Cartooning 101: Sunday Funnies

This is for all you Cartoonists who have moments where they feel all thumbs.  A bit of honesty, from someone who should know better by now. :0)

I haven't done all that many Knight and Day Sunday Strips, even though Knight and Day has been around a long time now, and has had several moments of success.  The one thing I don't hear other Cartoonists mention is just how much more work a Sunday comic can be, and how much more difficult... especially when you draw dailies all the time.  Sure, someone like Bill Watterson has mentioned that it took him the same amount of time to create a Sunday strip as it did to create 6 dailies, but I do not think he ever mentioned the reasons!

Yes, it's the same characters and sometimes similar situations, but a Sunday strip is larger, has more panels, is colored, and-  at least in my case... the proportions are different!  Yes, I draw at a different size, which means a new paradigm... squashing your instincts from drawing daily after daily, and getting yourself to fit different sized panels.

So?  What to do?

When faced with a problem, the first thing you should do is... Face the Problem!  Avoiding it doesn't make it go away, so when I returned to Knight and Day recently I decided to tackle not one, but two Sunday Strips in a row.  This way the struggles with the first weren't wasted, and the paradigm shift was extended to the second strip making it that much easier... and blessedly faster!

So short post from me (bonus for you) and TWO, count them, two Sunday Strips from Knight and Day for you to enjoy.

Both show the reason for the title Knight and Day... the differences between the two main characters and how they see the world.  And the nice thing about a Sunday Strip is there is more room for dialog, and hence more room for me to demonstrate their different views.

And even though I have a mess of dailies to draw, I just came out with another great Sunday idea, this time featuring their daughter Iris, of The Inquiring Minds fame.

Stay tooned for that, and as always, please let me know what you think!  Your feedback means the world to me.    JOHN :0)

On my iPod?  "Uncorked", the new Live album from Al Stewart.  Fantastic!

10 Years and Going Strong

Today is Free Comic Book Day!  It would also probably have been National Cartoonist's Day if Cinco de Mayo hadn't come along at the same time with its offers of drunken revelery, which someone held more appeal than offering best wishes to the Cartoonists who bring smiles to your faces.  Today, though, is even more special to me... it marks the 10th Anniversary of my comic strip Knight and Day, and my first website.

So, basically, today is the 10th Anniversary of HappyGlyphs Comics.  No, I didn't call it that back then, but that is when it all began.  The HappyGlyphs Sheep was there, and Knight and Day debuted, so it works for me.

That's funny, I just posted my very first strip from back then, and sure enough it has the date on it.  Proof positive. :0)

So, yes, it all began with that strip.  Not the very first strip I drew of Knight and Day, but the one I thought would start the strip best in the public eye.

I think it is extremely appropriate that my latest book "Once Upon A Times..." debuted this year.  That book, which is now available at the usual places, marks the 10 years I spent developing my skills as a Cartoonist, and shows all of the comic strips and Syndicate submissions that led up to Knight and Day.  Knight and Day is such a great strip because of all that great stuff that came before, including precursors to Knight and Day and The Inquiring Minds.

Yesterday's all new Knight and Day.

Very few people ever saw the strips in Once Upon A Times..., except for the people at the Syndicate offices, and a few friends.  At the time, I hadn't known a lot about the web, or making a website, and so even though I experimented, it wasn't until Knight and Day was debuted that I became what would later be called a WebCartoonist.

Now it's ten years later, and a lot has happened in that time.  Knight and Day and The Inquiring Minds have both earned accolades, such as last year's Comic Strip Superstar contest and the much earlier Comic Strip Cutting Edge program.  Both strips are still going strong, although my freelance career has had to come first.  You'll be seeing a lot more of both strips this year, as I attempt to grow HappyGlyphs Comics to the next step.  And hopefully we'll be wishing Steve and Amy a happy 10th Anniversary as well! The story is being written... :0)

Wish me luck, and please stay 'tooned!

JOHN :0)

On my iPod.... Defying Gravity... Possibly one of the greatest Sci Fi shows of all time.  Not kidding.  Check it out!

Dissecting Avatar

Okay, chances are you've seen the movie Avatar by now. If you haven't, chances are you will if yo like Sci Fi movies, or just see all the summer blockbusters.  There's a lot going on here, including some awesome special affects, so the movie is worth seeing.  My question is: could it have been better?

