24 Hour Comic: Page 23

One more page to go! Tune in tomorrow for the final installment of my 2006 24 Hour Comic.

24 Hour Comic: Page 22

What the hell happened to Chester Cheetah? Back in the day, he was so cool. I always imagined him as like a distant cousin of Pink Panther or Cool Cat. Lately, he's gone from groovy beatnik to a tiny, computer-generated creep. I'll include an example of classic Chester and creepy Chester and let you decide.

Cool Chester:

Creepy Chester:

24 Hour Comic: Page 21

I like how Myron is just perched on top of the hook. He's certainly smarter than your average worm.

24 Hour Comic: Page 20

When I did my 24 Hour Comic in 2006, I decided to use some of my old character creations and one of those is Boswald T. Bass. Here, I introduced Myron the worm, who matches wits with our hero, Boz.

24 Hour Comic: Page 19

Since it's Sunday, here's a Sunday Roofus comic strip. Traditionally, Sunday comics are published in the Sunday edition of your newspaper. Sunday comics usually have more panels than a daily comic (which appears in the weekday comic section). It was fun using the ol' Good Roofus / Evil Roofus gag here. It's fun to put a new twist on an old gag.

24 Hour Comic: Page 17 &18

Here's a 24 panel Roofus comic (that's a lot of panels). I may have gone overboard with the five-dollar words with this comic. Sometimes I wonder if words like ennui and onomatopoeia go over people's heads. I can't help it. I'm just a sucker for big vocabulary words.

24 Hour Comic: Page 16

A rare 2-panel Roofus comic. I like Roofus' expression in panel 2.

The Extravagonzo! Afterword

Well, I have to say, I am impressed. The Extravagonzo Art show was a smashing success. There was A LOT of art on display ranging from painted canvas to sculpture to mixed media to photography to independent film to infinity. Sometimes, the quality of art at these type of shows can be very dicey. This show was exceptional. There were only a few sloppy pieces. The majority of the artwork exuded creative intent. The variety of styles was surprising. I snapped a few pics of some of my favorite pieces. There was some great music also. Jyrus Lips performed an awesome set of killer tunes. It was a fun night.

24 Hour Comic: Page 15

It was fun to do this parody of the Smurfs. I was a big fan of the cartoon when I was a kid AND I had a ton of the little figurines too.

DID YOU KNOW? The Smurfs were created in the 80s right? WRONG. They were created in 1958! Read about it here.

The Extravagonzo!

The Extravagonzo!

The when: Sept. 24

The where: Minicine, 846 Texas Ave, Downtown Shreveport

The skinny: Free admission, live music, a plethora of art and artists, poets, musicians and filmakers.

Here's my contribution to the show. This is one of my comic strip experiments that I did earlier this year. I decided to redraw it using my Wacom tablet and re-color it using a bluish duotone. I also really like the brushes that I used. They look like cheap markers. The final print is framed, 18" x 24". It looks great. I hope my fellow art patrons will come out and see it in person and enjoy what is sure to be a fantastic show.

24 Hour Comic: Page 14

Here is a parody of Charles Schulz's earliest published work: a comic strip called Li'l Folks. I was inspired after I read a book collection of Li'l Folks. It was very cool to finally read and enjoy the early work of my favorite cartoonist, so this parody is an homage to Schulz.

24 Hour Comic: Page 13

Here's a Peanuts parody that I did. This pays homage to both the comic strip, Peanuts, and the film, Pulp Fiction. The dialogue is taken from the infamous scene from director Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. In Pulp Fiction, Sam Jackson's character, Jules Winnfield, quotes the Bible verse. In my parody, Linus quotes the scripture, which suits his theological personality.

24 Hour Comic: Page 12

This Betty & Veronica strip parodies the hilarious scene from the film, Chasing Amy, by filmmaker Kevin Smith. That's one of my favorite scenes from the movie. Also, I read a lot of Archie comics when I was a kid. It was fun to pay homage to both Smith and Archie comics.

Repaneled

Today, I'm proud to announce that the above artwork is being featured on the art blog, Repaneled. Repaneled is a blog similar to Covered, in which various cartoonists/artists are invited/encouraged to re-interpret a famous comic strip or comic book panel in a different or unique art style. Repaneled is in its infancy. If you're interested in contributing, consult the submission info on the Repaneled site.

I decided to re-interpret the famous panel from Amazing Spider-Man #72, which is the 1st appearance of Mary Jane Watson. I thought it would be appropriate to do the panel in the style of my favorite pop artist, Roy Lichtenstein. Be sure to click and enlarge the image so you can see the dot patterns. Please not that I also mimicked the font that Lichtenstein often used in his comic book portraits. Also, I strayed from Lichtenstein's color palette and chose to make MJ's eyes green (as they are in the comics).

