chippyandloopus.com

My favortite part of ANY piece of entertainment be it comic book, comic strip, movie, tv show or whatever is ALWAYS the characters. Great characters = great entertainment.  In my job as a story artist in the animation biz, I always approach everything from the top down, Character first, what is the character feeling, what is their point of view? How is the action affecting them? Are they driving the action?

  Now, one of the thing that never ceases to fascinate me is the many ways in which characters are created. My favorite character of all time, Popeye, began as a walk on in “Thimble Theater”, a comic strip that had been running for TEN years when he made his debut. The soon-to-be sidelined main characters, Ham Gravy and Castor Oil (Olive’s brother) needed someone to sail the boat they just purchased for an adventure to Dice Island.  Popeye was their guy.  He wasn;t the super strong, spinach eater we all know and love, but he already had a quirky manner of speech and world view. The tendency to punch anyone who crossed him came pretty soon after. It is said that Popeye was based on a man that creator Elzie Segar knew in his youth, a man named Rocky Fleagle. Rocky was a local legend in Segar’s hometown of  Chester, Illinois, known for his odd manner of speech and his reputation for having never lost a fight.  Johnny Hart of BC also modeled his characters on his co-workers and freinds. This is creative writing 101, if you want to create interesting characters, look no further than real life and the people you know.

 An example of this in my own work is recent reader favorite, Khan K. Lawn, the fez wearing Frog with dubious intentions. Those of you who’ve read this strip from the very beginning remember Khan’s debut waaaaay back in 2006. For  you newer readers, here is that strip with swearing censored:

  Okay.  There he is, more or less. He isn’t swearing creatively because at that time, I just let the characters swear the way real people do.  Now, the situation is Chippy has been coerced into fighting in a secret underground tournament by the Snake guy (I can’t remember his name) who is the head of the local mafia. Chippy is beating the tar out of everyone. For the next beat in the story, I needed a manager of one of the other fighters that could express outrage over this little rabbit destroying his fighters. I wanted the guy to be funny, so I thought for a moment,…and my friend Khan Kaaylon popped into my head.

 Khan Kaaylon, aka the Turkish Tornado is a wickedly talented animation story artist of over 20 years. He’s worked on many of your favorite animated films, from Disney’s Pocahontas, Hercules and Treasure Planet to Sony’s Surf’s Up and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Beyond that, Khan is one of my all time favorite characters. He’s fascinating. He lives the LA lifestyle like one of those guys from “Swingers”. He dates a different girl every night of the week. He drives a black Porsche 911. His idea of a joke is to throw twizzlers at your head. He’s loud, he’s abrasive. His favorite greeting is “How are you you F#%k?”.  I remember bumping into Khan in the breakroom at Sony on my first day. I’d just left Disney after 11 years. Khan’s greeting to me? “Hey Muddah F#$&er, so, you finally left that sh#$hole eh?” We then sat and had a wonderful chat. I love Khan. Everyone I know loves Khan. So, when it came time to introduce a funny fight manager, I could think of no one better to play the part.

 5 years later, I decided I wanted to do another fight story and would thus need a fight manager again. Of course, Khan had to be a part of it. The immediate problem was what to do about Khan’s rather salty language. Then I remembered the movie “Johnny Dangerously” and the mob boss that swore in malapropisms. “You fargin bastich” and “you ice holes” and the like. I managed to come up with one : You somanabush. Then I sat down with Sara and came up with about a dozen of them. It was fun!!!

 This Khan is a devious con man, a manipulator motivated by greed. The real Khan is actually a warm, generous soul that loves people and is passionate about his work.  What they share is their outward bravado and their fondness for crazy swearwords.

Next: Carl: the patron saint of the oppressed Male.