chippyandloopus.com

There are times when it seems like the strip should be called “Chippy and Carl” or at least “Chippy, Loopus and Carl”. Carl has stepped forward and become that prevalent. In my ever growing stable of characters, Carl is the everyman, the “Bob Newhart”, the “Kermit”, in other words “the sane one”.   Carl made his debut in the strip March 26, 2006 in the midst of the first big story arc. Loopus needed someone to help him rescue Chippy, someone with a car. That turned out to be the phlegmatic, downtrodden Carl:

 For this appearance, Carl was hastily assembled from a handful of thoughts and suggestions floating around in my head.  Judy, Carl’s type A, over-bearing wife had already been introduced. Having known people like Judy, I also knew the kind of men they tend to marry; soft-spoken, easy going amiable guys. However, I also knew that women like Judy also marry brash wild men, and see them as projects, clay to be molded into their ideal husband. When I wrote this strip, I had  no more in mind for Carl then a wild hot rodder who had been tamed and domesticated. Then, I got to thinking; why was he a hot rodder? What if he were MORE then just a John Milner who had hung it up and “gone straight”?  I had just recently seen “The Transporter”, and was fascinated my Jason Stratham’s enigmatic yet capable wheel man. Thus, Carl became a former Mob wheel man, who gave it all up to become a loving Father and devoted and somewhat cowed Husband.  This introduction of a skilled driver to the story line allowed me to inject more life into an already lively storyline. Carl became a chain-smoking, hard driving outlaw, a cross between Burt Reynold’s Bandit and Han Solo in a Duck suit.  I was able to cut back and forth between Chippy fighting in the pit and Carl and Loopus evading Police on the road. I got to draw a chase scene! How cool is that?  Then, in the epilogue of the story, Carl did something both suprising and yet appropriate to his still developing character: he became the voice of reason. He attempted to show Chippy the error of his ways and impart a lesson.

 After the story, I pushed Carl into the background and tried to focus on Chippy and Loopus.

However, he keeps stepping forward. He’s become almost a 3rd main character.

Whenever I need a character to be the voice of reason, it’s Carl. Carl can say what the audience is thinking. Carl can also provide perspective that Loopus can’t (too Stupid) or that Chippy won’t (feelings? I got your feelings!)  Oddly enough, he’s the most complex, realistic character in the strip. He has a job (although like Ozzie Nelson or Ward Cleaver, we never see him there) he deals with real world problems like kids, marriage, yard maintenance and getting his cars smogged, . He grounds the strip in reality and gives me the ability to make the strip relatable, which is important in a strip which features a supernaturally strong rabbit and a supernaturally stupid dog creature. He’s the one character in the strip that could probably carry  the strip on his own.

Now, Carl is not me, but there is a part of me in him as there is a part of me in all the characters.

The hardest part about Carl’s development wasn’t in writing Carl, but in designing Carl. I had a hard time not making him look like Daffy. I always struggled with his beak. Shortly after my hiatus, I put a concerted effort into redesigning  him and as a result I enjoy drawing him now and am actually semi-satisfied with the way he looks.

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

Years ago, when I started this comic, I made a concious decision to NOT censor myself in any way. Whatever popped into my fevered, caffeine addled brain wound up on paper and thus online. I thought it was funny, and so did a bunch of other people.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is “Have you ever recieved an email from a reader that was offended by the language?” 

My answer? No. Never. Ever. Not emails.

My Dad, a remarkably intelligent man told me very early on :”Son, your use of language is gratuitous and unnecessary. You will get more readers if you cut the swearing.” I ignored him, just as I ignored him when he told me I should become a veteranarian.

A few years later, Doug Tennapel, creator of Earthworm Jim, Creature Tech, RatFist etc. said very much the same thing.  Incredibly, I also ignored him.

A few years later friend Chris Sanders (Lilo and Stitch, How to Train your Dragon) launched a brilliant little webcomic called “Kiskaloo”.  The strip was well written, but no dirty words. It was an instant hit.  A few weeks into it’s run, he did a strip where the characters discuss just how useless and stupid the hobbits are in “The Lord of The Rings”.  It was hilarious. He recieve a passionate and angry letter from a reader chiding him for the strip and seeking to correct his attitude towards hobbits. It was AWESOME. Chris giggled as he told me about the letter. I was immediatly jealous. You aren’t successful until you recieve crack-pot hate mail. I expressed this opinion, complaining “Why don’t I get letters like that? I say (expletive deleted) for crying out loud!” Chris explained that I probably scared away anyone who might complain a LONG time ago. I went on my happily content that I had cultivated a very erudite group of readers, a group that could handle a few dirty words!!!

A while later, while listening to an episode of  the Tall Tale Radio podcast,  I heard Brock Heasley of the webcomic SuperFogeys (awesome) say that although he thought my strip was well drawn, he couldn’t read it because he didn’t like seeing “those words”.

Now, that should have been the red flag that finally caught my attention. Yes, that is red flag number 4, but as dense as I am, I usually get it on the fourth try.

Nope.  Many of you out there think that I’m Chippy, some think that I’m Carl. In reality, I’m Loopus. I am truly that thick.

Recently, I took a look at my numbers on Google Analytics and was distressed to see that my readership had plateaued. I was playing to the same number of readers as I was in 2008. That…friends and readers, is BAD.

I had the sinking feeling that something was wrong. Maybe the strip isn’t funny, I thought. No…EVERYbody laughs when they read it. It’s funny.

I took a look at the info on Analytics. The most popular episodes were…the ones without the swearing. Oh. I finally got it.

Just in case, I put the quesion to my Twitter pals and my Facebook friends. Many other webcartoonists came forward and said that although they personally enjoy my strip, they could not recommend it to their readers because of the swearing. Most of these folks have readers of all ages.

They could not in good conscience recommend my strip to their readers. Wow.

I took a long look at what I was doing and asked myself “Just how important is this in the grand scheme of what I’m doing?”

I decided I’d write a strip the way I normally would. I’d let Chippy say whatever he wanted. However, when it came time for the final dialogue, I inserted symbols in place of the f-bombs. The effect was instant. I felt…free. The strip was funny…with out the f-bomb.

After I cut the swearing, I took a look at the other “adult” stuff I was doing and wondered just how important it was to the strip. I now measure everything in this way, “Is it important enough to the characters to keep? How many people am I scaring off with this?”

The strip is still the strip, Chippy is still Chippy. His mouth is as foul as ever, but you won’t see it, as there is now a censor who will block out all his expletives with goofy symbols. Trust me, you won’t be missing anything.

Soon, I’ll be putting the archive in a protected area of the site, so that when you go to read the archives, you are warned that you are about to see an uncensored version of the strip and that you should proceed with caution.

For all of you who’ve been with me since the biginning, I hope you stick around. We’re gong to keep having fun.

We just be doing so without the f-bomb. Tell your friends. Show the strip to your 13 year old niece or nephew. They might like it!

And..there won’t be anything in it they shouldn’t see!

More writing process stuff next Friday!

 Thanks for listening!

  John