Every one that’s had kids still has a few songs laser printed into their brain. I’m thankful we missed the Baby Shark craze.
Funny Dog Comics: The Wheels on the Bus
Funny Dog Comics: Why Dogs Eat Grass
Probably one of my favorite comics I’ve drawn. I say drawn because I didn’t write it. Sophie did. This one started with dooles of her rolling around in the grass, which obviously most dogs love. Then I let Sophie take over and wrote down everything she was thinking.
That’s the fun magical bit about writing. You know you’re getting somewhere when you feel like you’re watching a movie and transcribing what you see and hear. Of course , it doesn’t solve the mystery as to why dogs eat grass.
Funny Jokes: Dog eat Doug Comics
Needless to say we had some storms over the weekend it looked like a herd of deer had stampeded through the house. This comic hit home. I also love when you’re mopping and you rdog follows behind making new tracks and wondering what in the heck you are doing.
Funny Dog Comics: All the Money in the World
Nothing better than lounging in the yard with the dogs in the shade.
Funny Dog Comics: Baby Talk Corporate Meeting
I alway s love when Doug addresses his stuffed animals. Playing around with an idea for a chapter in the upcoming graphic novels to take this to another level.
In case you wondering what the difference will be between the comic strip and the upcoming graphic novels, think of it as an old school TV show versus a Marvel Movie. Not that I don’t like the comic strip, far from it. It’s just that the old newpaper format to limiting. The comic strip is a spring board for the graphic novels.
For example, take the foster dog strips. I loved writing them because they were funny and sad. With four panels you had to get to the point and strip away anything that was filler. Now, that’s not to say expanding into a graphic novel means you’re going to stuff the pages with superfulous gags and such. Far from it. I’m taking the streamlied essence of the strips, the heart of the story if you will, and exploring in a much larger world.
One of the themes of the foster dog strips is that every dog has a purpouse. I expanded on that theme in book one with an epic space adventure where the cats help the foster dog find a home by blasting him into space. All because Sophie didn’t specify which planet to find the home on. So I get to use the same theme excpet now, the foster dog gets to go on a longer journey to find that purpose. And I get to draw space ships and a cosmic muffin (wait and you’ll see).
Funny Cat Comics: Feline Yoga
Cats with clipboards always make me laugh. I also love looking at the world through my cats eyes. Now, if I’m being honest, I’m making all this up because I genuinely don’t want to know what my cats are thinking.
Funny Dog Comics: Out of Control Dogs
Does your dog get the spins? We’ve never really had a tail chaser, but we have tons of zoomers. Our Weezy gets them every day around 5:15. And she wants everyone to join in, even the cats, who, as you can imagine, are not having it.
Funny Dog Comics: Dog eat Doug meets Pan's Labyrinth
My Gunnar is a complete coward. Doesnt like going out at night and only goes if Weezy goes with him. I’m pretty sure this is what’s playing in his mind when he’s standing in the door way.
Channeling Lydia Deetz
This is an older cartoon, one of the first that made it out of my notebook for Primordial Syrup. As usual I’d love to redraw it, make it darker and have a much more detailed, grotesque creature perched on her head. Still, I love the mode of this one and the unanswered question of what exactly it is protecting her from.
Quick update for those wondering if these posts are only going to be single panel cartoons. Soon there will be much, much more. Book one of “The Conjurers” launches next July. That means I will be donning my marketers hat. It’s always been a small hat as I don’t have much room on my head for many more hats.
However, this time, I’m putting a lot more effort into that side of the creative business. Now that doesn’t mean I will be drudging on with endless promotions of “buy my book”. The good news it means I’ll be working on all the other fun stuff that comes along with the Conjurers series. For starters, the webcomic companion will be starting back up this Halloween.
For those not familiar, the webcomic was an experiment I undertook while writing the novels. It was only once a week and I allotted three hours max on the art. The characters are straight from the books. So if you’d like to meet the cast before next July, you can start reading here. And for those of you have been more than patiently waiting for the story to continue, you only have a few weeks wait left. And it shall continue between releases of the three books. There is so much to explore in that world, and my dream is to eventually bring on other artists to do some of the exploring.
Enough prattling for now. Much more to come, including giveaways and other such announcements. Soon, I’ll be putting together a book tour. If you know of any schools, libraries or book shops that might want to host an exhausted, but talkative author, drop me a line.
Channeling my inner Lovecraft
This is one of the earliest Primordial Syrup comics I wrote. Sums up the tone of the comic nicely. Still not happy with the finished art. Wish I had made the creature more creaturey, with a bit of “Ancient One” flair. Still, progress not perfection.
In the coming weeks I’ll have more posts on “The Conjurers”. Currently I’m working on the illustrations for book two. Also sketching concepts for the cover. And I hope to have news on book one soon. A release date and maybe some actual photos of an actual book. Stay tuned.
Funny Comics - The Addams and Far Side Effect
Another new Primordial Syrup comic. I’m going to try and post a new every Monday. Once a week should be manageable. I have a ton written. The art can take some time, especially when the style is developing. You can probably tell two of my biggest influences were Charles Addams and Gary Larson.
Addams, aside from creating the “Addams Family”, generated some of the best and weirdest single panel comics at a time when weird wasn’t exactly mainstream. My dad had a hardcover collection of New Yorker comics. I was six or seven when I stumbled upon it. I loved any book filled with cartoons, however, most of them, aside from the art, didn’t intrigue me. They were dated, although I wasn’t aware at the time that that was the reason. However, every so many pages would be a single panel that stood out. Kind of like “One of these things doesn’t belong” on Sesame Street.
On those particular comics, I noted the signature, “Addams”, and scoured the book for more. From that moment on Charles Addams was my Odin of cartooning. “The Far Side” came along a bit later, but had a similar effect. When most of your thoughts and ideas are strange, a bit dark and off kilter, or fall into the “I don’t get it” category, seeing the works of Addams and Larson were a beacon in a field that can sometimes drag you down a conventional path just to make a living.
That said, Primordial Syrup has no endgame. They are simply the ideas that make me laugh. They are the cartoons that, if I opened up a hardcover collection of comics, would be the ones I would read.
