TAGS September 09, 1994

Sunday, 09/09: Storm the Castle.

a.k.a. TAGS Full page #9

Black and white: black India ink on paper as originally published.

The beach. Such a summer-time destination. 

With the objectivity of time, I’d say that this strip succeeds if only by having a beginning, a middle and an end, carried by dynamic changes in panel compositions of close-ups and wide shots. 

As this is the first time that TAGS goes to the beach, it doesn’t call back to any previous strip, nor, in fact, does it foreshadow anything to come. But then I usually used the Sunday editions to tell mini stories out side of what the daily strips were doing.

Panel 1: In the opening title gag, Checkov (dragon) is prominent as the featured player of the strip. Monster (monster) is the foil for Checkov’s shenanigans, buried in the sand mound below Checkov. 

The surf board has two stickers. One is inspired by the logo for Body Glove, maker of wet suits and swim wear. The other is a stylized hurricane symbol in a triangle.

The life guard tower/ station is made up and not well researched. At the time, there were no internet images searches and I had perhaps one memory of a beach trip taken when I was about 4 on the east coast.

Panels 2-5: Monster builds a sand castle from tight close-up shots to wider shots.

Panel 6: Pull back to show Monster’s elaborate castle with outlier village, if there was any doubt of what he was building.

Hold on. What’s that forbidding shadow? Okay, if this is a west coast beach and that’s the Pacific Ocean in the distance, then according to the shadows the sun is in the North-East sky? I really just wanted the shadow to be cast from the right side as a matter of left-right narrative flow.

Panels 7-10: Checkov smashes the castle Kaiju (Godzilla) style. Panel 9 as a wide slanted rectangle (parallelogram) that cuts left across previous panel 8, the direction of Monster’s flight. While on the right end, the top corner literally points to the owner of the foreground hand, Checkov, triumphant in panel 10.

Panel 11: Checkov then goes on to bother sun bathing Brenda (mongoose) and Shirley (seal). Cue dramatic musical strike. Brenda and Shirley were chosen based upon the researched criteria of “who haven’t I drawn in a while?” I don’t know if mongooses like the ocean.

Panels 12-14: Next bit o’ fun… “Mossmen from 50,000 Leagues II. Brides of the Moss Men.” Of course, Moss Men are of the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” archetype, and explains the seaweed draped over Checkov. Oh, how sloppy with two different spellings of “Moss Men” in the same title. “50,000 Leagues” refers to the Jules Verne novel, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” “Brides of” refers to most famously “The Bride of Frankenstein” the now cliché sequel title structure.

Chekov (11th appearance), Brenda (7), Shirley (4)

TAGS July 31, 1994

Sunday, 07/31: Fire the works.

a.k.a. TAGS Full page #8

Black and white: black India Ink on paper as originally published.

This full page strip was originally published in a July issue of monotony, the newsletter I created and ran for about a year to have some place (and schedule) for a comic strip. The subject of fireworks best correlates to Independence Day, however the Sunday date landed on the last day of July. 

Yes, the dates were a bit arbitrary. Usually the daily strips were in a series of six consecutive days. At least they were always paired for consecutive days, none landing on a Sunday. The full page editions fell on a Sunday, as they should, following a series of four or six dailies.

Panel 1: Such a poor execution. In Monster’s right hand is a small American flag. In his left, a book of matches, from which he has flicked and struck matches which flame up in mid air.

Panels 2-9: Having drawn this for black and white reproduction, the panels alternate rendering styles to emphasize the initial bursting of fireworks contrasted with moments of less intense colored blooms falling with trailing pops and crackles. The contrast also suggests the lag between seeing the explosion and hearing its thunderous clap. I probably should have written the quoted comments in bubbles.

Panels 10-13: Casting Monster as a demanding twerp was less my intention than for him to be in the Charlie Brown role. P.11 should be “But…”; p.12 Monster continues to stand alone with smoke wafting in; p.13 Monster says, “Gats.” 

This strip also features Tanya (otter, 4th appearance), Tom (griffin, 2), Suzie (deer, 4)

TAGS June 5, 1994

Sunday, 06/05: Jill’s not impressed.
Black and white: black India Ink on paper as originally published.

