All right… a lot of people missed the original joke! So here’s a version that does it with strikeout instead of a sticky note, along with the alternate crochet version.
I like them both for different reasons. Which t-shirt should I make? Tweet (samandfuzzy) or tumblr at me to help me decide!
EDIT: Results are in! (Mostly from twitter.) It looks like the strikeout/”help out” design is the winner. Crochet-version fans, I still hope you can find a place in your heart for the shirt. (I do like the crochet joke, too… but I bet I can find a place for it somewhere else. Maybe a tote bag?)
Here’s a bit of revision on the Ninja Mafia Coat of Arms to make it shirt-ready!
Many said (and I agree) that the sticky note joke might work against the slick & clean look you want a shirt design to have. The other issue is that I wouldn’t be able to do the shading on the note, which would maybe hurt the effect.
So, I’ve gone with a subtler joke. I think it works! What do you think? Tweet (samandfuzzy) me your thoughts.
How to pace comics
Book Club members voted for “Ninja Mafia Coat of Arms” as our next bonus desktop, so I have forged it into reality! It’ll be included in the next free bonus pack, which will email out on June 6th to anyone who has bought a copy of Sam and Fuzzy Are Very Famous.
This design would actually transition pretty readily into a t-shirt, with a couple minor tweaks. (I’d probably using a more subtle crossed-out/written-in “help out” instead of the yellow sticky note.) What do you guys think? Is that a thing any of you would want to buy?
Guys, theVancouver Comic Arts Festival is only a bit over a week away!
VanCAF is actually being organized by my wife, Shannon, who was sick and tired of hearing me and my comics friends grouse about how there wasn’t a TCAF-styled free-to-attend comics festival in Vancouver. Fortunately for us all, she really stepped up to the plate, securing a really neat venue and filling it with an awesome slew of cartoonist exhibitors and guests, including:
Questionable Content’s Jeph Jacques
Dr. McNinja’s Chris Hastings
Tanpopo’s Camilla d’Errico
A Softer World’s Joey Comeau and Emily Horne
Wondermark’s David Malki
Boxerhockey’s Tyson Hesse
The Simpson’s Comic’s Nina Matsumodo
Dalen and Gole’s Mike Deas
Top Shelf Comics
Cloudscape
Tiny Kitten Teeth’s Frank Gibson and Becky Dreistadt
Wasted Talent’s Angela Melick
Tangles’ Sarah Leavitt
The Village’s Ken Boesem
Weregeek’s Alina Pete
Murderbook’s Ed Brisson
Filibuster’s J.J. McCullough
Family Man/Bite Me’s Dylan Meconis
Three Word Phrase’s Ryan Pequin
…and a ton of other talented old hands and new creators. (Oh, uh, and me too!) Check out the full list right here.
VanCAF is a non-profit show, and we don’t have a huge marketing budget, but I think with our awesome guest list and word of mouth we can make this thing a big success… so anything you can help do to spread the word would be super appreciated, be it tweeting, reblogging, sharing, or just shouting a lot! And if you’re coming, RSVP on Facebook to let us know! This thing is going to be awesome.
Here’s a recent commission I just wrapped up… someone’s niece at a dinosaur petting zoo. This was a ton of fun to draw!
These are Cartoon Dinosaurs with a capital C… totally goofy looking dino cliches, with zero attempts at realism or accuracy. But you’ll probably notice some of the little guys still have some feathers. Minor cartoonist agenda there! I feel like at this point, we’ve known about feathered dinosaurs for so long that feathers should REALLY be trickling down into the basic cartoon dinosaur iconography, just like horns and backplates and all the other things you slap onto an imaginary cartoon creature thing to make it look “dinosaur-y”.
Finished this big Sam & Fuzzy Team Fortress 2 parody commission the day before flying out to TCAF! (It’s going to be a desktop in the next Book Club bonus pack, too, and maybe a print?)
Everyone and their dog has done a parody of the iconic team pose image, so I went with more of an action shot. The biggest bonus of that approach was I could actually have the characters interacting with one another, giving me extra room to play off their in-comic personalities or histories. (Plus, Mr. Sin and Fridge teaming up? What a terrifying thought!)
When I first started doing my twitter Sketch-Offs, I had a nagging worry that offering drawings at a lower price — even fast, forcibly-limited-in-scope drawings — might accidently undervalue my work or hurt my regular commission business. So far the exact opposite has been true… each Sketch-Off has been immediately followed by a surge of big, full-priced commissions like this one. (Often from the same people who purchased Sketch-Off drawings in the first place.) I guess it helps to remind people what you can do!
Tiny Chewie, drawn and stuck to Shannon’s monitor to cheer her up when she was bogged down with work.
Tiny Chewie says, “Awoooohhooowwww”*
*hello
“This is not a situation where we have taken things from Alan. He signed an agreement and he said, ‘I didn’t read the contract.’ ” -Jim Lee
Man, does that quote ever sum up the whole Before Watchmen situation… although probably not for the reason Jim Lee thinks it does.
Years ago, Alan Moore signed a contract he didn’t understand. He thought it guaranteed the rights to Watchmen would eventually be returned to its creators, when in fact it did exactly the opposite of that. It’s a tremendous cautionary tale for independent artists. Be careful what you sign. Hire a lawyer. Always.
Moore has no power, or even right, to stop others from making Watchmen prequels and sequels. He signed that away. All he can do is ask them not to — essentially as a favour — out of respect for him, his work and his wishes, despite his mistake. What surprises me is how many other creators have responded to that request, publicly, essentially by saying “tough luck, Alan, learn to read.” (Especially when many of these creators are themselves no strangers to getting screwed over by bad contracts early in their careers.)
I am a big fan of several of the Before Watchmen creators, and I look forward to seeing them work on other projects in the future. And man, I am sure they will almost certainly be giving Before Watchmen their highest possible efforts, as they work as hard as they can to create something worthy of the original and prove the detractors wrong. But boy, do I have trouble trying to understand why they’re doing it at all. At best, it feels like a colossally misguided waste of incredible talent; and at worst, like in the quote above, it kind of feels a bit like gloating.
Here’s a massive montage of all 31 26 (addition is hard) of the “Sam & Fuzzy as _____” sketches I did based on the suggestions of twitter followers earlier this month.
Can you figure out what characters S&F and company are dressed up as in each picture? Some of them are easy, but some of them are a bit obscure! (The tags for this post do spoil a couple of them.)
As usual, I only managed to draw a tiny fraction of the suggestions people came up with. But it was a lot of fun. And the originals all sold… thanks, guys!
You can view a higher resolution version of the image over on my deviantart page.
