomplished anything today (yesterday), but it is late, so I should just cut bait and start again tomorrow. NUTS.
Okay, just a quick update.
I've been trying to publish this other post that I started writing in November re: my take on doing a Nanowrimo type comic story. It didn't happen, but I wrote a series of posts in my private diary/blog on the same subject and then I decided to share it, figuring it was "safe" for public consumption, so to speak. But that supposedly simple idea took a detour into unexpected complications that I'm still trying to untangle (i.e. trying to smooth out various seemingly incompatible formatting issues between posting on Facebook and here on blogger). Meaning that, as I write this, I theoretically have 3 other installments that precede this post, but I'm trying to "fix" the first post and get that published first. Hopefully I'll publish that initial post in the next couple days while I'm still off (the next time I work is Monday (12/28)... and I start at 6:30 am. UGHHHH.)
While I try to work through the mess of Part 1, currently I'm still trying to start this comic story, and I feel (again) like I'm on the verge of finally starting something in earnest (meaning, actually having a script, even just for the first page, and then drawing/roughing out that first page, etc.). I mean, I'll believe it when I see it... but, anyway, I'm still struggling with trying to figure out the first page to this story before I go to bed.
Meanwhile, Christmas was good. It was a quiet day because of Covid, etc.
I was up pretty late last night wrapping gifts, and then I woke up and my wife and I had something to eat (she baked some cinnamon rolls... yum!), and then we opened our gifts. Let me say, EVERY Christmas she spoils me and this year was no different.
Afterwards, we went to visit her mom and exchange some gifts. It also snowed last night. Yes! A White Christmas! Okay, in recent years I've really become not that emotionally invested either way whether or not there's snow on Christmas Day or not; in fact, my general concern is whether the snow is going to be a problematic issue re: work, travel, clearing the driveway, etc., and I think that's a reflection of my ongoing aging and crankiness. Still, in this stupid, emotional year, a snowy, White Christmas seemed semi-miraculous and a reprieve from a lot of grief and anxiety. But man, I had to clear a LOT of snow off the car!
Alright, let me do whatever and then go to bed.
To be continued...
1:33 pm
...Indeed.
Meanwhile, I also have a handful of "loose ends" I'd like to address before 2021... and I don't know if I'll be able to pull any of them off. But, as usual, let me make a list and see what I can or can't cross off.
1. Publish previous ALL I WANT IS 8 PAGES posts (Parts 1-3) on this blog.
[NOTE: Finally, here's Part 1! (4/22/21)]
2. Finish posting #30DayFilmChallenge posts at my film blog.
3. Make room for my "new" (well used, but newer) computer.
4. Assemble my drawing table.
5. Try to clean/re-organize my bedroom/workspace.
6. Try to actually make some headway on this comic story. Like, draw Page 1?
Sunday, December 27, 8:36 am
DAMMIT.
I woke up maybe half an hour ago, but I could've slept more. Probably way more.
But Velvet (our black cat) was playing with one of the ornaments on our tree and I could hear her whacking it with her paw. She already spectacularly broke one yesterday. Well, we saw the results on the floor well after the crime was committed - shards of delicate broken glass and very fine gold glitter on the floor beneath the table - but based on circumstantial evidence we assume she's the culprit because 1) she's the only feline that insists on sleeping underneath the tree all curled up on the tree skirt AND 2) Velvet has shown interest multiple times in the hanging ornaments, sometimes standing on her hind feet to reach higher hanging ornaments. Aha!
Anyway, I was up damn late working on the story again, almost until 5:00 am. Way too late by at least a couple hours in terms of "acceptable" late night activity by my thinking.
And... I can tell I'm starting to jump the shark again in terms of story construction.
Whenever I'm attempting to SIMPLIFY a story idea, I seem to immediately start ADDING characters and plot "twists" (oh, believe me, that's a euphemism). Whenever I'm trying to SHORTEN a story, that's a certain cue for me to ADD chapters; the "trick" is I'm keeping the story short by considering a single chapter my story and thus, having my cake and eat it, too: "short" chapters for an "epic" story. And "epic" not necessarily by design but because my story keeps dragging on.
From three main characters, now I'm debating having five characters and a possible sixth minor character, and also, I've significantly complicated my one character's motivations and designs in the story.
That's pretty much where I left it last night when I went to bed.
Maybe I should just chalk up the improbable failure of how "good" this story is going to be to my anticipated "crappy comics period" as a cartoonist/artist. Ot more to the point, maybe I really need to just take the plunge and actually draw a first page and then try to solve story problems with each new page I draw. That would be more productive than I'm being now. Oh, and finally (eventually), put the finished story in a comic titled TALES THAT PROBABLY WON'T MAKE SENSE EVEN BY THEIR CONCLUSION BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THEM.
Oh! And I forgot my NUMBER ONE method of attempting to do a comic story that I'm struggling with: start with a BRAND NEW IDEA! That pretty much happened again.
Less than a week ago I was full on fleshing out a "simple" idea using an old character I created when I was in middle school (I think): Super Shlump, an anthropomorphic superhero. Well, after a few days of my typical obsessing with the character and coming up with story ideas, it started getting out of hand, so I bailed and started re-examining "simply" trying to expand my original "Karen's Dilemma!" story (again), but I just can't seem to stop being overly complicated.
So... here I am.
