And now we see the real plan. Get the Captain on the computer to see his ex-wife. In the end, it’s kind of weak. There should have been something extra on the plan, or a bigger reaction from the Captain. It bears fruit, sure, but I think the Captain’s reaction could have been stronger and [...]
A fun, fun page. Star Maiden is just a pure pleasure to right. Star Maiden started out as Star Woman. Eventually, that character turned into Spy Gal (as explained in the commentary for episode 6, I think). Still, the initial idea for Star Woman wouldn’t let go. I knew I wanted a Wonder Woman type. [...]
That last panel of Star Maiden is something I’m really pleased with. I wanted a really fluid figure and I often have a hard time drawing women. I surprised myself here. For some reason, readers really latched onto the phrase “Spill it, Gramps!” I have no idea why. I didn’t think it was particularly funny. [...]
The genesis for this flashback came from Daniel Woodhouse, artist on “Thog Infinitron” and sometime artist of “Beaver and Steve.” I asked Dan to do a short backup story for the second SuperFogeys book and asked him what he wanted to draw. He said “Captain Spectacular fighting in the skies above a city. Maybe a [...]
I don’t know why Mr. Crook is in there. It doesn’t really add anything to the story to have him there. Great Dr. Rocket moment though. I had a lot of fun drawing that tongue and making it as yucky as possible.
The obvious signified of a flashback is to do the art in black and white. That gray shading I add in there is an effect I wish I had time to do on all the SuperFogeys strips. Plans are for that effect to be added to the strips for the trade collections. Once that happens, [...]
This strip is a favorite of mine. It’s some of my favorite dialog I’ve written and the sparse look really works for it. Portal could have been drawn better though.
Obviously, something big went down in that other dimension. For the whole story, check out the backup tale “Captain Spectacular and Star Maiden in the Inevitable Dimension” in the second SuperFogeys book. It’s drawn by Julio Molina-Muscara, artist on “Omega Chase.” I wanted a “no bad guy” break-up here. I think you get where everyone [...]
The Pig is the minister! That’s the payoff to the Space Pig’s WebSpace page. Don’t know how many people picked up on that. I had a lot of fun with this page. Designing the Ninja Bridesmaid was particularly fun.
Some people objected to the Captain and Star Maiden getting a divorce over a stinky sock. Them I would say: it’s one panel. Obviously, there’s a much bigger story there. I had a lot of fun with the interplay between Dictator Tot and Captain Spectacular here. I need to get those two together again.
And now you see the entire impetus for the Wii storyline. I knew I wanted Star Maiden to be so deranged that she actually sees the Fogeys as their younger selves. With that in mind, I thought her interpretation of “air boxing” would be hilarious. Turned out to be more dramatic, but what are you [...]
Visually, this is a very exciting strip for me. Even the lame “Kirby Dot” I used for the energy effect on Star Maiden’s blast look pretty decent. This is the strip where I began to realize just how much fun writing Star Maiden was going to be. I mean, here I have a character that [...]
This is another callback to Spy Gal’s initial appearance in Chapter 1 where the Fogeys discussed her “hotness.” Again, Star Maiden’s reference to bunnies is not so random as it first appears. A quick read of episodes 44 and 45 of Chapter 2 should give enough of a clue to what she might be talking [...]
Some pretty loaded dialog here, and one of my favorite CS/Jerry conversations at that. I like the talky stuff. Action is fun and I understand the need for it, but I always see the core of the SuperFogeys being the interplay between the characters. That’s where the meat is. Love the promise of the last [...]
I did it. I did a strip with no males in it. In one sense, I really like writing women. It’s different and it’s fun to get outside of myself like that. On the other hand…I”m no woman. There’s a lot going on here. Star Maiden is obviously not on the same page as Spy [...]
Some readers misunderstood this strip to mean that Spy Gal is upset at Star Maiden again. Not my intention at all, something I hope becomes clear in the next strip. Swifty’s line at the end came from trial and error. All of his dialog in the last panel went through many iterations. I think the [...]
The rare one-paneler! Very rarely do I have an idea for a strip that lends itself to this. The challenge is the layout. Getting all those characters into one frame isn’t easy for me, but well worth it, I think.
My mother hates the language in the SuperFogeys. This bleeped out stuff isn’t for her. Can’t imagine what she’d say if I didn’t censor. Personally, I can’t stand foul language. I think I’ve said the “F” word twice in my life. Once out of anger and another time by accident. Both times, it ruined my [...]
A transitional strip. I hate these. Usually, I’m able to cover it up better with a joke, but not so much here.
The plot of this particular strip was pretty simple: Jerry and Dictator Tot play Wii Bowling. DT loses. DT pulls out a gun. Here’s the script, as originally written: 123 – 1: DT assuming the bowling stance. DT: Bowling is very simple. The remote is like the ball. You pull it back with the button… [...]
There’s a kid with a gun. The kid’s a villain though, so I’m asking you to go with it. There’s not much funny about gun violence. This isn’t the place to really get into it, but my life has certainly been affected by gun violence on more than one occasion. My feeling is that if [...]
I love this strip. You need that reaction to the name “Third Man” and the leap in logic Star Maiden makes here is a nice shout-out to one of my heroes, Orson Welles. Some day, I have to actually draw a Zombie Orson Welles. In that first panel, Dictator Tot is being removed from the room [...]
Did Swifty go too far? That’s what some readers thought. I admit that I had second thoughts about this one as well, but knowing what I know about Swifty and Jerry’s relationship, I think he is justified. True, I haven’t actually REVEALED why Swifty hates Jerry so much, but still… The second panel with Spy Gal’s [...]
