Back to the Nostalgia Run! Er… Climb. I like this one. Maybe I should have resurrected it for new art and color. Maybe I will, years from now, when none of you guys remember having read it. I’m sneaky that way.
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Posts Tagged Dr. Kara Biner
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Were you sick and tired of Black & White comics? Me, too. This is still one of the old original strips that I’ve trotted out, but I colorized it for us.
I like the humor, but I’ve been told it might be too oblique. I don’t recall why I chose to show a mountainside in each panel- maybe to show that they were stalled out and give the feeling that they needed to get moving. Maybe I was trying to blast through a lot of ideas and this one lent itself to a static image better than others. Maybe I was trying to give an impression of isolation on a rock face.
Or maybe it’s what you’re thinking and I was too young and impatient to do something with exciting visuals. I do remember back then being shocked at how much time and effort went into the communicative elements of every… single… panel. I was probably grateful to just draw one and then cut and paste (real cutting and real pasting… with paste) the next two.
This is one of the early Because It’s There cartoons that I haven’t updated and colored. That’s because the dynamic of the relationship between Hubris and Kara changed as I was writing. Hubris is no longer the sort of character who’d balk at the idea of actually, physically climbing the highest mountain for Kara. More likely, he’d insist on it while she said they didn’t have time to do it, so pick something else to do this weekend, like a movie or… another trail run, I think.
What do you think? Should Hubris be less reckless and more romantic-minded? Feel free to share. There’s a comment section, and there’s always the ‘contact’ and ’email’ buttons.
And as always, thanks for reading. The nostalgia trip will be over soon enough and we’ll be looking at fatter lines and colors.
For anyone who has stumbled across Hubris lately (feel free to do the StumbleUpon thing there to the right of your screen) I wanted to point out that Hubris usually isn’t Black & White. We’re doing nostalgia time just now. The color returns soon. Just like in The Wizard Of Oz or something.
Early on, y’see, around the ancient year 2000, I was told that at least one syndicate was looking for an outdoor sports comic strip. I was told this because a syndicated cartoonist saw my suburban covered in stickers and filled with bicycles and skateboards, and with kayaks strapped atop.
Turns out he was only partially informed. ‘Outdoor sports’ to many people means huntin’ and fishin’ and that’s what the syndicate apparently had in mind. Oops.
Anyhow, I poured a lot of time and attention into ‘Because It’s There’ and got, as has been stated before, onto Tribune Media’s ‘Here’s the New Guys-whattaya think’ website, and got some little editorial attention from one syndicate. Amy Lago, bless her, gave me a lot of advice about it. I eventually had to put more of my time into earning my living (advertising cartoons and the art for a syndicated strip called The Buckets, y’see) that I had to shelve ‘Because It’s There’.
With the advent and subsequent boom of Webcomics, I thought I might try Hubris out online. Then I put that off for years.
Now we’ve been here for a year, and you’re reading this. Pretty cool. Thanks very much for being here!
Now, if it suits you- please slip over to the right hand side of the screen to VoteHubris, do all that Google+ and twitter to your followers about Hubris and any other social media stuff you can think of.
And if you think it’s time for me to print Hubris Helmet stickers or anything, let me know. There’s comment sections under every article, and there’s an email button and a Contact button somewhere.
Hell, just troll around the site and see what you like. Bound to be something.
So we continue to delve into the old original ‘Because It’s There’ cartoons I didn’t redraw at some time in the past year. This cartoon pre-dates the current Dos Equis commercials where ‘The Most Interesting Man In The World’ is said to bowl overhand. I’m sure it doesn’t pre-date some other very fine humor where bowling overhand is mentioned. I think it’s a fine cartoon, though. And I think midnight neon bowling is a hoot, though I don’t know if it’s still a thing. The bowling alleys probably do something different to attract crowds these days. Nude bowling, for instance. Nude Midget Jell-O Bowling. I’m not saying that’s a good idea, I’m just saying that it might take a special effort to get a new crowd into a bowling alley during the years when it’s not high on the nation’s “This Is Cool” list.
As for any interesting things about the comic strip itself- I’ve already explained the title… The linework is different because at the time I was loving this great new ballpoint pen, and was using it to draw all the Hubris cartoons. It’s weird how much the tool forces the look of the art. Anyhow, they don’t make that pen any more. One more reason I almost always default to using a brush if I think the project is going to last a while. Though I wonder how much longer anyone will be able to get a nice Raphael or Windsor-Newton Kolinsky Sable watercolor brush for drawing with. Since the digital age hit us, real art supplies are slowly disappearing to be replaced in many cases by office supplies. I need a sign that says “SAVE THE KOLINSKY SABLE – FOR BRUSHES”.
Also, Hubris had not yet acquired his chin in this cartoon.
Also also, he’s playing a very, very old gameboy.
#3 in the visit to his origins- Hubris does what is probably a really old gag to Fly Fishermen. I’m sorry. I bought a book about Fly Fishing. I even know a guy who was a fly-fishing guide. Did I avail myself of the good references? Nah. I was cranking out stuff to show the syndicate how versatile Hubris could be. Look! Look! It’s not all about skateboards and kayaks! Sometimes it’s about the kind of sports that newspaper readers fancy for themselves, too!
Bah.
Anyhow, at least I skipped over doing gags about fishing FOR flies, or some of the other truly rudimentary things that other beginners might toss in. I like the fact that Doug the Dog is busy tying flies. I’ve always liked to have little gags within gags like that, when possible.
People automatically assume that riding a unicycle is a skill reserved for only a few people per million who discover it within themselves. In truth, it’s a skill reserved for anyone who spends a couple of hours trying to learn it. What happens is this: You learn to balance, then you learn to lean forward and use your feet to prevent a fall while continuing forward. The same description applies to WALKING. Seriously. Same skill set.
I’ve carried some odd stuff around on a unicycle. You get stared at. And you get spoken to. There is a very short list of things said by a very long list of people. The most common is, “Where’s the rest of your bike?” To which the answer can be any number of clever things: “The bike store said ‘Half Off’, who knew?” or “My grandmother’s on it behind me. She’ll be along.” or “What the…?! Damned THIEVES!” or “I took off all the stuff I didn’t need. This is what I got left.”
Anyhow, unicycles can be fun. Probably more so because so many people assume silly things about them with nothing more to go on than the fact that clowns sometimes ride them while pretending to fall down.
Anyhow. You can learn. Click on the unicycle below to shop you one. G’wan. You know you been wanting one.
Happy 11-11-11! I bought a science-based book on calendrics back when the whole Y2K thing caught the public imagination. (Stephen Jay Gould’s ‘Questioning The Millennium‘) And now with people being silly about the Rapture, the end of the world. and the Mayan calendar, I’m surprised that no one thought that something nasty would be happening today, what with the date being all ones (at least, the way it’s generally written… in this culture… at the moment.) Of course, that leads to lots of issues about whether the calendar we’ve chosen for ourselves has numbers on it that mean anything to the stars and planets of the rest of the universe, and whether Australia is gonna catch the &%$# before we do, ’cause it’s tomorrow there already, isn’t it?
I’m not advocating anyone doing this. Really. I’m not. But if you WERE to, say, trim a skateboard to fit the bottom of a whitewater kayak and bolt the whole mess together, put yourself into it, and drop into your local skatepark… then, while I would NOT be fiscally responsible for what happened next, I WOULD be owed some photos. That’s all I’m saying.
Here you go: You could, (YOU, not me… I’m not, legally or otherwise speaking, saying that ANYONE should try this) bolt these things together and let me know how it goes. And send photos. Remember it was YOUR idea. Click on ’em if you wanna shop ’em.
