The Combined Federal Campaign Kickoff

 

Once again, I'll be creating a series of Abbott and Gooseberry panels that will promote the Combined Federal Campaign for a certain Federal agency. I think these are the toughest ones to do. They have to be mildly amusing, feature limited anarchy, and promote the different causes that people can donate to.

I think the limited anarchy is the hardest thing in the world to pull off.

How it All Comes Together

 

This is a "shell" that I have drawn, colored in, and scanned. It's a large .tif file that I use in Photoshop. I may resize or rebalance the color, but what you see in a finished cartoon is a scanned shell with text added.

I came across this strategy by accident because the most difficult part of all of this for me is not the drawing, it's the lettering. By using Photoshop, I can speed up the process, reuse a drawing, and really edit and refine what goes into the panels.

Here are two examples of this used in the same shell.

That's all there is to it.

Born at a Tom Thumb in the Summer of 1988

In the summer of 1988, I went to Minneapolis to attend what was then called Brown Institute. I went there to learn the cruddy art of radio and television announcing. It never went anywhere.

While I was there, I worked in this Tom Thumb convenience store as a clerk. This was the natural extension of my grocery store skills at the time. I ended up "creating" or developing the Abbott character, which will turn 32 this November 8th.

I'm glad that I finally have a picture of my old store. This is where I started drawing (badly, crudely, and without much success in terms of coming up with something usable). It's still pretty run down and janky, but it's where I learned to deal with all sorts of things.

Who's Karen?

Reflections on Ditchweed

In the old days, I would do these things on yellow sticky notes. This corresponds to the time I was working in Northern Virginia.

Ditchweed is sort of a rural concern. It's harmless.

The Combined Federal Campaign

This is a ten panel campaign that I was commissioned to do for the Combined Federal Campaign, which government workers use to organize their charitable donations. I'm not sure how many people have seen the campaign, but here it is.

no way

pretend to be interested

Yes, I’ve taken two years off. So what?

revving motors

i've seen bad times

bop a killer

Just another day living as the alter ego known as The Pink Ninja, so, you know, nothing going on here.

stutter step

go tell the beans

swag bag

Just in time for the Oscars, of which I do not care, a swag bag joke...

the magical powers

burden being wonderful

interesting neighbor

the gods

And, the original with me spelling aphrodisiac like an idiot would...

i got bacon

Nothing matters when you have bacon...

Last strip of 2014.

milestones