Archive for June, 2008
Astral Mooching
Monday, June 30th, 2008Here are some strips from the series mentioned in the previous post where Poncho hits a new mooching high. If I remember correctly, we had to change the last line in the top strip, it was judged to be slightly too racy for underage readers (even though it appeared on movie posters everywhere). It appears here for you in its original state.
First Strips Read
Saturday, June 28th, 2008Obviously the first strip read of any given strip can really affect how one views the strip subsequently. Of course that view can change, but I’ve been curious before about which Pooch strips were firsts for various fans, so I was quite interested when the topic was brought up on the board.
I know Pooch can be difficult for new readers to get into, especially if they come in mid-story arc. Pour example, when Pooch debuted in the New York Daily News a few years ago, Poncho had just eaten an entire jumbo bag of kibble and an angry Chazz had shoved him outside. New New York readers were treated to a strange, bloated dog who couldn’t do anything but lay immovable on the walkway, astrally projecting himself so that he could still mooch inside the house, and then – realizing that he was not temporally constrained – astrally traveling back in time to mooch from early Egyptians and attendees of The Last Supper. Needless to say many readers hated this new strip about a dog who never moves or speaks. Fortunately they kept it running and lotsa readers became fans. (A year later budget cuts caused The News to axe a whole page of strips and Pooch got the chop, but that’s another issue).
Anyway, as close as I can guess from the thread, here are the first strips that some of you read:
Cat Catapult Submission!
Friday, June 27th, 2008Here’s an awesome submission of a cat-catapult design by Shaheen M. Sheriff created in Photoshop. I especially love the little purple kitty blobs being hurled towards the sun, and the use of a fish as bait (not THE “Fish”, of course.)
Advance Panel!
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
Here’s a panel from an upcoming Sunday that for some reason tickled my fancy (and let me assure you, that’s the first time I’ve ever used the expression “tickled my fancy”). It’s panel one, so it doesn’t give anything away, but I felt like popping it up.
The “Gum” Pooch
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008Here’s the other cat/dog language barrier strip mentioned by Chemistry11:
Monday, June 23rd, 2008
Lachlan (with chew toy) submitted by RAHK73, Hong Kong
Apparently Westie Lachlan (Lockie for short) was quite the little nightmare as a pup, but upon turning two has decided to settle down and make life bearable for others in the house. For his birthday he got a new collar (unlike Boomer, his masters actually bought him a new collar instead of just telling him they did) and a new familiar looking chew toy. The combination makes for a nice Gus/Hudson portrait.
Speaking Dog
Saturday, June 21st, 2008Here are a few very early Pooch strips that establish who can speak what lingo. From the beginning I wanted to make sure the strip didn’t become about an adversarial relationship between a dog and a cat, I figured that sort of dynamic had been explored extensively in lotsa other strips, I wanted Pooch Café to focus on the dog experience. This is why I had Carmen have a bunch of cats that are all bland carbon-copies of each other and don’t have any personalities. In the Pooch world this is how all cats appear to all dogs. And towards this end, I decided that the cats wouldn’t be able to speak to the the dogs. Occasionally they’ll say something, but the logic I used to explain this is laid out in the strips below.
Here’s a more recent strip where the language barrier is again an issue.
Wikipedia
Friday, June 20th, 2008I found a Pooch Café entry on Wikipedia that somebody had posted a while back. I was quite flattered that somebody had taken the time to make an entry for me there. I made a few corrections, and have been meaning ever since to try to go back and improve and expand the entry. I’ve noticed other strips such as Get Fuzzy and Lio have quite a bit more information. Alas, I haven’t found the time to do it yet. So I’ll put it out there to you guys, my loyal and awesome blog readers: does anybody feel like adding any information to the Pooch Wikipedia page? If so please feel free! The page link is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pooch_Cafe
Cheers!
