1977 the Comic

Part 3. I liken these three comics to when the TV show “M*A*S*H’ would have an episode where Hawkeye or Radar would write letters home and the episode would catch viewers, old and new alike, up on the current storyline.  There’s been a lot of new traffic hitting the comic and I thought it a good time to recap, so to speak.  But… also to do it with a little flair!

Okay, there are several unanswered questions… and here they are in no particular order.

1. Bud is 50 as the first comic showed the date as February 5th, 2007.  But he states his daughter, and apparently only child, is 18.  Simple math means he was 32 when he had her.  So, what did he do for 12 years after 1977?  That’s a lot of story, and if the clock ever turns forward for the gang and we move into another year (1978 the Comic! Just kidding…) we’ll find out.  I don’t know myself, I’m making this up as I go… 🙂

2. The daughter has no name yet.  That will come later, as I do plan on returning to this time period at some point in the storyline this year.  Kinda like the movie “Princess Bride” where we break from the main story to return to the Grandfather and grandson chatting.  I loved that movie too… “Inconceivable!”

3. Bud’s wife has passed away.  We do know the wife is none of the current main women characters in the comic, but we will meet her in this year’s storyline, but I’m not gonna be obvious about it.  This is gonna set up something for the end of the year (I’ve thought this storyline out… a lot… )

4. None of the bandmates are Bud’s friends now, or at least have not been around for the daughter to have met.  This will change in this year’s storyline.  How far have Lorraine’s boobs sagged by now?

5. Bud has never discussed his adventures in 1977 before with his daughter.  Why is that?  Hmmm….

6. I finally worked in the line “Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll… Just Not In That Order” into the comic strip.  Maybe now the t-shirts will sell… hint… 🙂

I have to admit this was a lot of fun doing these three strips.  But this third strip gave me hell.  I re-wrote the damn thing a ton of times once I got it into the panels in Manga Studio (I place my dialog roughly, then sketch characters around it, but will adjust dialog size or position to get a good sketch to fit better).  The “look” and flow of the words was, to me, all wrong at first.  So I banged on it and banged on it until I got it to where it is now, and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.

BUT… my ONE weakness (kidding) in drawing, besides women’s eyes, is drawing hands holding a book or newspaper.  And THROUGHOUT all three of these strips, Bud is either holding a newspaper, a picture frame or the photo album and, man, I just CANNOT draw the hands in the proper position.  Even with samples in front of me, I just don’t get it right.  I normally can draw stuff if it’s in front of me, so I look around I-Stock Photo or Google for human poses for my characters, but this time to no avail as I suck at that style of hands.  Remind me to NEVER draw anyone holding a book or newspaper again… thank you.

Hang on to your butts, it’s gonna be a long ride this year, but the comedy and characters are not gonna change, just how I tell their story.  We’ll see if all this pre-planning pays off.

😀