This is the payoff for all the set-up I did at the beginning of the chapter with Spy Gal and Jerry. Wait, I take that back, you don’t really get the payoff for this until Chapter 5, but this is the beginning. Pants. Always good for a joke. Spy Gal growing suspicious of Dr. Klein [...]
Nurse Carter has a personality! I think I do an alright job of developing my characters, but Nurse Carter has always been the one that I’ve neglected. Here, finally, she says something that hints at something resembling a thought in her head. It’s the kind of character humor that can be difficult to do, but [...]
Drawing a sauced Captain Spectacular was so much fun that I have to find a way to do it again. I WILL find a way to do it again. Originally, this was going to be flashback to how CS met Jerry. I’ll still tell that story one day, but with Spy Gal’s suspicions raised, I [...]
Here’s one of the advantages of planning far, far ahead: I can drop tidbits in here and there because, to me, the stories already exist. Tom and the Mysterious Woman in the photograph are something for later (probably Chapter 7), but knowing about them already, I can use them to illustrate a point here. The [...]
Had a blast with the first panel. I love drawing Mr. Crook, design courtesy of Eskimo Dave creator Mike Hartigan. I wish he wasn’t dead. Check back to Episode 10 of Chapter 1 for a part of Mr. Crook’s story. Mustache on Captain Spectacular doesn’t look too bad. A little more insight on the Jerry/Swifty [...]
This was supposed to be a very normal operation with some choice quips from Dr. Rocket. That was the idea anyway. Then I remembered, “Oh yeah, this is the SuperFogeys.” As with most things involving Dr. Rocket, this crosses the line from weird into disturbing. I’m pretty much okay with that.
Wow. Just, wow. This strip is sooooo busy. I think there’s a certain charm to it, but hold crud, those panels are just loaded. Usually not a good idea. I have no idea why the Space Pig is singing “Last Kiss.” That was the song that seemed to fit and once I got the idea [...]
This is a mean, mean cliffhanger. I don’t know that it’s fair to end this chapte like this, but it really couldn’t end any other way. Thematically, the next chapter has to begin a few seconds after Dr. Rockets declaration of good news and bad news. I’m hoping it’ll make sense why I did it [...]
Commentary I’m proud to say that no one guessed how in the world the cliffhanger from the end of the last chapter would resolve itself. The nice thing about doing a humor strip is that, at times, the humor can be a convenient “out” of a storytelling situation and somehow it doesn’t feel cheap. In [...]
Commentary Even more with the convincing the audience that this is really who Dr. Rocket is now. While not exactly visually resplendent, I wanted to revisit something here (both artistically and from a character standpoint) that I hadn’t shown since chapter one: that in Valhalla “things are different” and mortal enemies can play a game [...]
Commentary Visually, I really love this one. After what I felt was kind of a visually bankrupt previous strip, I really wanted to do something different with this one. With the action being outside of Valhalla and not featuring any of the Fogeys, the opportunity was certainly there. Dictator Tot’s exit was a long time [...]
Commentary Now, this I realize that this is almost entirely a cut-and-paste job from an eariler strip. In this case, I thought it was justified as a)it allowed me to get ahead a little and b)it was perfect for the pacing I was trying to achieve. I think the coloring really sells it and I had [...]
Commentary This strip hearkens back to something set up in Star Maiden’s WebSpace page, namely that she was a webcam girl. I had a lot of fun with the second panel in trying to make Star look both sexy and deranged. The drool pretty much sold it. Swifty’s feeling at the end of this strip pretty [...]
Commentary Looking at my comments below, it’s clear I wasn’t very happy about the way this strip turned out at the time. Looking at it now, I’m not sure what my problem was. Looks pretty decent to me, although I regret the color scheme I chose for Jerry’s hospital room, especially since he’s going to [...]
Commentary Ah, “Wrinkly Butt.” As this one was sitting at my drawing board, my wife happened upon it and exclaimed “WHAT IS UP WITH SPY GAL’S CHEST?” I explained that she’s been long established as a large-chested character and that she’s clearly folding her arms here so… My wife wasn’t having it. It was an [...]
