Second Week Jitters

Click on the thumb to see a larger image.

I feel like that one weird kid (there’s one in every class) who brings his Blankey for show and tell. He thinks he’s going to share with everyone something that’s really important to him, but really he’s just opening himself up to be ruthlessly mocked.

This week is the second week of ‘Freelance,’ and the most exposure I have given it to friends and family. I have only been going one week and a day and already I am worried about the way the strip is going.

The artwork is nowhere near where I want it to be. There’s nothing I can do about that, that’s just the way I draw, but I do kind of wish I had a Rogue-like (yes, as in the X-men Rogue) ability to drain other people’s power. If I could there would be a lot of very sad former artists out there. But the consensus of every notable Cartoonist (Watterson, Schultz, Adams, Larson, et al) is that the writing is far more important than the art. To paraphrase Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes: “Great writing can save weak drawing, but great drawing can’t save weak writing (for proof see nearly any superhero comic book you care to mention. The obvious exceptions being Watchmen, and Sin City).

Which brings me to my next point: The writing is not quite what I want it to be. I want people to invest in the characters and the storyline. Hopefully I can develop this over time. Interestingly (or not, whatever), the reason I changed the strip from the original format was that I was getting zero feedback on it. But as soon as I changed it people wrote to say how much they liked the old strip. Oh well. I still think the new strip is going to be better.

I think if I can get people to bear with me through the teething stages I can really make this strip work. I especially can’t wait to bring in the human element. Mango and Snug are great, but I think there has to be a bit of investment in a human character for a strip to really work. So look out for the eponymous ‘Lance’ in the next week or two.