Trapped in several "stories"* I'm not sure how to proceed with (*still debatable if they even qualify as actual stories).
Arggghhhh...
11:30 am
Getting back to Super Shlump.
So, the original idea I had for that Super Shlump story was: SS is all excited to watch the season premiere of this TV show he LOVES, called COOKIE UNLEASHED! Cookie is a sexy female canine-anthropoid ex-undercover cop/current private detective/maybe vigilante. Unfortunately, SS keeps receiving calls for help ranging from the trivial to the spectacular and he's beside himself trying to attend to them all and still be back in time to watch the show. And the constant dynamic/shtick of Super Shlump is that he's a reluctant hero. If anything, he helps out of guilt rather than actual desire to help humanity... uh, that is, his fellow citizens. As far as I can remember, I never did any actual Super Shlump stories back when I first created him. That's pretty much my m.o.: I just come up with characters but never actually do anything with them. So, trying to figure out what to do with SS now was a slightly tough nut to crack: what exactly DID I want to do with him? Well, I finally started to come up with some ideas that seemed to stick (whether these ideas are any good, well, I'm not totally sure...), but I seem to have a comic sidekick now, Zipper the squirrel, and possibly a female neighbor named Totie, another dog - maybe a poodle? Trying to figure that one out. By the way, at least it's Totie for now, still not sure if I'm going to keep that.
Anyway, when I got to the point that I realized that I not only had a protagonist but two possible regular supporting characters (if I decide to continue with SS in additional stories), then I wondered about his origins. When I came up with him, all I had was a simple character design, figured it was going to be funny, and that he was a junkyard dog.
Now I'm wondering how he did come to be, how he got his powers. Also, what kind of world does he live in? Like, what are my rules for these anthropoid creatures? Obviously, it's not just dogs since I have a squirrel character. But even that posed questions: are all of these creatures anthropoidal? When you start dealing with smaller animals, like a squirrel, let's say, I think the temptation is to keep it squirrel, maybe bipedal, but pretty much keep it squirrel-like. While, anthropoid dogs can be less weird looking with human bodies and animal heads. Does that make sense? Or is that just me? It's part of the same question when you see funny animal strips that have various species in the cast, yet they're more or less on the same size level. But in real life, the sizes of those animals are extremely varied. Case in point: in Frank Cho's LIBERTY MEADOWS, one of the animals is a frog yet he's the same size as the other mammalian creatures (there's at least a pig and a dachshund and... a small bear, I think?).
Okay, I just googled "Liberty Meadows" in an effort to jog my memory on the cast of characters and even Cho "mixes and matches": he not only has a frog character the same size as the pig character, but the dachshund is presented more realistically, like, a regular dachshund. So, in Cho's strip, I think he picks and chooses his approach. Part of me is pretty sure he simply finds the idea of a frog being the same size as the other characters as an amusing "funny animal" conceit, and part of me thinks he just likes to draw what he likes to draw: beautiful sexy women (Brandy, the female protagonist) and a dachshund, because they're cute? Or he has a dachshund? Or both? Digressing slightly, Cho also occasionally goes off on indulgent drawing tangents, doing a single intricately inked drawing for a Liberty Meadows strip and the subject matter sometimes having no connection to the actual LM universe, and he'll excuse its appearance in the strip by disclaiming he's "breaking in new ink nibs" or something to that effect. Actually, I have no problem with those brief digressions. I think they're pretty cool. Anyway, these represent some of the choices Cho makes, and because they come from the strip's creator, it gives some personal flavor to the strip as well.
That inconsistency with animal size is an almost common funny animal conceit in funny animal comics, I'm pretty sure. I mean, Mickey Mouse and Goofy look like inhabit the same universe. True, Goofy's taller to Mickey's shortness, but simply taller the way a regular tall person in comparison with a short person usually is. Except, Mickey's a MOUSE and Goofy's... a dog? And then, Disney complicates things more by the MOUSE owning a REGULAR dog, Pluto, who walks on all fours and doesn't talk, like a dog. Weird. But, as an audience we seem to accept it, pretty much. I mean, I can accept it intellectually and just ignore it the "factual discrepancies," but occasionally I'll stop and think about it (when I'm reading Liberty Meadows, for instance), and it screws with my brain ("why is that damn frog so BIG???").
Anyways... bla bla BLA BLA BLAHHH.
I guess I just have to figure out the rules for MY universe.
And that also includes my drawing style. The original design for Super Shlump is very funny animal looking, but now I'm toying with updating him to be more... realistic looking, for lack of a better world. That approach may be more interesting to look at technique-wise, I think, but I don't know if it's conducive to this type of strip. Like, if Garfield and Odie were more realistically drawn, would GARFIELD be as funny? Questions! Questions! So many questions!
Which means I have to get off my think-y ass and get going with my drawing bad self.
It also occurred to me that I could do an actual mini-comic (as in mini-sized) with Super Shlump's origin. I could even draw it funny animal style, and then for the larger version (10'x15"), do this other SS story with Zipper and Totie and etc., and I could try drawing it more "realistically."
These seem like good creative exercises, because I could then compare drawing styles and see what I think and decide how to proceed further if I do decide to follow through with additional Super Shlump adventures... something I have been thinking about, of course.
Alright, I'll leave it there for now.
More to come, of course.
And...
... FIVE DAYS LEFT UNTIL 2021!!!