As I’ve probably said previously, I tended to use the expanded format of TAGS’ Sunday editions to explore storytelling with more pantomime and less dialogue. This is inspired by I don’t know what. It, I don’t think, was newspaper comic creator heroes, Charles’s Peanuts, Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace or Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes. If I were to site any thing it would be the few story board examples I was exposed to in books like The Art of Walt Disney(1) and The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation(2).

Here Jill (reindeer, 4th appearance) and Vern (horse, 4) spend time in the Impressionists gallery of a fine art museum, and I go for the obvious joke of having Jill do impressions of the other gallery guests to keep herself occupied.

I would some times muse that I should just have made hoofed characters like Vern and Jill wear gloves a la Porky Pig. It would have and still would make little things like gestures easier to draw and be communicative.

In panel 1, I hope that even in this black and white rendition the painting is easily identifiable as a TAGS version of Georges Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island La Grande Jatte”.

All of the ancillary characters were inspired by the crittatures that were featured in my defunct BackStage and Stagelights comics, the lunch period doodles I wrote and drew when I worked for Disneyland Restaurants.

(1) Finch, Christopher. Lasseter, John. The Art of Walt Disney: From Mickey Mouse to The Magic Kingdoms and Beyond. Harry N. Abrams, new edition 2011 hard cover ISBN: 9780810998148. Cover price $85.00

(2) Thomas, Frank. Johnston, Ollie. The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. Hyperion Books, 1995 hard cover ISBN: 9789990080506. Cover price $60.00. 2000 soft cover ISBN: 9780786885060. Cover price $29.95.

TAGS, May 13, 1994

- Truth and Condiments -

India Ink on paper.

With a restaurant that operates sixteen plus hours a day including prep and closing and with a staff of close to a hundred crew members working overlapping shifts each of 4 to 8 hours long, the resulting combination of folks taking their breaks at the same time are at once random and limited. The break room setting became the most common device for mixing up the characters, exploring how the they might interact, especially when not dealing with the core “go to” characters.

In one such break room scenario, Monster sat with his imagined rival Even (Welsh Corgi, 5th appearance) with a discussion spurred by the appearance of Monster’s crush, Polly (penguin, 20). The subtext involved Evan, without realizing it, was the catalyst for Monster’s expressed insecurities. The failings of my Tags production schedule meant that there was only one strip prior to set up the Monster/Evan dynamic.

“The Apple Tree” dance was totally a high-school convention that had no counterpart in the operation of a major theme park or much less a restaurant operating within a theme park (which was where Tags was set).

There were a few strips where Monster was the quiet observer. Unfortunately, there’s no room in a daily strip series for a quiet observer unless he’s effectually a bit of property/ set dressing. If there’s one thing I like about this strip then it’s the opportunity to show Monster’s inner Charlie Brown.


Panel 1 (L-R as board pieces): Shirley (seal, 3), Suzie (deer, 3), Polly, Fern (kangaroo, 4), Bingo (snake, 3), Monster, Evan, Guy (dalmatian, 3). At the top is Monster in a Naval Commander’s uniform. The Submarine is of course designed after the Battleship game piece.

TAGS, February 06, 1994 - color

Digital composite of India ink and watercolor, 

with digital color of the logo.

[link: Black and white version] as originally published.

As I retroactively color these full-page strips, the order has been hap-hazard. That’s just facts, and not so much an apology. I suppose I apologize for taking seventeen years to get around to coloring them at all.

TAGS January 16, 1994

Digital composite of India ink and watercolor, with digital color of the logo.

[link: black and white version as originally published]

I think I’m getting close to a process for digitally combining separate scans of the ink and the watercolor which is over an ink-jet print out of the scanned ink.

I initially tried making each of the first seven panels seven different monochromatic schemes, but adding Monster’s blue threw that whole thing off.

TAGS April 24, 1994

Black and white as originally published. 

India Ink on paper.

Digital composite of India ink and watercolor, with digital color of the logo.