Commentary Ah, the proposal. I think this veers towards the sitcomish, but I like it for one reason: that we stay on Jerry the whole way through. Jerry doesn’t say a word, but he has his own little George-Bailey-Welcoming-Home-His-Brother-At-The-Train-Station moment, a brilliant bit of acting by Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life in which he [...]
Commentary Okay, I admit it. I goofed. There’s a huge continuity error here and I didn’t realize it until months later. Spy Gal states in panel 2 that they had been engaged before. The thing is…I made it pretty clear in the flashback for Chapter 3 that they hadn’t. Captain Spectacular was PLANNING to propose, [...]
Commentary I am nothing if not patient. I created Tangerine quite a while ago. In fact, his actual first appearance is on the cover of the first SuperFogeys book and in the bonus story of that same book as drawn by Mike Hartigan. Each of the SuperFogeys are pretty much analogues for characters in either the [...]
Commentary Ah! Ah! Ah! Too much! There’s just way too much going on in this strip. I could have easily took all the same ideas here and spread them out into three strips instead of compacting them into one. Plus, I was way too in love with my own dialogue. Swifty’s in the first panel [...]
Commentary My previous comments: Some of you have already seen this strip. I did this one a month or so back as a guest strip for Lucas Turnbloom’s “Imagine This”. But…as you can see from the previous strip…it fits right in nicely with our ongoing story. Big thanks to my Tall Tale Features compatriot for lending me [...]
Commentary Ugh. Another butt-ugly strip. I think I’m starting to realize that this was a bit problem for me in Chapter 5 – too many strips trying to do too much. Dr. Rocket’s gift-giving continues here. Of particular note is the peanut butter cookie he gives Captain Spectacular. That’s actually a follow-up to a bonus [...]
Commentary Oh, this is just the ultimate slam. Captain Spectacular is definitely a “lives in the moment” kind of guy. I just couldn’t resist kicking Jerry when he’s down. He doesn’t speak, but again he communicates a lot. This strip is also one of the first indications that Cap and Doc were once friends, [...]
Commentary This is one of those rare strips that I think is pretty good, both visually and from a story standpoint, but that has a pretty weak punchline. There’s just something so obvious about that last panel. What I do like a lot is the unconventional paneling. I don’t remember exactly how I hit on the [...]
COMMENTARY In the first panel there, you’ll notice a sign on the box that’s cut off. The full sign would read “Ark of the Covenant – Do Not Touch,” an obvious shout-out to Indiana Jones. The monster is another shout-out. This is my lame attempt at a tribute to the master of drawing monsters—Jack Kirby. [...]
COMMENTARY Look at the detail in that darkened warehouse! I kid. If you look closely at the third panel you’ll see that Dictator Tot has tossed aside a small device. I didn’t have room to explicitly state it, but the idea is that she was using that device to make it appear as though she [...]
COMMENTARY Based on this strip, for some reason, a lot of people assumed that Captain Spectacular II is the son of Captain Spectacular. Such is not the case. I love, love, love the look of this one. I wish I got to play with colors like the more often, or, at least, that I was [...]
COMMENTARY This strip originally without the “Clap! Clap!” at the end. It wasn’t until the day after I posted it that Th3rd World Publisher Mike DeVito suggested it and I redrew the last panel immediately. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Captain’s hair is a character all its own. People were mostly confused [...]
COMMENTARY This is the second appearance of the Bubbles of Light. No one questioned the first appearance back in Chapter 4 and I don’t really blame them. There wasn’t much to go on. Here we get a few more clues, leading to the obvious conclusion that Swifty—or at least some iteration of him—is time-traveling. The [...]
What a fun strip this was to work on. From the dialogue dance to the pure character illustration, I just love it. What I’m trying to do is say a lot about the relationship between Captain Spectacular and Spy Gal in very few frames. Up to you whether I succeeded or not. Captain Spectacular thinking [...]
COMMENTARY The relationship between Spy Gal and Star Maiden is one of my most favorite things in the SuperFogeys, and I don’t spend nearly enough time on it. Spy Gal’s mothering instinct really comes out when she sees someone suffering and yet…she’s still Spy Gal. I think I could have drawn the light effect better [...]