More MAD
Thursday, June 19th, 2008Lest you think otherwise based on a few recent posts, MAD and myself are clearly quite simpatico, they were the kick-start to my cartooning ambition and have kindly published a number of my doodles. Occasionally they’ll buy a gag for use in another regular feature, such as the “Alfred” below, a young Alfred E. Neuman strip that runs in MAD Kids. Not sure if it totally worked; Alfred’s perma-grin necessitates an arguably inappropriate reaction here.
I’ll post some other roughs that didn’t fit the MAD mold later.
Headbutt With MAD Editors
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Here’s another incident where the MAD editors had a different take on one of my lines and it lead to an impasse. I submitted the above sketch for a Forrest Gump parody. They liked it, but they wanted me to change the line in the second panel to “You know exactly what you’re going to get! There’s a little map right here that tells you what every chocolate is! What are you, a retard?” Now, when it comes to humor I like to be as politically incorrect as anybody. Heck, I don’t even mind calling somebody a retard who did something dumb. But you can’t call somebody who is actually retarded a retard. That’s my opinion, anyway. And I didn’t think it served the gag in any way either. But somebody at MAD insisted that line be included. I decided I didn’t want my name on the joke in that form. So it got scrapped.
Wonka MAD
Monday, June 16th, 2008
Here’s another strip I did for MAD mag last year. The joke was originally written for a weekly one-panel I used to do for the Ottawa Citizen Newspaper when I worked there, but I guess the combination of children and rectal probes was too much for the comics page (just right for MAD though). I also hit my first snag with the MAD editors. I had the original line as simply “You’re a bit confused, dear boy. This is the Willy Wonka Rectal Thermometer Factory.” For some reason they wanted me to add “Of course you can have as much as you like” in front of it, which added an extra unsavoriness in my mind (which I guess was their point).
Early Pooch
Friday, June 13th, 2008
Here’s another early Sunday from the Pooch archives. This one ran on Jan 30, 2000, the 4th Pooch Sunday ever and the first Sunday appearance of Fish. His first line almost seems to have a little attitude in it. But he quickly reverts to his role as sage adviser.
Thursday, June 12th, 2008
Sharkbait “Baity” Johnson submitted by Gerald
“Baity” is terrier mix and lives in Washington, DC, and makes new friends everywhere she goes, which isn’t exactly a Poncho trait (for those who recall the professional dog-walker fiasco), but she does love sleeping spread-eagled on her back, and I do love her name.
Poncho Goes Hawaiian!
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
You probably don’t need me to tell you that Hawaii is an awesome, beautiful place filled with breath-taking landscapes and wonderful people. I spent some time there a few years ago and have been dreaming about living there ever since. While there I visited the Honolulu Star-Bulletin newspaper and convinced them to start running Pooch Café on Sundays (thus making the entire trip a right-off, right, government?). They’ve just now started running Pooch dailies as well. One more reason to live there, in my book. Mahalo!
“Dog Catchers” Is Filmed Live On The Streets
Monday, June 9th, 2008Here are the other two “Dog Catchers” Sundays from past Pooches. Note in the first one reference to their preferred job title.
It’s Official: Godzilla Will Fight Anybody
Friday, June 6th, 2008After seeing last week’s posting about the Avengers/Godzilla crossover, blog-reader Tayson brought another outrageous comic book crossover featuring Godzilla to my attention, and this one is bloody classic: Godzilla vs. Charles Barkley! I have no idea how even using comic book logic they conceived of a way for these two to square off. How did Barkley get super large (and exactly the same super-largeness of Godzilla)? Does Godzilla use his regular fighting style, or does he adhere to basketball rules? (he does seem to be hitting Barkley with a radiation blast on the cover, but he must be holding back if a basketball can deflect it). What are the stakes? Does Godzilla have hang time? Maybe it’s best we never know.
Framing Poncho
Friday, June 6th, 2008Blogger Nina Geeka has asked if there are any special considerations when framing an acetate cell for wall hanging. I wasn’t sure myself so I checked in and was told this:
The size of the mat, 8×12, is a standard framing size. Any Wal-mart or Hobby Lobby, etc. should have that size frame in stock. The matt can be custom framed if desired, but that shouldn’t be necessary. With this size, Lasermach is trying to make it easy on the fans to purchase a frame.