Checkov (dragon, 9th appearance) and Connie (cardinal, 3) in an April appropriate situation.

It now occurs to me that it’s remarkable that the strip works without really answering the questions of “where” and “when.” On second thought, just by remarking about it doesn’t make it remarkable, and on third thought answering such questions is just my hang up and in the lacking of them the strip isn’t at all hurt. Here you go any ways: 1) they are strolling in one of the “backstage” areas of Happiland theme park, where customer/guests’ eyes are not permitted; 2) I like to think that they are on their way home having been released early on such a slow, cloudy day.

Panel 1: The bubble in his hat is a nod to scene from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” with Dopey in the washing Grumpy for supper sequence. The underwater aspect also reminds me of Jiminy Cricket in “Pinocchio” when he was looking for Monstro the whale, especially with Checkov holding an umbrella.

As I continue to color these full page “Sunday edition” strips, many years after they were first drawn, I inch closer to an as-of-yet elusive satisfactory process. The down side for “monotonae” readers, I suppose, is that it throws off any imagined TAGS posting schedule. Case in point, I just painted this one this evening, while the last TAGS posting was three months ago. I apologize for that.

TAGS, January 01, 1994

“Ski Trip”

Digital color over clean scan of ink on paper.

I created this piece of art for one of the covers of “monotony.” I’m very certain that I colored it with water colors and of which a black and white copy was reproduced for that cover. As of this writing, I could not find that original water color. Here in its stead is my digital color pass of it.  Being digital, I could then make the accompanying legend is quick order.

Guy’s “87” jersey refers to the first year I worked a summer at Disneyland.  The paper lunch sack supposedly contained charcoal briquets for the snow-critters, which is an odd and otherwise unexplained detail to include.

At one point I was very concerned about which characters would wear boots. Biologically, I don’t think I got all of that detail correct. Also, I now wonder if  Bingo and Bill would really enjoy the winter fun?

TAGS March 12, 1994

Black and white India ink on paper as originally published.


Composite of India ink and watercolor and digital retouching of logo.

Sunday, 03/12: Take the hit.


To get it out of the way, I consider myself a lazy colorist. I try to get away with flat, non-graduated coloring as often as I can. Also, in coloring my own comic work, I’ve worked on the images at least twice before with the penciling and inking stages, so a bit bored with it, I rush through the coloring part. Still, you can’t underestimate the impact and transformative effect color has on the art.

Conceptually, I like the first panel of Al (beagle, 3rd appearance) in a boxing ring as a metaphor for the dating process. The humor of it with his opponent being a girl pops a lot better with the addition of color obviously.

The strip has to basic themes: 1) rejection sucks; and 2) Al plus Michelle (weasel, 2) would make for an odd couple. Maybe the humor could have been sharper or had more punch if I had stuck with just one idea.

The girls in the panels of the top half: Fern (kangaroo, 2), Jill (reindeer, 3), Suzie (deer, 2), Emily (tiger, 2), Shirley (seal, 2), Polly (penguin, 18), Rudy (pig, 2), and Tanya (otter, 2).

Then, in couple of break room exchanges, Bill (turtle, 3) and Hans (fox, 2) offer varied insights. And Michelle entertains a crowd including Wolf (weasel, 3), Sara (panther, 2), and Vern (horse, 3).

Use of Al here, as a final comment, was more a choice of not using Monster, because at the time, Monster would have been defeated after one rejection and have gone alone. Well, actually, Monster wouldn’t go to a Powerhouse concert, a rock band modeled after Van Halen. Powerhouse is named after a musical selection used by Carl Stalling in a couple of Bugs Bunny cartoons written by Raymond Scott.

TAGS December 26, 1993

Digital composite of India ink line and water color.
B&W version originally posted October 2009.

That Hue You Do
Partly out of necessity, partly out of lack of time (or laziness), but mostly out of simple procrastination, most of the “full page” a.k.a. Sunday editions of TAGS were left as black and white inked line drawings.

Now that they have some thing of a second life here on monotonae, it just doesn't seem right to leave them unfinished.