Here’s a bit of a storytelling trick…by keeping Dr. Rocket out of the strip for several weeks (off camera–he was in the room the whole time), I make his appearance in the last panel just that much more surprising. That’s the hope anyway. It all seems terribly convenient, I agree. You’re supposed to be thinking [...]
How did I go this long without a “When Pigs Fly” joke? That first panel was a challenge for me. In case you haven’t already been able to tell, perspective isn’t my strong suit. Still, I’m pleased with how it turned out. I think it works for what it is. Again, Star Maiden is just [...]
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 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 [...]
Here’s the cover to the first printed edition of the SuperFogeys, collecting both chapters 1 and 2.
UPDATE! COLLECTION #4 NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER! This is it! The cover to the fourth collection of the SuperFogeys. Dare I say it’s our best one yet? Didn’t start out that way though. Th3rd World Publisher Michael DeVito deserves all the credit in the world for the stellar job he did on the coloring for [...]
THE TEASER FOR CHAPTER 7, “VISITING DAY” Chapter 6, “Funeral for a Frenemy” is over! The Dr. Rocket we knew was really the impostor Herman! The real Dr. Rocket is back! So…now what? What happens in “Visiting Day?” I cannot tell, but I can tease… Spoiler Alert! Skip to the next section of the post [...]
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 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 [...]
BRIAN ANDERSON Today’s amazing spotlight on Dr. Rocket comes to us from Brian Anderson of the nationally syndicated comic strip,Dog Eat Doug! Brian is doing me a huge favor this week as last week’s ER visit really threw me off my game. Look at the detail in the good Doctor’s face! Amazing work, Brian, and [...]
RUFUS EDGE Holy Guest Strips, Captain! I was amazed to get 2 guest strips of high caliber this week, and now, suddenly, I’ve got two more! This latest one was actually submitted as Fan Art, but I think you can easily see why I tossed it into the regular rotation. I literally laughed out loud [...]
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 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 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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
Today’s Strip… Today’s guest strip comes to us from one Mister Edward Krebes! I love the overlapping punchlines in the last panel and it’s nice to see someone loves Star Maiden as much as I do. Check out Ed’s webcomic Hobo and Bowserimmediately to get your last taste of the Christmas Spirit. See you tomorrow!
Today’s Strip… What a great riff on a classic super hero convention! Today’s excellent and quite funny strip comes from T.L. Collins, the creative mind behind the newer webcomic Bullfinch. I really like T.L.’s art and the personality he injects into each of the characters. So much so that…well, you may want to read the next [...]
SILENCE It’s taken me 197 strips (holy snot, that is such an impossible number to the me of 2 years ago), but I finally did a strip with no dialogue! Believe it or not, this has been a goal of mine for a while, but I could never come up with an idea I felt [...]
UPDATED WITH LINK! SUPERFOGEYS REVIEWS A-POPPIN’ Still no word on when that big time interview is landing, but hopefully it will be soon. In the meantime, how about some reviews? Jackson Ferrell over at one of my favorite sites, “This Week in Webcomics” has changed his reviewing tactics a bit and decided to focus solely on [...]
“SORRY, FIDEL” SHIRT UPDATE! The shirts are in! They should be going out this week so those of you that ordered them will be getting them very, very soon. If you’ve been waiting to order yours, now’s the time! You can get them right here. LOST SEASON 5 FINALE I’m so frickin’ pumped for the finale! [...]
T.L. COLLINS INTERVIEWED ON THE VILLAINS CORNER WEBCOMIC CHAT! Found this while googling (why didn’t you tell me about it, TL!?). It’s a fantastic interview with TL and the guys over at Villains Corner about both Bullfinch and SuperFogeys Origins. TL goes in depth on the creation of Bullfinch and the painful process that it [...]
AND THE WRITER OF THE FOREWORD TO SUPERFOGEYS VOLUME ONE IS… Rich Johnston of BleedingCool.com! I’ve been reading Rich’s work for years, first his “Lying in the Gutters” column over at Comic Book Resources, and now on his own site. Rich is the foremost gossip mongerer in comic book land. He’s always on top of the [...]
AT THE BALTIMORE COMIC-CON THIS WEEKEND For you east coasters, I’ll be at the Baltimore Convention Center this weekend for the annual Comic Con. I’ll be joined by SuperFogeys Origins artist T.L. Collins and the rest of the Th3rd World crew to launch the big book I’ve been talking about for months–SuperFogeys Volume 1! I’ll [...]
UPDATE! KRISHNA POSTS THE ROUGH THUMBNAILS TO THIS PAGE! Over at his PC Weenies site, Krishna has posted the thumbnails to this very page. Krishna’s thumbs are better than a lot of people’s finished art and I think I probably could have gotten away with just posting those and a lot of you might not [...]
UPDATED! SEE THE ROUGHS TO THIS PAGE! Over on his own site, Krishna has posted the roughs for the page you see above. There’s so much energy to Krishna’s original ideas. Definitely worth a look. THE FIGHT IS ON! If you dig the art above as much as I do, be sure and check out more [...]
UPDATE – KRISHNA POSTS THUMBNAILS TO THIS PAGE (BOTH VERSIONS!) AND TALKS ABOUT WORKING ON SUPERFOGEYS ORIGINS IN A “MICROCAST!” And you can check it all out right here! THANK YOU, KRISHNA SADASIVAM! A big round of applause, please, for the fantastic job Krishna Sadasivam did on the art for this story. He came in to [...]