So basically I guess “no,” any standard type framing you might normally use would be applicable to the Pooch acetate prints. Pooch onward!
Good Guys, Bad Guys
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
This is the illustration I did today for a book review for Across The Board magazine. The book is called Good Guys & Bad Guys, a collection of profiles and articles about business personalities. Got to utilize some of my superhero art training skills.
“Animal Control Specialists”
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008Blogger “SR98” said that he and his wife don’t recall seeing any strips with the classic dog catcher types coming after the pooches, and wondered if any existed. Well in fact I did a Sunday waaaaay back in 2000 with the dog catcher being portrayed a la the t.v. show “Cops”, chasing the “perps” Poncho and Boomer:
I received a few letters from “dog catchers” – who apparently prefer the more appropriate term “animal control specialists” – explaining how they are quite sick of being stereotyped negatively in comics and cartoons and wondered why they’re never shown doing positive things like saving an abused animal or freeing a dog from a storm drain, etc. I did see their point, although the comedy value of those scenarios was somewhat elusive. Two more Sundays in the “Bad Dogs” series followed, which I will dig up shortly.
P.S: (potential movie spoiler alert): dog catchers and the “Big House” do figure prominently in my first treatment pitch.
Treatment Update
Monday, June 2nd, 2008Just a little update on the movie treatment, and the update is: more delays. About 3 weeks ago I finally got feedback from the meetings Sony held to discuss my first treatment for the Pooch script. The main concern so far was that I had too much story for 90 minutes of film. Not an overly scary problem, cutting away extra fat is easier than trying to add padding to a story that’s too thin. They want to focus much more on Poncho’s journey and growth. While I do too, I do envision an ensemble quality with every dog having his part to play. They didn’t think this was necessarily the wrong way to go either, but they want to make sure everything that happens serves to propel Poncho’s story forward.
One suggestion I balked at and will hopefully be able to effectively dissuade is their idea that the giant cat-catapult be Poncho’s idea, since he’s the main character. I told them that any fans of the strip will know that the catapult is Boomer’s baby, and on top of that I think it’s a touch too maniacal for Poncho, especially if he’s going to be a sentimental character in a movie.
This brings up a question that will probably come up again: if it’s a decision between making a potentially better plot choice for the script vs. going against the continuity of the strip, which way do we go? I guess each choice will have to be weighed as they come up. I sure am glad I’m involved, though, I can’t imagine how quickly the Pooch characters and the Pooch world in general would veer off if it was being written by someone who wasn’t a well-versed fan of the strip (and this could very easily still happen).
Anyway, I was about to get started on the next version of the treatment, but some shuffling occurred in the upper brass, and the new woman in charge wanted to read the treatment and add her own notes. So now we wait some more. (Meanwhile Kung Fu Panda comes out and undermines one of my characters from a TV pitch. Nuts! I’ll post that pitch at some point just for kicks).
Godzilla Vs. The Avengers
Sunday, June 1st, 2008A strip from last week contained a reference borrowed from a deeply buried childhood comic book memory that I could not have sworn for certain hadn’t actually just been a dream. I’m sure it left most readers scratching their heads quite vigorously (or at least shrugging their shoulders quite apathetically).
For some reason Godzilla existed briefly in the Marvel Comics universe and of course the Avengers had to try to stop him from causing mayhem in New York (why they never bothered to help when he repeatedly attacked Tokyo is never discussed). Even with the mighty Thor on staff they are no match for the atomic beast. It takes the tiniest avenger (in my memory it was just the Wasp, not Yellowjacket – why the heck did they ever need TWO team members who could shrink really small on the same roster?) Alert blog reader Ron Doak kindly scanned the cover of the issue of lore as well as the inside page depicting the big G’s knock out, dispelling my fear that the bizarre comic didn’t really exist. Thanks Ron, and thanks to the rest for having patience while I sort through the cluttered attic of my brain.