My original process was to watercolor black and white xerographic copies. Invariably, the 20lb. copier paper wrinkles and warps. This go around, I’ve tone back the black to a 10% gray and ink jetted it on 110lb. card stock. It’s hardly a perfect system, however. For one thing, gray, of course with an ink jet, is an illusion created by little specs of black on white, and appear as such when you scan it at 300 dpi or higher. Second, the printing process, the watercolor painting and the scanning all introduce a bit of warping to the image. It’s nothing that a little Cut & Paste Photoshoppery can’t fix to match the clean line art.

Same Old Things

This is the 201st post on the blog called monotonae.

For the 200th post, a nice round number, I was digging through my files for some thing special, but instead colored up a sketchbook drawing of Eagle One and his Eaglets.

Here’s something special for the first post of the next 100 - if I stretch the definition of the word “special.”

monotony
Before there was monotonae, there was a printed newsletter called monotony.

If memory serves, some time in 1993 I decided to quit working in a Disneyland themed restaurant, to get serious about finishing my art studies and embarking a career in the field. Wanting to challenge myself with maintaining and regular newspaper style comic strip (TAGS), I compounded the pressure with the creation of monotony as the monthly outlet for that work, if only for a year. The newsletter format, in turn, was also a major impetus for the addition of the Sunday edition full page format to TAGS.

Production was crude compared to the home office setups that are common today. Most of the layouts and text blocking was done in a program called Pagemaker. With no access to a scanner, all illustration was subsequently added either directly on the master pages (or boards) or as photocopies pasted on the board. Then the boards were copied in the wee hours (to get that after midnight discount) at the local Kinko’s shop.

Initially, copies were sent to about a half dozen friends of my Disney days.

Here are scans of the six pages of the first issue, with the mailing addresses redacted.










And monotony came with two inserts:

1) A subscription order card.


2) A survey form.

This Makes Me Stranger Than You
Even as I was in the middle of doing monotony I had the sense that it was a huge expression of “hey, look at me!” In essence, it was a web-log (a.k.a. blog) without the web. Except for family updates people send out with Christmas greetings, no one else does this sort of thing. Perhaps giving the publication a bit of parody aspect helped to relieve some of that egotistical part.

The core of it, or course, was getting TAGS out there in some form, and after a year, maybe I’d have a good sample package to seek out syndication.

The Runty story is the type of satirical prose I would write in one sitting to fill up a page.

St. Nick and Monster
Here, for the first time published in color is the cover illustration.

water color on heavy cold press paper.
1993

Eh. It’s no Rockwell, that’s for certain. Look at Santa’s huge mitts compared to his face.

TAGS, February 06, 1994

Sunday, February 06: Valen-time! Besides this being one of my friend, Dave’s favorite TAGS strips, there are one or two things that work about this one.

As I had previously commented, the larger format of the “Sunday” full page comics, drawn about 8 inch x 10.5 inch, offered more panels and relatively larger panels from the dailies. The dailies were drawn two at a time, about 8 inches wide, in the top half of a letter size sheet of copier paper. Here, perhaps better than ever before, is depicted a believable “back of house” kitchen environment. See the stainless steel counters and appliances. Note the stacks of plates and glass coffee urns. Observe the ceiling mounted bug zapper in panel two.

Less clear in the last four panels, are the front, serving area of the restaurant with ceramic tiles on the back wall, back counter and the front counter that Polly (penguin, 17th appearance) is cleaning.

In the first panel, Monster approaches a fallen box of broken heart shaped treats with a dustpan in one hand and a junior sized sweep in the other.

Murray (cheetah, 9) and Edie (squirrel, 7) make a connection here, but the thing I find remarkable is that three out of the four characters’ names are used in the strip. Edie is standing on a box in order to reach over the sink edge. But back to the exchange between Murray and Edie, it was written for them to make it a date easily, and from Monster’s point of view, it is unbelievably and unfathomably easy. I can’t say that it’s realistic, but it’s necessary for…

… Monster to formulate a thought, with the electrical circuit being a bit more complicated than it needs be. Then, without fail, he proves that he doesn’t really get it.