Hallmark, Eat Your Heart Out

I know this married couple, John and Julie Brizzi. For the past 15 years or so, we've been very good friends. My birthday was September 1 and Julie was kind enough to make me this incredible, hand-made birthday card. Julie has quite a talent for creating hand-crafted greetings. Check out her blog and see the amount of detail that was put into this Snoopy card. This is one card I won't casually toss in the garbage. No, this one-of-a-kind greeting card is going into my permanent Peanuts collection. I will treasure it. Thanks, Jules.

24 Hour Comic: Page 11

Here's another page from my 24 Hour Comic. I'm pretty proud of this Family Circus parody. I think the contrast of the wholesome Family Circus characters depicted in the dark, graphic style of Frank Miller is funny. Frank Miller is famous for using a page of multiple panels i.e. The Dark Knight Returns. Growing up, I was a big fan of Family Circus and would constantly buy the digest sized books at Goodwill and garage sales.

BONUS: Here's a color version that I did recently. I tried to make the coloring look similar to Miller's Sin City books. I also added the title, Sin Circus.

24 Hour Comic: Page 9 & 10

Here's the next two pages from my 2006 24 Hour Comic: more Roofus strips! I love the Disco Professor in the first strip. Him and Roofus have got moves.

24 Hour Comic: Page 6, 7, 8

Continuing my 24 Hour Comic post, here's a triple shot of Roofus. The two-page Roofus was fun to do, because I had never drawn Roofus in a comic book format. The cloud of smoke is supposed to be crowds of college kids knocking him of his feet. In retrospect, I should have drew some arms and heads poking out of the cloud, but HEY cut me some slack, I only had 24 hours to draw this stuff!

24 Hour Comic: Page 5

Eagle-eyed readers will spot Alf on the TV Guide that Slick is holding. I thought it would be fun to include some Slick comics in my 24 Hour Comic. I drew this Slick comic in 2006. I hadn't drawn a Slick comic in about 12 years. Surprisingly, it was very easy to step back into Slick's world. It was both nostalgic and fun.

24 Hour Comic: Page 4

Typically, when one cartoonist parodies another cartoonists' character(s), he/she will include the phrase "Apologies to (insert name here)." This is usually done for legal reasons, but more importantly, it's done to pay homage to the cartoonist who is being parodied.

The characters featured are (in order): Cathy by Cathy Guisewite, Olive Oyl by E.C. Segar, Arlene by Jim Davis and Broom Hilda by Russell Myers. I thought it was a nice touch using the "apologies" to censor the ladies. Once again, I extend apologies to everyone.

Creator Commentary: This entire 24 Hour Comic was completely hand-crafted. For example, all the characters were drawn free hand using reference (no tracing). I did use fonts for the typography, but I printed each blurb of dialogue out on paper and PASTED IT ONTO THE ORIGINAL ARTWORK. It's no wonder why I didn't finish this 24 Hour Comic in time.

24 Hour Comic: Page 3

I really like Jake's pose in the second panel.

My First 24 Hour Comic: Page 2

This is a commentary on all those "Calvin Peeing" stickers that are out there. Man, I hate those stickers and I know Bill Watterson does too. If you don't know, Bill Watterson is the creator of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip (one of my favorites).

My First 24 Hour Comic

24 Hour Comic Day is fast approaching. This year, it will be held on October 2. Once again, I plan on participating and I am looking forward to it. For those not in the know, 24 Hour Comic Day is an annual event in which cartoonists around the world attempt to create a 24 page comic book within 24 hours. 

In past years, I have made a total of three 24 Hour Comics. You can see last year's 24 Hour Comic here. Also, you can read my 2008 24 Hour Comic here. My first 24 Hour Comic attempt was in 2006.  Technically, it was a failure because I didn't complete the comic within the 24 hour period (however, I DID finish the pencils within 24 hours). Eventually, I did finish it, adding the final inks and lettering to the penciled pages.

Instead of doing one continuous story, I decided to do a variety of stand-alone comic strips featuring parodies of famous funnies as well as my lesser-known comic strip creations. Rather than post the entire comic in one LONG post, I've decided to post it over the next few weeks leading up to this year's 24 Hour Comic Day. Enjoy.

I am Trembley, Hear Me Roar

I like the Trembley strips because they don't have any dialogue. They're fun to read.

Cheese Head

In these early strips, Slick was sometimes cruel. Poor Eek is crushed by the thing he loves most.

Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday to me.

Follow Your Nose

This storyline is so bizzare. Trembley looks hilarious without his nose. This strip reminds me of THIS classic Bert and Ernie sketch on Sesame Street.