LOLDOGS?

Here’s a little something to make you laugh as we make our way towards the weekend, courtesy of Mr. Lapierre:

For those of you who are clueless to this particular Internet phenomenon, here’s an explanation. I love Wikipedia.

See you Sunday!

 

 

And Now A Very Special ‘Boxcar Astronaut’…

Anyone who knows their G.I. Joe comic book history knows that issue #21 was ten tons of pure fried awesome. It was also a major turning point in the series, transforming it from a run-of-the-mill military comic featuring single-issue stories to a dramatic, ongoing saga that explored the mysterious and intricate pasts of the characters, giving them depth that went far beyond the text on their toy packaging. Dubbed “The Silent Issue”, G.I. Joe #21 featured absolutely no dialogue or captions of any kind. The art, by series writer Larry Hama vividly told the story of silent bad-ass Snake Eyes’ attempt to rescue his true love Scarlett from the clutches of the evil ninja Storm Shadow in Destro’s mountain castle.

Now you may be wondering why I’m mentioning this seminal 80’s childhood tale. Well, the answer is simple; this week we have a “silent” Boxcar Astronaut comic! Actually, this is our second “silent” comic (see Boxcar Astronaut #40), but for some reason I wasn’t reminded of the G.I. Joe connection until I saw the finished product of this week’s strip at Marc’s pad the other night.  No words, no sound effects, just beautifully illustrated visuals that tell you all you need to know about the bonds of friendship and love shared by little boys and their pets.

I always enjoy coming up with strips that feature Ben bonding with Diogee, and this strip is no different. I’ve stated it here many times that my dog was my best friend during my formative years and there’s nothing that can replace the feeling of knowing that even if there are no other kids around to play with, you’re never truly alone.   It’s especially satisfying to me when I can come up with a great fourth panel gag as well. Marc really outdid himself on that final image; it’s hysterical and heartbreaking all at the same time. The “kid” caveman is pure genius (I originally had him in his current state in the flashback), that dinosaur is absolutely adorable, and it’s nicely topped off by that lump-in-the-throat-inducing “Iron Eyes Cody” moment from Caveman. All in all, a simple, touching, and funny strip. It’s one of my absolute favorites. Enjoy!

Okay, Now I’m Gonna Put These On You…

Before I get to my commentary on Boxcar Astronaut strip #45, I’d like to mention that voting is going on right now for the 8th annual Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards. As the rules state on the WCCA website,

“Anyone with an active webcomic is eligible to participate, whether you are a writer, illustrator, colorist, or the all-in-one cartoonist. Only one person per webcomic may vote, though, so if you’re part of a writer/artist team, you’ll have to fight it out with your partner first (no fights to the death, please — we’re a peace-loving event, honest!).”

Some of the major categories include “Outstanding Comic of 2007″, “Outstanding Newcomer of 2007″, “Outstanding Writer” and Outstanding Artist of 2007″. Marc and I are submitting our selections for the awards, and we’d be thrilled and honored if some of you webcomic creators cast your votes for Boxcar Astronaut. It would be especially gratifying to place high in the “Outstanding Newcomer” category. Thanks in advance for your support!

This week’s Boxcar Astronaut is a fun, one-shot gag before we head into our next multi-strip arc (which is going to be a lot of fun for Devin, Caveman, and Diogee fans). It’s obviously inspired by the scene from Star Wars where Luke comes up with the brilliant idea to try and put handcuffs on everyone’s favorite Wookiee, Chewbacca to get past the detention block guards. It was a solid plan, but poor Luke was so jazzed by his own cleverness that he forgot that he wasn’t as close to Chewie as Han was, and received the hilarious reaction we all know and love. Same thing pretty much applies here to Ben. He just wants to do the ol’ “Wookiee Prisoner” gag, and by this point feels pretty confident and safe around Caveman, but he quickly discovers that he isn’t that close to the big lug as of yet. Originally, I had a much more violent reaction planned. Caveman spinning Ben’s helmet around was always the main sight gag, but I also wanted to show bruises and some tattered clothing on both of the boys. Marc wisely suggessted we tone it down to just the helmet spin, and I think it still gets the point across effectively.