Although, not necessarily a milestone moment, I believe the drawings show a level of comfort that just about marks this as the definitive TAGS style.

Also of note, “Googleplex” is an intentional a misspelling of “googolplex” which colloquially is a very large number. Mathematically it’s defined as 10 to the googol power, where a googol is ten to the 100th power. This strip was written four years before the company known for its Internet search engine was founded.

15 years prior to the release of the Disney animated feature, “The Princess and the Frog” is introduced the idea that movie “The Frog Prince” recently premiered in the world of TAGS.

TAGS January 16, 1994

01/16: New year, new format.

January 16: Monster is already tired of the new year and Checkov (dragon, fifth appearance*) is amused by it, at least for the fifteen minute break.

If you're going to practice making a daily comic strip, then you MUST do an expanded Sunday edition. There was no question about it for me at the time. The unrestricted layouts that I would use for the Sunday editions, were inspired by the work of Bill Watterson on his strip "Calvin and Hobbes" which was inspired by the likes of Hal Foster's "Prince Valiant" and Windsor McKay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland."

These Sunday editions were drawn at actual size on letter typing paper. The comparative larger format meant more drawing and less words. It's funny how that works.

So, what cookies are in this first Sunday edition?

Panel 1: "24601" is the prison number of Jean Valjean from Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables." The trash bin says "High Ho" based on the Dwarfs' song "Heigh-Ho" for Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

Panel 4 (in the center): on of the few time a managerial "Suit" is depicted in TAGS. The bucket Monster is holding is/was full of hot gravy.

Panel 6 (to the right): Monster drives the family station wagon. Also note the geographic icon: the Palm tree.

Panel 7: (L-R) Mr. Flops (puppy, not an official TAGS character), Murray (Cheetah, 6), Barron (9, stuffed bear), unnamed platypus, unnamed Muppet (based on a crittature of co-worker Troy), Vern (horse, 2), Matt (originally created as a mascot for an animation club), Monster (monster).

I can't remember what's up with having Monster rubbing his ear.


* Only Checkov's fifth appearance? Really? I'd have thought more.

TAGS December 26, 1993

12/26: Secret Santa strategies.

FP#01 - This is the first full page, Sunday strip format of TAGS. The date in 1993 falls on a Sunday. It's "holiday-time" at the little restaurant in Happiland Park, and the hosts and hostesses (workers) are having a secret Santa gift exchange.

Bingo the snake (first appearance) as a visually interesting character owes everything to the Disney predecessors, Kaa from "The Jungle Book" and Sir Hiss from "Robin Hood." He's easy-going and should have been more of a prankster than he would be later depicted.

Evan, a Welsh Corgi dog, makes his fourth appearance at the end. Monster obviously sees Evan as a rival, yet Evan certainly hasn't had enough strip appearances to support that conclusion.

Tanya (otter) is mentioned here, but has yet to make an appearance. The hostess in silhouette speaking with Bingo in panel 6, is probably Wensdae (weasel), and if so, then this marks her fifth appearance.

As I had all the daily editions, this was originally printed in my self-published newsletter, "monotony." Because "monotony" was photocopied in black and white (because B&W copies are cheaper than color ones), I did not color the FP's. Well, originally I didn't color them. When I did, I would use watercolor paints over photocopies of the finished inked art. The process still seems/feels like a more authentic comic-making experience than digital colors, but it sure does wrinkle the pages.

Even without color, the FP's would offer many advantages over writing and drawing the four panel dailies: 1) flexibility in the size, shape and number of panels; 2) more storytelling and acting; 3) bigger characters. One of the most common comments I have received (or elicited) from people I've ask read my collection of TAGS, is that the FP's are better than the dailies. As I see them as a whole, I can't readily offer an opinion on the matter.

I often feel as Monster does in panel 10.

Lastly, if I had not previously made note of it, "Gats" is the "Good Grief" of TAGS. It is plainly an anagram, a jumbling of the letters of the comic strip's name, but it is also a sound-alike cousin of the exclamatory, "gadzooks." "Fieb" on the other hand, didn't catch on.