The latest round of scans for pages I've been working on offers an eclectic assortment of images. Above is a quick one-pager in which sisters Beverly and Jeannie offer their comments on the modern art movement which was taking off in the 1950's. I'm not expert in this particular wave, so if it would actually be more suited to a 60's period I may move it over to one of the back-up pages for Swamp Mouse, a one-shot spin-off of Cartoon Cuties set in the mid 60's. Someone more versed in the scene will have to tell me which placement would be better, but I know the whole Beat scene was kicking off in the 50's, and it coincided with pretentious artists pushing their wares upon the rest of us. Below is the one-page bit I plan on using to introduce readers to the character of Yvette Pond in issue 3. Since I draw first and script later, there are sometimes pages where even I don't know what the dialog will be until I actually sit down to write it. Here's one such page. I have no idea what's going on here aside from the date and the scene telling me that Yvette is likely watching The Late, Late Show, and thus some very old movie.
Up next is an interesting page, where Sugar Chestnut is commenting on a blow-up from one of her cartoons she made for another studio. The premise of the book is that the movie studio C.B. International Pictures has broken from tradition by allowing it's cartoon stars to basically play themselves instead of doing the usual forest creature thing. After I finished the art and script for Barefoot (now ready for coloring), in which I embraced the more traditional type of cartoon design, I found myself half wishing I'd used a similar aesthetic for Cartoon Cuties. I didn't, however, because the whole point of my book is to present cartoon characters as human as possible. A quick sketch to see what it would be like to draw a more typical cartoon rabbit gave me the base for this page which helps highlight how differently I approached my own characters. The complexity of the "other studio" Sugar is influenced mainly by old Disney cartoons. When Walt began pushing Technicolor for his animated shorts, he made the designs much more intricate in order to provide a wide variety of colors -to truly take advantage of the fact that they were doing color films. I think I read once that an early color Mickey Mouse cartoon included costuming for it's rodent star which required something like 30+ different colors! Anyway, this page comes from a short bit where Sugar is noting how different it is working for C.B.I.P. from other studios, and keeps this huge photo as a reminder that she has much to be thankful for.
Up next is a piece I've juggled around quite a bit. It was originally intended to be the cover art for issue 4, I think. Then it was pushed back to issue 8, then 11 or so, then back up the line and down again. Then it was a back cover page, then back to front cover, etc. At the moment, I'm thinking it may go into a Cartoon Cuties coloring book we're mulling over. The scene prompted a story for issue 4 in which Roger and Crissy move to a bigger house, but it hasn't been paired with that story for quite some time now.
Below are a couple of pages I recently repaired. You should see how much white-out has been slathered onto these pages! Both of these I've posted versions of previously. Daisy Poise has had her ears scaled down a tick and her face adjusted with better placement of the nose, bigger eyes, and rounder cheeks. The Yvette Pond page probably looks like I did a simple fix by just covering over her legs (which were too small). Actually, I tried to adjust her legs so she was standing and the water only came up to her calves. The thighs weren't round enough, though. By that point, however, I had used so much white-out (and my bottle wasn't fresh, either, so it was getting pretty gloppy) that the best way to salvage the good part of the drawing was to just make the water deeper. In a way, the end result looks a bit like a postcard. As always, full credit for any competency or cleverness which comes through in the final drawing goes wholly the the Holy Spirit!
Below is another page I haven't scripted yet, so I don't know what Wendy Marco is reading in that letter for this one-page gag. The pencils for this page were pushed back and forth from single page gag to part of a larger story and back again to single pager. I don't know what the joke will be, but I hope it'll be funny. Still, the most amusing thing to me is that I settled quickly on the name "Wendy Marco" but continued to think of her as being Polish in origin. My parents raised me well, I never once connected name to ethnicity until after I'd established the character as a blonde (actually, colorist Jim Ludwig can be credited with making Wendy a blonde, as I'd designed her to have light brown hair -but all along I thought of her as being Polish, for some reason).
Next is a simple pinup, which is usually the way I start to develop a character. This mousette may eventually get a name and appear in some stories of her own, or at least become a background extra. That's all possible, but the ink sheet itself I think will go into the coloring book. I do need to go back and re-do her hand, I think, since it looks a little large compared to her feet. Looking at it again, her right leg seems a little short, too. It's an on-going process in many cases.
Shifting gears slightly, we end on an ink sheet for what, God willing, will be the third issue of Della, All-American Dream-girl. This more Archie-like series I planned for two issues. I spun Fraulein Gretta, a fairly tale spoof anthology, off of a story written for the first issue. Since Gretta first appears in Della's book, however, I decided what I should really do is fold Gretta back into Della to provide a full three issues. The lesser pages yanked, this left enough room to feature the regular characters and tie everything together. This page is from a prolog which sets in place the Gretta material.
All art and characters (c) 2019 Rock Baker
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