April 2009

Joe & Will

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

I tend to think of Joe and Will as exact opposites. The more I write of their characters, the more their differences come out. Joe is naive, while Will is experienced. Joe is lousy with a gun, while Will is an expert marksmen. Joe loves saying silly things, while Will would prefer not to speak. Joe is unsure of himself, while Will is very purposeful and driven. Joe is more concerned about the innocent, while Will tends to be a "collateral damage" kind of guy.

It's taken me a while to figure this out. And while it's become much clearer in my head, I'm not so sure it has become clearer on the page. It's challenging to consistently show their differences through their actions and their dialogue. I expect it will become easier as the strip progresses, but I hope that some of their differences have already been communicated to you in what you've read so far.

And then there's Bob... where does he fit in? I'm not so sure. Maybe that's why I've always got Joe and Will facing off while Bob is off doing his own weird thing - like worrying about peanut butter.

~Jeff

Fight Crudeness - Get a Wife!

Monday, April 20, 2009

There have been several times when I've thought of a joke for a comic strip which I thought was pretty stinkin hilarious, but it was kind of gross. Since my wife is my biggest ally in gauging how funny my jokes really are, I'll go to her to find out her opinion. When I ask my wife what she thinks about a crude joke of mine, her response is usually: "Don't use that."

At first I tend to be annoyed, but then I consider the fact that she probably does a good job of representing the response of the rest of my female readers... readers who I'd rather not alienate or gross out.

So then I think, "Surely there's another joke I can use here." And I can usually come up with one. There are plenty of good ideas to be had. Sometimes it just takes longer to find the right one.

So, in the future, if you read a crude Smiley Face Commandos comic strip, it's probably that way because I didn't consult my wife first.

~Jeff

Joe's Expressive Eyes

Friday, April 17, 2009

The more I draw these guys, the more comfortable I become with them. I like to think I'm getting better at drawing the commandos, and hopefully at some point I'll establish some consistency.

I've recently blogged about the challenge of expressing emotion with the Smiley Face Commandos. Fortunately, I'm starting to get pretty good with Joe. His eyes are so huge that I have a lot of potential for creating expressions with them. I'm starting to get really good with the worried look and I've done pretty well with the annoyed expression.

But what if I have to express sadness? Don't know. I guess I'll have to figure that out when the time comes.

~Jeff

Cartoon Authenticity

Monday, April 6, 2009

In the 1981 movie Condorman, the main character is a cartoonist who writes and draws comic books. Early in the film, his character states that if something can't be done in real life, then he won't put it in his comic books. This is his motivation for jumping off of the Eiffel Tower in the Condorman suit - a special winged flying contraption.

I thought about using the same line of thinking for my personal life as compared to the commandos. What if the commandos abilities and characteristics were limited by my characteristics and what I can do in real life?

The commandos know how to use weapons... sorry, no dice there. I fired a gun a couple times at a firing range, but that's it.

The commandos are really muscular... still no luck - compared to the commandos, I'm just a bag of bones.

The commandos have abnormally shaped heads... we have a winner! Atleast according to my wife. Whenever I shave the hair on my head really short, she says my head has a weird shape and it would be better if I didn't show it off so prominently.

So the commandos and I do have something in common.

~Jeff

Expressing Emotion with a Smiley Face

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

When I first created the Smiley Face Commandos and for a long time thereafter, I always imagined them as looking perpetually happy. I thought the idea of characters whose faces were essentially stuck in a smiley expression could create for some really fun moments. For example: Bob's mother is dying, and he is hunched over her old, decaying body and crying, but he looks happy.

But is that actually funny? Sure, it creates for some humorous moments now and then, but as a character devise or a plot device, there's only so much I can do with it. So, after a while, my dilemma became: Now what? How can I express some real emotion on these guys' faces without compromising the smiley faces which they are? Do they always have to be smiling? I needed some new rules to follow.

So I decided that yes, they do always have to be smiling, but no, the rest of their faces do not have to reflect that. This leaves me a lot of room to play with. Namely - the eyes. As long as I preserve some kind of smile, the rest of the face is fair game. I imagine that the actual bone structure of their faces is such that they can't help but smile, so I need to convey any other emotion besides happiness through the eyes.

I've come to discover that this isn't too difficult with the character of Joe. Lately I've been trying to give him a lot of different expressions. His huge eyeballs are pretty easy to work with. But Bob and Will? These guys are really tough. I haven't quite figured that out yet. But you're likely to be seeing more eyebrows in the near future.

~Jeff

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