Sometimes it takes a few extra panels to get a joke across. I’ve been reading a lot of Calvin and Hobbes lately, and I’ve been inspired by Watterson’s unique panel layouts for Sunday comics. Part of what made his cartoon so successful, I believe, is the amount of space he gave his characters to have dialogue. After all, it’s hard to consistently come up with four-panel gags.
This cartoon was actually inspired by a “conversation” I had the other day.
This comic was inspired by one of the guys who lives at my college coop. As a matter of fact, most engineers I know have a strange fascination with LEDs.
Incidentally, this is the first strip I’ve inked using a brush. If you look closely, you can see the difference in line work. I’m new to this method, so I’ve got a few kinks to work out. Still, I’m pretty happy with the results. Keep your eyes peeled for a comic in full color — one of these days, that is.
My brother helped me think of this one.
When my brother and I first came up with these characters, all of them had weird personalities. Over time, Bob became more normal. Punjee developed into a naive, clumsy, yet endearing character. Funchy, who has yet to appear in any of these comics, is modeled after my dad’s quirky personality (No offense, Dad!) I’ll sneak Funchy into one of these comics when I get the chance.
After having worked very hard to finish two comics for this week, I’m starting to think that I need to streamline my process. As of now, all of my comics are entirely hand-drawn. In future comics, I might consider doing the drawings by hand and the text on the computer. My ultimate goal is to make this a daily series, but that is not realistic at this point. We’ll see.
-Daniel
