Month: December 2004

Chris Browne – Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio

andertoons8 Comments

Well you’re in for a treat this week! Not only do we have a wonderful guest, Chris Browne of Hagar the Horrible and Raising Duncan, but, thanks to Chris, we also have our blog’s first art contributions!

Itcs-Chris-Browne-Duncan



Let’s get right to it shall we?

1) If you were to cast a movie entirely with cartoon characters, what movie would it be and who would star in it?

Funny you should ask… a sideways answer to #1 is, there are plans afoot to make a Hagar live action movie. If asked, I would cast Danny Devito as Hagar, Bette Midler or Katy Segal as Helga, Paul Reubens as Lucky Eddie, Hillary Duff as Honi and myself as Dirty Dirk.

But I know that wasn’t you question, so let’s see… Citizen Kane, with Daddy Warbucks in the lead, Betty Boop as his mistress, Huckleberry Hound in the Joseph Cotten part and Spongebob Squarepants as the Sled.

2) You’re a syndicate editor launching a new comic strip. What’s the worst possible title you can think of?

I happen to believe I had the worst title for a comic strip when I did “Chris Browne’s Comic Strip” ten years ago. I thought that was real clever until it went down in flames with my name all over it. Another title that must be avoided is “Vomittin’ Vinnie”. There has never been a widely successful comic strip with the word Vomit in the title.

3) A light bulb over a cartoon’s head signifies an idea, while a string of random characters denotes swearing. Invent a new cartooning icon and what it means.

How about a smoking brick, denoting the existential dilemma of modern man’s quest for a raison d’etre and his search for a benevolent deity in a silent and hostile universe? Or something like that.

Itcs-Chris-Browne-Brick

Wow! Not only our first art, but our very first Inside the Cartoonist’s Studio art!

Thanks so much, Chris, for the great answers and the great art!

Be sure to read both Hagar the Horrible and Raising Duncan, and watch out for smoking bricks!

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Cartoon Violence – Whatcha Think?

andertoons7 Comments

I saw The Incredibles last Sunday.

Wow! I loved it! My wife on the other hand wasn’t so enthusiastic.

I felt like Pixar was trying to stretch here a bit – something a little more mature, while still full of stuff for the kids.

She felt misled by the trailers she’d seen that promised the Pixar-style family comedy we’ve grown accustomed to. She also thought the movie was intensely violent for something aimed so directly at children.

Newsweek’s Jeff Giles had similar misgivings about the gunplay specifically in his November review.

The more we discussed it the more I got to wondering: Are we more concerned about violence and/or gunplay in a cartoon than in a comparable live-action film?

Were you to cast this same script with actors instead of animation would we balk less? What if the characters involved weren’t children?

Is it because we’ve used to more of a warm fuzzy from Pixar that my wife and Giles don’t understand the need for more violent action?

What if we replaced the bullets with laser blasts? Would separating it more from reality help?

Whatcha think?

“The Infinity Gauntlet” by Jim Starlin, George Perez & Ron Lim – Review

andertoons

Lately I’ve been trying to really get into graphic novels and see what all the hub-bub is about.

I’ve tried Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers, Watchmen, and even some Batman with Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

All of them had their good and bad points, but I have to admit, none of them were really simply entertaining before I turned out the light at night.

So, in an effort to give myself some just plain fun reading, I was pleased to find, collected in graphic novel form, The Infinity Gauntlet from Marvel.

I had read the six-issue series back when it was originally published from July to December of 1991 and I’d really enjoyed it. Throughout the years as my piles of collected comics shrank, The Infinity Gauntlet books always found their way into the “save” box and back into my attic.

Here’s the quick and dirty plot synopsis: Power-hungry Thanos comes to possess the Infinity Gauntlet (a big glove with 6 jewels on it) that gives him God-like powers over everything and everyone. In an effort to impress Mistress Death he wipes out have of the universe’s population prompting our Marvel heroes to unite behind Adam Warlock to save the day.

There is, of course, plenty of fighting, lots of dialogue like “it matters not” and “prepare thyselves for battle most fierce” and by the end it’s pretty goofy, but it’s also a fun read.

(If you’re interested in more of the plot, there’s a good review here!)

OK, the art suffers a little at the end under Lim’s direction, and the plot’s kinda hokey, but for about a week I picked up a graphic novel and really enjoyed myself.

Reading it some 14 years later when I’m a responsible adult, husband and father, instead of a gawky college sophomore, I’ve certainly noticed more flaws, but basically The Infinity Gauntlet is a collection of better than average comics with some nice art and I’m glad to see it in a graphic novel format.

What I Think is Funny (Outside of Cartoons…)

andertoons

A while back I’d posted a list of current comic strips that I enjoy and got a very nice response!

In addition to the comments listed with the entry, I received a number of lovely emails from creators and fans alike.

So, in that vein, I thought it might be fun to list some stuff that makes me laugh outside of the cartooning world. If nothing else it’ll give you an idea of where my sense of humor lies and a peek into my head.

OK here goes…

Funny CD –

Bob Newhart’s’ Something Like This… The Bob Newhart Anthology

I grew up hoarding and listening to my family’s comedy albums. Bill Cosby, George Carlin and the like.

Bob Newhart always seemed to me to be like a great comedy team in one person. At once hysterically funny and the perfect straight man.

This CD is brilliant stuff. Check it out!

Funny DVD –

The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 6

Play MSTie for me indeed! I love MST3K and this collection is currently sitting on top of my DVD player.

It includes probably one of the funniest movie shorts in MST3K history, “Mr. B Natural,” in which a tights-clad magical woman (yep, the “Mr.” is played by a female) appears to a young boy to show him how playing a Conn brand trumpet will make him cool. (Conform… Conform…)

I have every MST3K DVD made (much to my wife and my budget’s chagrin) and I don’t anticipate stopping. Buy it, won’t you?

Funny TV –

Scrubs

It took me a while to tune into Scrubs. I’m a busy guy and what little time I have to watch TV I usually reserve for Simpsons reruns and the occasional Everybody Loves Raymond. But I tell ya, Scrubs now not only joins the list, but heads it.

Sublimely smart, sweet and slapstick, Scrubs is the new NewsRadio as far as I’m concerned.

Funny Book –

Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond

This book had my stomach simultaneously hungry and hurting from laughing. Almond’s tour of candy factories and his own obsession with bygone sweets is the only book I’ve laughed out loud at in about two years.

(BTW, Almond is right on about the Kit Kat Dark too! To paraphrase Comic Book Guy – “Best Candy Bar Ever!”)

Funny Kids Book –

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems

I’m a stay-ay-home-dad as well as a cartoonist, so I spend an awful lot of time reading to my 16-month old, and this one is always a treat.

Drawn and lettered in crayon, Willems’ pigeon tries all manner of persuasion in his quest to drive the forbidden bus including trickery, pleading and just plain freaking out.

Even if you don’t have kids, check this one out the next time you’re at the library or the bookstore.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this and check out some of the stuff I think is funny. And even if you didn’t I’m sure my psychiatrist will find it enormously helpful later on.