Artistically, I really like the bird’s eye perspective on Ben attempting to tie Cavie’s hands in the third panel. Marc had a hard time coming up with a suitable angle to really make the panel dynamic. He showed me a couple of the rejected concepts and in the end I think it really came out very well. Another huge treat in this strip is that you get to see what Ben’s hair looks like (or at least just a part of it). It’s dark and a bit shaggy in the back! I had always imagined Ben with a different, shorter hairstyle, but Marc pointed out that since he wears the helmet constantly, he wouldn’t really be making a whole lot of trips to the barber. Right as usual mon frere! I hope you all enjoyed that little glimpse “under the helmet”, because that may all you ever get! See you next week!

Frigid Fun!

“Freeze Tag” Haw! Ahhh..sometimes I just kill me. -Ahem- Anyway, this strip was one of those great, easy ideas that just popped right into my head simply by sitting down and thinking about games I used to play as a kid. There were many variations of tag, probably the oldest and best-known kiddie game there is next to “Hide-and-go-seek”, but the “freeze” variety was always my favorite. For those you who are unfamiliar with the concept of Freeze Tag, it was played more or less like regular ol’ Tag but there was only one person designated as “It”.  Instead of becoming “It” when you were tagged, you had to remain motionless until one of the other kids touched you and “melted” you. You could then roam around freely and run around like a maniac avoiding the frozen touch of the dreaded “It”.  In theory, the game would end when “It” froze all of the players, but anybody who ever played the game knows that was nigh-impossible.  

As soon as I thought of “freeze tag” the image of Ben frozen in a block of ice struck me immediately. I knew that was a game that Robot wouldn’t really understand and of course, take far too literally, as Robot is apt to do. It really makes for an amusing strip, because you have the one-two punch of trying to figure out how Ben got frozen in a block of ice, and the delight of seeing Diogee’s reactions to the whole situation. Marc did a really great job on Diogee in this comic. He looks adorable as always, and the execution of the classic “tongue on the ice” bit is absolutely hilarious. Kudos to Marc for also clearly illustrating that Ben is frozen in a block of ice here. According to him, it’s a very difficult effect to pull off with pencil and ink, and he did it perfectly. 

Hope you all enjoyed it ! See you next Sunday!

New Year, New Directions…

Hello everyone, welcome to first Boxcar Astronaut of 2008! It’s a brand new year, so we’ve got a new strip, and as you’ve noticed, a fresh new look to the web site. Marc’s given the site a spiffy new header, and if you go back and read the previous strips, he put a ton of work into formatting all the old pages to match the main page.

I am really proud of this week’s strip. This is a new direction for the comic, so Marc thought it would be best to slot this one in as our first of the New Year. It’s probably my second favorite out of all of them so far (the first being the now infamous and perhaps never-matched strip #6). The thing you’ll notice right off the bat is that it features more dialogue than any other strip that I’ve written. The tone of the comic is also vastly different as well. I’ve been struggling to come up with something that had a bit more depth and meaning; a strip that would tug on the ol’ heartstrings, and probe deeper into the characters’ psyches.

Ironically, it was Michael Bay’s wretched, emotionally empty filmic version of the Transformers that planted the seed in my head for this week’s comic. It occurred to me that a lot kids, like Ben and even myself, play with space toys and dream of going to far off worlds because there’s something that disconnects them from reality. Not every kid is good at sports, or excels in school, or can play an instrument, so in some sense children can start to feel alientated by these types of things, and start to feel like they don’t fit in with the world around them. Not to say that’s exactly what’s going here with Ben, but this strip shows that even kids can feel out of place and grow weary of the monotonity of everyday life, and The Transformers were a great way to convey that metaphor of wishing you could be anyone but yourself or that you could be anywhere but where you were. Robot nicely serves as the unsaracastic, honest outsider who truly sees Ben for what he is and sets him straight.

Of course, none of what I wrote on the page would be worth a lick if it didn’t have some great art to go along with it and Marc delivered the goods as usual. There’s not  a lot of action or dynamic movement here, so the expressions on Ben’s face had to carry the weight of the strip, and boy do they ever. Marc once again delivers stellar facial work with Ben, with panel four being my personal favorite. He’s so obviously pleased with himself, full of pomp and circumstance, strutting proudly with his new-found confidence. I also love that Marc changed his last line of dialogue into a floating child’s melody. Devin’s retort is also just terrific, and hey, that’s an AWESOME toy superhero he’s got there, wouldn’t you say? 

 Happy New Year gang!