Troy must love you folks more than I do. He found time for a new cartoon.
On the other hand, I met Lar DeSouza, who draws ‘Least I Could Do’ and is a master caricaturist.
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2378 comics.
Oooooh, busy busy this week.
Local comic con followed by the convention of ISCA- the International Society of Caricature Artists.
Quite the party. I’m exhausted. And behind on deadlines.
The best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.
And those of birds and dudes, too.
I think that’s the main failing of so many plans. You don’t know the outcome of a lot of your actions, what with adding in everyone else’s actions and plans and random chance and all the rest.
So we wind up with people, and companies, and governments, and religions and they’re all saying, “We need this, so we’re gonna do this in order to make this.”
And while everyone’s planning and working toward ‘this’, then ‘that’ happens. Which wasn’t in anyone’s plans because everyone was planning for success, and nobody was planning on ‘that’.
Usually, I do behind-the-scenes stuff over at the Patreon page and I don’t here. Here is usually for just fun commentary.
But today, I’ll share a version of the Patreon Hubris Cartooning Lesson with you.
Voices. When you write comic/cartoon voices, you can tell if the characters have gelled in your head if they have particular ways of speaking.
For instance, you couldn’t just swap the word balloons for these two characters, nor could you swap the attitude behind what they’re saying. Their ‘dialect’ would no longer fit the characters. They’re body language would be totally messed up if you swapped that around, too. Lowell’s body language is sagging and disappointed. He doesn’t even turn to face Paste. Paste is brassy enough to pick his nose and climb on another person’s back. And while that’s funny, it’s not out of character for him. It’s part of his ‘voice’.
Should we do another critique week?
Not to make Troy think we’re attacking him.
I was just telling a writer friend of mine (who hasn’t been a writer long) that he shouldn’t take any critique of his first TV script personally. The critique has nothing to do with HIM, after all. It’s about the script, and what’s ready to be put into the hands of producers.
So- there’s the classic classroom admonition about critiques.
Having said that… The perspective bugs me. These days, It’s pretty easy to set up a drawing in the computer where the perspective is dead-on. I don’t know how long ago Troy designed this one or whether he had a computer then, so I don’t know if that’s a valid concern. Either way, I’d like to see better perspective particularly on the lettering on the sign.
Also (and this is a conversation that I just had with a cartoonist Troy just met in Georgia) the details of all the elements of the cartoon have to be considered. It’s ‘colored’ in black and white, just like the movie. So “excellent” on the color scheme. But if Norman Bates is trying to “lure a more exclusive clientele”, he’d add “Master” to the sign in a fancier font (also making it easier to see what’s different from the source material)
There’s my critique. Good color choices, but set up the sign lettering in the computer (I recommend ‘Adobe Illustrator’ in this case) and use the ‘perspective’ tool to drag it into a slick looking perspective. And pick a ‘fancy’ font for “Master” that’ll both draw attention and make Norman look like he was trying too hard. Once all that stuff is done in the computer, you print it out to size, drop it on the light table, put a clean sheet of nice paper on top and ink the livin’ heck out of that fine, fine cartoon.
I’d like to think that, as they started their argument, everyone else at the beerpong event, communicating through hand signals and significant eyebrow waggling, picked up and moved off.
You every have one of those conversations? I have two friends that I have trouble talking to. They’re people I respect and admire, but I’m just not as quick as they are, conversationally. I always feel like we’re not having the same conversation as each other are trying to conduct- and I’m the stupid one bogging down the conversation.
One is the guy I took over The Buckets from. I’m usually on top of conversation, but he seems to be three steps ahead of me when we talk. It’s like I’m an idiot.
The other guy is a cartoonist that lives in my brother’s town on the other side of the country. I always feel like I’m not paying attention when we talk- that’s how fast his mind works. I’m left standing there, wondering how I lost track.
Amazing cartoonists, amazing guys… and here I am, dawdling along with Hubris, which normally I’m pretty proud of. I talk to those two guys just for a random conversation, and I feel abs0lutely stupid.
It’s like we’re not having the same conversation.
The bird is back.
Did you miss him? Or her, as the case may be?
I can’t imagine that hiding a blindfolded beer pong game is easy… I mean, ask any precocious kid in their late teens whether Mom and Dad got back from their weekend trip and never suspected anything had gone awry, or believed that the smell of stale spilled beer came from the neighbors house sewer leak that happened just about the time they left town and the entire neighborhood smelled like this a couple of days ago. Also, those aren’t my ping pong balls. Eddie brought those over and left them.
Troy and I were at the National Cartoonists Society Southeast Chapter’s Annual Fall Meeting this past weekend.
Here’s a picture of the Ol’ Troy himself, pictured with an escaping Mark Simon (Storyboard artist for The Walking Dead)
I haven’t heard from Troy this week. Either he didn’t make it back home, or is crazy busy because he was out of town all weekend, or I said something that ticked him off. Or all of the above… that’s always a possibility.
Anyhow: “Big hand, Ladies and Gentlemen! Troy!”