First off there are a lot of premises we must dismiss, if you , like me, like to analyze things too much.  As a writer and creator, I haven't had the opportunity to work on anything this large, with so many people involved.  We all know that when Studio heads and money people get involved, they all like to give their opinions on how 'their' movies should be made.  Having no creative or artistic sense does not stop them from calling the shots.  With that in mind, I will not blame James Cameron for any of the movies shortcomings.

Any SciFi Geek is going to have similar initial concerns with this film.  First off, we travel a few solar systems away (not too many because the journey only takes 6 years!) and what do we find? Humanoids that are next generation aliens from the original Star Trek series!  Yes, 2 eyes, a nose, the whole bilateral symmetry thing.  Just blue skin and a tail.... so Star Trek, huh?  Now here is where a problem comes in.  I only saw the film once, but it sure looked like every other creature on Pandora has 4 arms, two legs, and 4 eyes!!  Why are the Pandorans so different, and so much like us?  Well, Jean Luc Picard may suggest that once upon a time an alien race spread genetic seeds across the galaxy, or maybe some other outside force stepped in to change the evolution of the Pandorans.

Fine.  You don't need to worry about genetics and evolution to enjoy this film, but these things give me pause.  Next!  On this planet we find an impossible element that we absolutely must have because it is very expensive!  Okay, that's baby talk for what they should have pointed out instead, which is that this is a rock that obviously defies gravity!  Now, it probably can never exist, but lets move beyond that as well.  A rock like that would revolutionize the entire transport industry, including space travel.  So yeah, it's special. Unfortunately, the largest deposit of it just happens to be beneath the home of our friendly indiginous species.

Okay, so if you've watched a handful of movies in the last 50 years, you've already seen this plot half a dozen times.   Nice Aliens live on land rich in resources, so bad military types come and push them off said land using excessive force.  Now, the first 50 times we saw this plot we cheered the Writers for being so brave to show parallels with the conquest of the United States, and how, even after we pushed the natives onto reservations, we pushed them again when those reservations were found to have oil or anything else we wanted.  As important as it is to remember History to avoid repeating it, well.... we've seen it before.  And how do military types feel being portrayed as the bad guys in a film like this?

Okay, so let's move beyond the premise, plot, and background and go to the love story.  Again, I honestly think they babied things too much, or left to much for us to assume.  Like the floating rock, I think there should have been more emphasis on the fact that Jake has been in a wheel chair for a long time, and now, in his Avatar, can run, skip, and jump again. Yes, we do see this for 2 minutes in the film, but here we go again... young man meets young alien girl and falls in love.... not just with her but with her culture, people, and planet.  These things happen, but would he really give up cheeseburgers and video games to live in the woods and talk to trees?  Honestly?  I think there should have been more emphasis on the time he spent with the tribe, getting to know them.  There is a hint that he's met several other girls in the village, and it is said that he spent several months with these people, but we don't see this, and therefor don't understand just how much he's seen and heard and experienced.  Sure, it must be cool as heck to ride flying reptiles and stuff, but there has to be more to it than that.

At the end, we get the hint that some humans will remain on Pandora, and so maybe Jake will still have a place to go when culture shock sets in and he really needs some earthing up, which will happen eventually.  Heck, my third trip to India gave me moments of basket casing, where I needed 'normal' settings to just sit in and catch my breath... and I love India.  Culture shock happens.

All right, so let's cut this short.  As a Fairy Tale this works pretty well....a morality play thinly disguised as an alien world.  There's enough familiar here that the audience gets what's going on without being overwhelmed by the alienness of it all.  The special affects are incredibly awesome, and the night scenes of the forest alone are worth the price of admission.  Truly this is state of the art, and I wish I had seen it on the big screen, instead of dvd.  The dvd, by the way, has no extras.  Long story...

This is a movie worth seeing just for the fun of a blockbuster film.   As a writer, yes, I would have done things differently.  I would have aimed for a smarter film, but that's just me.  Overall it was well acted, and beautifully done.  Except for the bad guy.  Couldn't we have had some back story, so we could understand why he's such a jackass?  I mean, c'mon.  Really?  Why can't bad guys have more depth?

Cheers,    JOHN :0)