The first review of CARTOON CUTIES no.1 has been published!

Many thanks to Michael Housel for his kind words. Link below...

https://bizarrechats.blogspot.com/2019/05/rock-bakers-cartoon-cuties-cutie.html?fbclid=IwAR3XTVMNNJtNr_StOAPJEJH0cqBkbIe_gpb2OC_-D7yJUI36cwIl_cKIDVU

More CARTOON CUTIES materials

Cover inks for issue 4. Minerva (right) will have a balloon reading "You better cool it down, girls, the lifeguard just swallowed his whistle!"

   For those interested, a few more bits and bobbles from my development of Cartoon Cuties as a continuing series now that the first issue is on sale through Amazon. We'll start with a few odds and ends...

Crissy doing housework around issue 10 or so.

A more finished ink sheet which was shown in-progress in an earlier post.

A Doris Flowers pinup, from early on in trying to find her character. The body is okay, but I think her head needs some work.

   Since this all began with Crissy Carrots, most of the supporting characters I developed early on were also rabbits. I also dabbled a bit on developing a larger backstory for Crissy, for which I drew the first image below. As the series took shape, however, Crissy's rather subdued previous life hasn't had much chance to take center stage. I did figure she might've been a cheerleader in her school days, though. In fact, I originally planned a prequel book which would do a sort of Archie aesthetic with my femanimal characters as high-schoolers. I thought better of it, though, and realized further adventures were more interesting than earlier ones.

A yearbook shot of Crissy?

An early Crissy pinup

   Crissy, I was originally concerned, might be mistaken by some as a play on Lola Bunny, a character who boasts a bit of a following despite being generally under-used by her owners. When I saw SPACE JAM again, I saw I had nothing to worry about (in truth, Crissy owes a lot more to the similarly under-used Minerva Mink, and in fact boasts similar coloring in acknowledgement of that). Sugar Chestnut was a rabbit character who I felt could offer some differences from Crissy -chiefly in that Sugar would be an established annie starlet and live closer to town, where as Crissy really wasn't interested in a film career and preferred her privacy. When I designed Sugar, I did notice some similarities to Lola Bunny (mostly in her short hair and huge bangs). My original plans to make her a blonde were subsequently changed to make her a brunette. It was in designing this character, though, that I noticed every character in the series likely draws inspiration and influence from some established character I might've seen at some time or other. The fact is, there are so many cartoon characters that some similarities are going to be inevitable. Of course, the Cuties depart pretty radically from most of the characters who might've inspired them -having skin instead of fur and a full compliment of fingers, so when all was said and done, Sugar here bore little resemblance to Lola. What makes Sugar interesting is the domestic situations she offers, being married to a rabbit who is a star in his own right. This allows for the sort of industry inside talk that I've always enjoyed. This spot illustration will likely be used either as a back cover, or as a bug on the copyright information/contents page which opens a future issue.

Sugar Chestnut

   Crissy's Irish cousin Rosie plays a fair part in issue 1, but since she was only on vacation to the States I haven't had a lot of chances to bring her back for more stories. These pinup pages should keep her visible until I find an excuse to move her to the States. Of course, I don't know yet if readers are even keen on Rosie. Feedback from readers will be instrumental in telling me what directions I should go in and what characters to take with me.

   Below is an early pinup of Minerva Mallen. It will likely be used as a spot illustration for the contents page of issue 2. Although one of the featured players, I did find she didn't command as much of my attention as I expected her to. I thought she'd be my main focus in the book, what with her being one of the more original characters (or so I'd think, as I don't immediately recall a lot of pulchritudinous cartoon skunks). Indeed, as I've found enjoyment in creating more and more characters and expanding the run of the series, my 'main' characters aren't the ones I've been tinkering with as much as I figured would be the case. Still, she plays a fairly large role in the first few issues.

   Now we get to some new characters previously unmentioned, and at this point still without names. During the early development of Cartoon Cuties, I made a conscious decision not to do any female duck characters lest readers think I'm making reference to Daisy Duck. When the design for this duck came to me, though, I decided to go ahead and use it because I wanted another bird-based character who didn't look just like Chickie Little. (When it came to crowd scenes, I found I used a lot of male duck characters to represent the annies working at the movie studio, so including a female duck seemed an obvious choice.) I'm not sure yet what the dialog for these two pages are, but I've slated them for issue 2, God willing. There's something vaguely familiar about this design, though I can't place it. Did I draw an original, or was I influenced by some obscure character I've forgotten?

