After threatening to do it for 3 years, I’ve finally gone and started a second webcomic. This one didn’t happen the way I thought it would though.
My intention has always been to get Chippy and Loopus up to speed, updating 2 to 3 times a week regularly. Then, I would launch a new strip that would maybe be for a slightly different audience, an all ages strip perhaps. Then I looked at the combined workload of WORK work and the strip, and decided to shelve the idea.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I altered THIS strip so that it can be enjoyed by a larger audience (not sure if it’s quite ALL ages, but…well that’s a conversation for another time)and the effect was a creative rejuvination. I started thinking again about another strip, maybe a once a week thing. I started playing with ideas, thinking about characters and settings. Nothing quite gelled, but my brain was working, thinking about new comics.
Then, one night on the way home from a night out, Sara, my wife, started telling me the lastest episode in the drama that is life with her mother and sister. Sara is Korean, and there is a cultural element to these stories that makes them immediately fascinating. She’s got a million of ‘em. Funny, heartbreaking, frustrating, and at times touching.
It occurred to me that these stories might make the basis for a comic strip. We started talking about it and got excited. We went home and Sara immediately sat down and started writing. I sat down and started designing characters. One thing that she insisted on was that although these characters might be inspired by her family, they could not BE her family. I’d draw a few things, and she’d trash ‘em. She’d write a few things, and I’d make notes, edit, and basically ask for more. It was fun. To be honest, I never thought creating something with my wife would be so much fun. I’ve heard too many horror stories about couples who attempted to create things together that wound up just arguing. Then again, I can name dozens of couples who work wonderfully together; Nichols and May, The Bernsteins, Stuart and Kathryn Immonen etc. I shouldn’t have been suprised at all.
Once I had a cast that we both liked, I grabbed one of her scripts and started drawing.
I just kind of worked the new strip into the que of Chippy and Loopus strips that needed to be done. Now, from a drawing stand point, the strip is more challenging. The characters are new, and the drawing style is subtler and thus requires a bit more precision.
However, it seems like it’s half the work of Chippy and Loopus…because it is. With Chippy and Loopus, I write and draw everything. The script is either in my head or scribbled into a notebook or legal pad.
With K and J the script is done. Sara and I sit together as I thumbnail the strip on the couch. She makes comments and suggestions, then, once we are both happy with the rough, I draw it. It’s half the work because Sara is literally doing the other half.
Although my day job in animation is all about collaboration, I’ve always been leery of it in my personal work. Not anymore…well, not in this case at least.
If you haven’t checked it out already, go take a look. http://kandjcomic.com/
Thanks for reading!
-John
It sounds like a lotta work, but if you’re having fun making it, we’ll have fun reading it.
Interesting, will have to keep an eye on it. Definitely a good way to refine draftmanship overall if you’re going more for accurate linework on it.