COMMENTARY The angry looks that the Space Pig and Tangerine are giving each are meant to suggest a fallout between them after the events of “The Secret Origin of the Space Pig” (which you can find in SuperFogreys Vol.1, on sale in the SF Store). Tangerine finally arriving at Valhalla was a long time in [...]
COMMENTARY Tangerine’s body design presents some unique challenges. He doesn’t really have elbows (the way I draw him anyway) and he’s so much shorter than everybody else that whenever he appears it requires some rethinking of how I usually frame the characters in the panel. I thought long and hard about the use of the [...]
COMMENTARY I felt like, with two and half years behind me and being in the middle of a complicated (in comparison, anyway), back-and-forth chapter like this one that I needed to take a minute to acknowledge just what the heck was going on. Spy Gal is admittedly making some leaps in logic here, but it’s [...]
COMMENTARY One of the more awkwardly organized strips I’ve done, design-wise. The balloons in the second panel just would not fit in a natural way. In comics, you generally want the person speaking first on the left side of the panel and the next person to the right of them and so on. Usually, I [...]
COMMENTARY When I created Tangerine about two years prior to the strips on this page being drawn, this strip and the one above were in my original notes. Tangerine’s entire personality was then extrapolated from these two conversations with Jerry. The Pink Shade is a character that gets referenced now and again, but her actual [...]
COMMENTARY Arachno is supposed to be an analogue to Spider-Man. He’s probably too dead-on in name to every make an actual appearance, but he provides a good shorthand here to illustrate just how unusual the public turning against him was to the Captain. SUPERFOGEYS 2-YEAR ANNIVERSARY This week marks the 2-year anniversary of both the [...]
COMMENTARY This is maybe one of the most economical and tragic things I’ve ever written. Really, the intent was to begin really breaking down Tangerine’s character, but Captain Spectacular got swept up in that tide as well as we see his fatal character flaw—when things are going well, the Captain does just fine. When things [...]
COMMENTARY I had to do a bit of a storytelling shuffle to keep Tangerine away from Dr. Rocket until this point in the story. I love his entrance here. In particular, I loved doing the growling drawing of Tangerine. The red color isn’t meant to suggest that Tangerine can actually turn red—it’s just an artistic [...]
COMMENTARY One of my all-time favorite strips. Visually, I think this just works. I think I had just rewatched the movie Quiz Show shortly before writing this strip, so I had Geritol on the brain. Great movie. SUPERFOGEYS FALLING BEHIND IN WEBCOMIC READER’S CHOICE AWARDS The SuperFogeys need your help! Those of you that have [...]
COMMENTARY In the first two panels we see that Swifty did indeed use the Space Pig Urine given to him by Dr. Rocket earlier in the chapter. I wish I had chosen a different wall color for the background of this strip (and all those remaining in Chapter 5 for that matter). That brown is [...]
COMMENTARY There wasn’t room in the flashback of this chapter to make it explicit that Dr. Rocket was responsible for the public turning against the Captain in the 70’s, so it was nice of Tangerine to make that point for us here. Unfortunately, this strip and the next few are far too wordy. I had [...]
COMMENTARY This strip angered a lot of people. No one—and I mean NO ONE—felt that Captain Spectacular would just stand by and watch Spy Gal get knocked out like that. Honestly, I couldn’t understand that reaction based on what we’d just seen in his flashback. Not only is the Captain flawed, but Tangerine is his [...]
COMMENTARY I want to do an entire comic book of Star Maiden just walking around Valhalla and interacting with everyone. She’s so, so much fun to write and draw. Some of my most favorite lines from her ever are in this strip. I wanted to cut down the dialogue for the print edition, but I [...]
COMMENTARY Here’s another idea that’s too big for the strip format. I’m just really pushing the boundaries of what a strip can do. Thankfully, I don’t have anything like a syndicate to answer to, so I can do this, get this idea out of the way, and regret not expanding it two strips later. Still, [...]
COMMENTARY No single strip that I have done (at the time of this writing I’m about 10 strips into Chapter 7) has caused as much controversy as this one. The comments exploded when this strip hit. I think maybe 1% of the audience saw this coming. And, even if they did, no one thought it [...]
