CARTOON CUTIES stuff...

    Seeing issue 1 of Cartoon Cuties finally hit print (now for sale on Amazon) has really energized work on further issues. Here're some materials new and old. The top image is a tweaked pinup of Doris Flowers, who turns up in the second issue. Directly below is the ink sheet for another Flowers pinup, God willing to be used as the back cover of issue 3. I'm actually really pleased with this pinup, as everything seemed to come together perfectly. Still unsure what the planned dialog balloon should be, but I can easily picture as a running theme for back covers scenes from the studio dressing room like this.

   Now we have new characters to show off. So far, I've used sisters Beverly and Jeannie mostly for short single or two-page gags. These help me figure out the characters and their dynamic. Eventually, I'd like to give them longer stories (but with the materials already assembled, we'd possibly be looking at issue 11 or 12 before they could take center stage in any meaningful way). The basic idea here is a fairly old one. Beverly is something of a free spirit but more grounded than she usually appears -shallow but sweet, her sister Jeannie (the one with the pigtails) is intelligent but can be a bit scatterbrained. The solo page of Beverly (just below) may be published in issue 4 or 5. I'm looking forward to writing for these characters.

   Below are some materials I've had prepared for a while now. First up is a pinup I had planned for the first issue when it was to be a one-shot graphic novel about Crissy Carrots. The idea was to fill out the remainder of the book with pinup poses of the characters present, until it became a continuing series and I drew up "Stick Together" as a back-up story. Mala Winston is one of the heavies of the first issue. After drawing this pinup directly below, I saw that she had potential as a reformed character. She has a solo story in issue 2 regarding just that, and will become a major supporting player in the issues beyond. I'm looking forward to sharing those episodes with you.

   Daisy Poise, directly below, was my first "femanimal" character and I consider her one of the pillar characters of the franchise alongside Crissy Carrots and Minerva Mallen. This early pinup of the character captured a cute pose, though I've done better faces. Her ears are particularly huge here. I've since shrunk and stream-lined them a bit to make them easier to draw in the average panel. I'm not crazy about much of the earlier work I did on the series, but color certainly helps.

   Below are a couple of cats, because I figured there needed to be cats since one of my earlier commissions was to create a feline character akin to the work I'd done with Crissy Carrots. The result was Simone Grace, who is slated to appear in issue 2. Also appearing in issue 2 is Trudy Kitten, seen directly below. I don't really have a lot of material for Trudy as of yet. At this point she's more of a background character. Below her is Dixie North, who shows up quickly in issue 1. Dixie proved more difficult to draw than I expected, so she hasn't been utilized as much I originally thought she might be. She is slated to appear in future issues, however. Dixie is part of a comedy team with regular human being Trixie Hope, who has become one of my main characters.

   Lois Teppert I wrote about in a previous post, the character who became a star playing "Chickie Little" in a series of cartoon shorts. It seemed fitting to include a bird in the stable, given the volume of classic cartoons which feature birds (though their use as glamor characters has been few and far between, but there have been a couple so I figured I should include one). She pops up in issue 2 and then takes the spotlight in issue 3. She typically wears her hair pulled back. This is one of the few times I rendered her with her hair loose.

   Next we have Wendy Marco, who shows up in issue 1. Mostly, she serves as a sidekick to Minerva Mallen, both on and off the screen. She usually manages to be close to the action and has considerable coverage in most issues. The drawing below is supposed to be a candid snapshot which was printed in the local newspaper. This got her noticed by the studio brass and secured her a contract. Quite a bit of the series centers around Wendy, it turns out. She's a constant studio presence, Minerva's close friend, and her uncle is a fur salesman who sponsors programming on the local TV station. It points to how little I consider ethnicity that I made her a blonde of European descent and then gave her a Spanish Sir name! When her uncle pops up in issue 3, I drew him more swarthy to justify the name I gave her.

   One of the more interesting characters I came up with for the series is Louise Beaumont, who we meet in issue 2. Louise was inspired by an aging actress of the same name in an old episode of ALF. My Louise Beaumont brings in a bit of Hollywood history to the series, as she's been written as a classic starlet seeking to re-energize her faded career. Back in the 20's, she was the top female annie starlet (thus, her physical inspiration is as a cartoon version of Clara Bow/Louise Brooks). Her fame was eclipsed in the early 30's by the arrival of Betty Boop, who was only pen and ink (the concept being that some cartoon stars were flesh and blood and others strictly the invention of studio cartoonists). Since the real-life 1950's saw a renewed interest in 1920's film stars, the comic book finds Louise taking advantage of that and making efforts to re-establish herself as one of Creek Bend's stable of animated glamor starlets. Since annies don't age as normal people do, this means the projection of a youthful image like she once played to in her old cartoons. Below is a pinup shot which pushes Beaumont's status as a, as Mr. Moody once said of Lucy Carmichael, "teen-aged senior citizen." Louise is a bit opportunistic, and like many a starlet seems desperate to hold onto her youth and it's glory. Makes for some interesting story ideas. Another connection to Wendy Marco, Louise Beaumont is Wendy's grandmother. I need to tweak this drawing a little. Her hair needs to be bigger and rounder. The pose comes from an early 60's issue of Playboy, I think. It seemed to capture Louise perfectly.

   As noted last time, Sugar Chestnut is another rabbit who ties more closely to the movie studio than does Crissy Carrots. She's introduced in issue 2 and grabs the spotlight in issue 3. This pinup shot was based on a shot of 60's model and Playmate Lori Winston. The more human anatomy seems to offer the right look in suggesting that these characters live in the real world alongside the rest of us. There's also the fact that I began as a pinup cartoonist, so human anatomy is just more comfortable for me to draw. I never set out to draw cheesecake animals (in fact, given some of the weird communities that have risen in the internet age, I wanted to stay pretty far away from the theme). It seems a good fit for my particular skill set, however.

All art and characters (c) 2019 Rock Baker.

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...