   Finally, a character who is my latest, and God willing subject to a special future issue (in a story I was so fond of I moved her spotlight from issue 11 up to issue 6). As yet unnamed -though I'm leaning toward something like Tina Pebble, the character has been developed with animation in mind rather than a comic book (but that's sort of fitting, since the comic book is about starlets of animation). Hence, the focus on music. She's a singer who has come to feel trapped in her role as "the Rock And Roll Teenager" in a string of one-reel cartoons. Unlike the other characters in the book, she actually has more cartoon qualities like being very short and sporting a squeaky, high-pitched voice. Her efforts to escape her child-like type-casting makes for a fresh scenario in the series, and the idea is to feature her up front and center in the sixth issue. Below are the planned cover inks and an interior page showing the same scene.

   This spot illo below shows her in character from her cartoons.

   Lastly, we have what was actually my first drawing of the character. I did try to make her look shorter than most of the other characters of my book, which was a challenge since several of the characters are already pretty short. I hadn't yet the hang of it when I drew this, and in subsequent pages her nose has gotten even shorter and her curls bigger. Still, this gave me an idea of who the character was and how she would work. The resulting storyline I have in place is actually one of my favorites so far (and finally clears up the mystery of the annies). I look forward to sharing it with you.

CARTOON CUTIES NO.1 IS ON SALE NOW!!!

Blessings to all who made this happen! Glory! Here's the Amazon link....

https://www.amazon.com/dp/194983011X?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860&fbclid=IwAR2DCcpgozFelEE-v_k_BbEoo3XtbRl30MaqkuEvc6ARyn2sHeei-jSv1w0

Cartoon Cuties ink sheets (Doris Flowers)

   Color plates by Jim Ludwig...

Cartoon Cuties materials

cover art for a future issue

   For those interested, the way I work is almost reverse of the way most cartoonists do. I seldom write a script before drawing, but rather I like to draw out a scene or even a complete story before I actually write the script. That my work has any structure at all when I'm done I credit fully to the Holy Spirit -particularly since I frequently get to write the script after a long period has passed since I drew it. I don't plan stories so much as I work by instinct. Immediately below is a prime example. This page I sketched out with another story in mind from the one I eventually settled on. Fortunately, the work was loose enough that I could fit it into another story. What I like about this page is the expressions used. For someone who only recently began to draw more traditional cartoon characters, I seem to've grasped the basics effectively. Growing up, I tried to copy the more realistic aesthetic of Jonny Quest, not "funny animal" art. This has manifested in interesting ways, some of which are viewable here, as I still tend to draw fabrics in the same quasi-realistic sense I picked up from Dr. Quest. Hopefully, this lends credibility to the idea that these cartoon characters are living in the real world.

   Speaking of the real world, the basic concept of Cartoon Cuties is that cartoon characters (though only certain kinds -anthropomorphized furniture being strictly the creation of cartoonists, for example) live alongside regular human beings. The setting is a movie studio built on the outskirts of a rural community where many "annies" have settled. "Annie" is derived from the phrase "animated actors" and I thank Mr. Mark Holmes for coming up with the term for me. You see, I wanted to avoid the word "toon" as that would tie the project more directly to established properties like WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. I wanted a more unique universe where cartoon characters are fully human themselves despite possessing animal features. Hence, these characters are sort of a hybrid of human anatomy and the typical cartoon aesthetic. Annies have five fingers instead of four, for example. Granted, much of this is pretty arbitrary. Female characters have skin instead of fur, but several male characters have fur like their screen counterparts have. There is a method to it all, but it's pretty complex to try to briefly explain it with words. Hopefully, over the course of several issues, the universe presented will snap into focus for the reader. The following few pages are for a story to appear in issue 8 or 9 or so. They should provide a decent illustration of how humans and annies share the same space.

   My first annie was Daisy Poise (seen in the pages above), created for a Betsy The Bookwriter episode in parody of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Daisy was The Milksop Mouse. She triggered the creation of Crissy Carrots. In expanding Crissy's world, Daisy became a part of it (after a considerable re-design). It's fitting that I have in my stable more mice than any other sort of femanimal, given there are probably more mice in cartoons than any other animal. Daisy is the featured player, but there are a good half dozen supporting players that are mice, such as this one here...

   The areas marked with X's will be blacked out in coloring, by the way. Below is an interesting page, drawn to look like a newspaper page advertising what the local theaters are showing. This is set in the late 50's. Chickie Little is an interesting character (I think, anyway). Her real name is Lois Teppert, and had actually been created for a project that never got off the ground. She (within the universe of Cartoon Cuties) achieved fame through a series of cartoons as the character "Chickie Little" and here we see an ad block for one of her cartoons. The title of the short wasn't really planned (though it looks like it was), rather I chose words that would fit into the space provided for the title! To lend authenticity, I try to make the names of directors and producers on these posters sound Jewish, due to the number of Jews who found work in Hollywood during the Golden Age of movies. The page came about as a way to salvage an earlier pencil sheet that I drew for a story which I eventually abandoned. In the original configuration, Lois was standing behind a park bench and reacting to a newspaper headline. She was the only element of that page that really worked, so I kept her and roughed in a new scene around her. Once I'd erased the original scene and saw Lois there by herself, the movie poster idea came to me. So...