PINKERTON MOVES OVER TO TH3RD WORLD Didja’ hear? Mike Witmer has moved his great, abso-stinkin’ hilarious webcomic Pinkerton over to Th3rd World. Now, Pinkerton has been with Th3rd World for a few months now, but last week Mike finally make the big move of making Th3rd World the exclusive spot for all things Pinkerton. The best [...]
SUPERFOGEYS ON DIGITAL STRIPS Well, sadly, SF went out on the first round of Webcomic Idol. Were my readers confused about the voting process? Did SF have a target on its back? Were the other comics that much better? Is this all a result of a smear campaign by Marvel and DC for damage done [...]
TWITTER Hey, anyone else on Twitter? I’ve been on it for about a month now and I think I’ve moved past the addictive stage and into the comfortable I’ll-post-when-I-really-have-something stage. It’s fun. See my Twitter page here. Right now I’m slowly working my way through adding commentary to the strips in Chapter 5. Every time I [...]
UPDATE! CALL FOR GUEST STRIPS Each year I schedule a one week break for myself around Christmastime. I never miss updates, so I figured I deserve at least a week away. Nice time to recharge. Last year, I just didn’t post anything during that week, but now it occurs to me that there might be [...]
ORIGINAL ART SALE UPDATE! Went ahead and added a piece of art to the store today! Man, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be! Just one strip’s pencils right now, but more to come. Make your requests now! Check out the pencils to 106! Okay, I’ve brought this up before, but [...]
MOTHER OF AN EPISODE So little dialogue…so much drawing…and I don’t like any of it. I’ve gotten slammed in the past for being too critical of my work. Whenever I get into that mode, people usually do one of two things: either 1) defend my work against me and my wonderful insecurities or 2) tell [...]
FUNERAL It didn’t occur to me until this week how coincidentally timed this chapter of SF is. Unless I miss my guess, today is the 11th anniversary of my own father’s funeral. He died on the 23rd of November. The story of all that is amazing, funny, tragic, epic, inspiring and defining (for me). Yes, [...]
COMIC MAKING AND THE HOLIDAYS DO NOT MIX Oh, man! I finished the strip you see above yesterday. Yesterday. I never do that. I’m admant about having Tuesday’s strip done by at least Thursday the week prior. Guess what happened last Thursday? I ended up having to stay up late on Saturday in order to [...]
MY YOUNGEST BROTHER GOT ENGAGED! This has no relation to SuperFogeys! But I’m excited for him! She’s a great girl! Virtual (non-alcoholic) toast! 588 B.C. As most of you have already guessed, this little origin story starts with a very real event–that of the Babylonian invasion of Israel. What happened was the ruling power in [...]
RELIGION IN THE SUPERFOGEYS Well, I think it’s fair to say the last episode stirred the pot a little. And if it wasn’t the episode itself, then it was my comments. I don’t think there’s any need to rehash it all, but I just want to say that I don’t see the SuperFogeys as a [...]
SUPERFOGEYS FEATURED ON AIN’T IT COOL NEWS! Ain’t It Cool News is the BIGGEST movie news/rumor site on the web. Every week they feature a comic book review column and every once in awhile they take a look at webcomics in their “dot.comics” feature. Well, this week Ambush Bug took a look at SuperFogeys and [...]
FANTASTIC SUPERFOGEYS FAN ART BY T.L. COLLINS How great is that? Big thanks to T.L. for this amazing piece of work. This is exactly the sort of thing you might have seen on the stands in 1963 in the Fogey universe! Be sure and check out T.L’s great comic Bullfinch when you get a chance. You [...]
LAST CALL FOR GUEST STRIPS! The last day I’m accepting guest strips for my upcoming Christmas break is fast approaching. I know for sure that some of you are working on them, so please get them in asap along with a link to your site or comic! Email your guest strip to me by 11:59pm [...]
GUEST STRIP SUBMISSION EXTENSION!! Okay, I think there may be a couple of you out there still who may want to submit. As such, I’m extending the deadline for submissions until 11am PST, today (Dec. 23). After that, I absolutely cannot accept any more. Email ‘em quick to heasley (at) th3rdworld.com! HIATUS Well, this the last regular [...]