   The page below isn't finished, but it's pretty close. These characters, as yet unnamed, I introduce in issue 4. These twins were hired by the fictional movie studio before branching out into their own line of clothing (this drawing done as one of the pages of their catalog). Eventually, I want to develop their adventures more, but this pinup page keeps them visible until they can again take center stage. Since the comic hasn't hit stands yet, I have no way of knowing which characters people will want to see more of and which ones the public won't care for.

   Finally, we have a pinup shot of a character I haven't yet named. I really enjoy the process of designing new characters for the book. The idea for this one was to draw as cute a character as I possibly could. Only certain types of animals lend themselves to this sort of thing. This is my first chipmunk, as "chipmunk cheeks" is a descriptive used for cute girls with baby faces. This is a play on that. How large a part will she eventually play in the series? Only time will tell. UPDATE: Based partially on a suggestion from Jim Ludwig, and in tribute to the late, great Doris Day, this character will be named Doris Flowers...

A Quick Look: IT'S HOT IN PARADISE/HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND (1960/64)

   In the first half of the 1950's, long-busy character actor Alex D'Arcy was becoming something of a heartthrob and was even getting memorable parts in major pictures like HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE. His brush with true stardom didn't hold, however, and Alex began the next decade by headlining this German horror vehicle about a plane load of beautiful dancers who crash at sea and become stranded on a mysterious island also housing a large spider of unknown origin. Gary (D'Arcy), their manager, wanders off one night and gets bitten by the spider. For some reason this transforms him into a half-human mutant spider beast that stalks the girls whenever one of them manages to break loose of the group. When a pair of studly research assistants come to the island, the monster stuff is all but forgotten until the final reel. In the meantime, it's basically one big party scene as the girls dress up in tropical duds and the two men come to blows over one's less-than-respectful attitude towards the girls. This one is weirdly structured to begin with, but is filled with additional bits of oddities (like the plane flying from LA to New York and then back to the Pacific on the way to Singapore, or the constant reference to a clip pistol as a "revolver"). More peep show than monster movie, it was originally imported to raincoat theaters as IT'S HOT IN PARADISE, making no mention in advertising of the monster! A few years later, it was re-issued as HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND and sold to kiddie matinees! This release of the film got a big publicity campaign that played up the horror aspects of the plot. The kids who came to see the film must've been confused, and even a little bored, by the large middle section which is basically nothing but a parade of scantily clad ladies. Of those ladies, the most notable bit of casting is German pinup girl Barbara Valentin in her first credited role (in fact, she gets second billing in the US version -as Barbara Valentine- and she wasn't overly famous State-side). A glamorous blonde of the Bardot/Diana Dors/Jayne Mansfield variety, Miss Valentin went onto a fairly hefty movie career in Europe. As for HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND, it was never sold to television. A pristine DVD release came via Something Weird Video in the late 90's. About that time, the film also became a subject on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in that show's final season. It was one of their better episodes, actually.
 

Barbara Valentin

Crissy Carrots aborted animation tests

  For those who might be interested in the creative process... This was my first stab at doing an animation test. It didn't get very far, but it produced some nice expression shots. I wanted a finished look, so I actually inked this first set. About half way through the test I realized I really had no reason to ink these sheets. True animation inks are done on transparencies. I was just inking on my paper, and thus rendering it useless for animation anyway!

   Following this I did my first actual animation pencil test, the "wind" scene I posted first. That gave me more confidence, so I set out to draw a more elaborate scene. The next few frames are from that experiment...

   In the process of this particular test, I discovered an area I was really weak in was animating a realistic walk. To get a better handle on the body mechanics of such movement, I did the following walking cycle. I seem to've chosen a particularly casual stride for my character. I made her barefoot because I figured the dynamics of that motion would be better for early study, since I could adapt the same footfalls to a male character. If you look closely at a couple of frames, you might be able to make out some indentations from my earlier test. I tried to repurpose the sheets that didn't work, though erasing all of the art that was already there was difficult since I was using a 6B pencil. After a couple sheets, I figured out I should be using the backs.

   After that, I felt ready to try another full test. I only got two frames in before I figured a better scene should start with Crissy in a seated position and move into a walk. That was the most recent test I posted, and the toll on my paper supply had me ending the test before I really got into the walking section of the scene!

   At any rate, that's how I approached my first dabbling with animation. Using what materials I had at hand, I used the same typing paper I use for cartooning. While not a professional effort, I think it did go a long way in teaching me some of the basics of animation. This will give me a head start once I'm actually sitting at a real animator's desk and using regulation paper!