Wednesday, October 17, 2012

99% Recycled Comic

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I know this is everyone's favorite part but I don't have much to say this week except that I'm sorry I don't have much to say. Or draw for that matter. 

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

The Worst Drawn Corn You Will Ever See

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So having a Superhero Tryout story arc was pretty dumb. Actually that's not true, but it didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Let me explain...

I discovered how powerful twitter is even though I'm not really a twitter guy. I don't particularly like tweeting because I don't usually have anything interesting to tweet about and I don't have an iPhone to instagram awesome pictures of my dinner. So that's that. But I realized you can tweet  to celebrities and that's kind of cool because sometimes they tweet back and then you get to say "Wowwwwwwwww! Reggie Miller is my friend! Yayyyyyyyy!"

So I tried tweeting one of my favorite NBA players (besides Reggie Miller, he's retired) to ask permission to use him in my comic. I had a cool and funny idea involving him being a superhero but I didn't want to draw him without permission. Because that would be weird... If I found out somebody was drawing me this whole time I'd probably be a little upset. 

He didn't respond and that's okay. I didn't expect him to because i'm not that important. But it meant I had to go to Plan B which was come up with three lame superheroes to finish this story out. You can tell I was really inspired. And yes, as the title would suggest, I hate that corn guy. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Surprise

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Usually this space is reserved for weird or pointless commentary on a myriad of subjects that may or may not pertain to the strip above. Unfortunately I'm off my game this week and I don't have much to say right now. Except I'm glad I was able to get a comic off  because I started to doubt if I could this time. That would have been turrible. And that was my Charles Barkley impression.  

Oh I guess I can talk about my handwriting. I hope it's legible. I'm told my H's look like M's and that my other letters look like poop. If it's too hard to read panel 4 don't be afraid to say so. I have no problems reading it but I understand if others have trouble. My handwriting has been universally criticized for years. I blame my first grade teacher.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Merch! Merch! Merch!

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Introducing THE FLABMAN AND TWIG ACTION HERO PLAYSET! Flabman and Twig in the palm of your hand! You can make them walk! You can make them talk! You can make them punch people! Need socks? THEY ARE SOCKS! Worried about wearing mismatching socks? BUY ANOTHER SET!!!!! Complete your wardrobe today! Did I mention all this for the low low cost of $19.99!!!!

On a more serious note, I was playing a video game the other day and I realized when you buy a video game you don't even get the full game anymore. There is always downloadable content that comes out later or only if you pre order at Gamestop. Sometimes for an additional cost. What? And it seems like there is a trend where you can pay real money for fake in game money or objects. That's been around for a long time but before it seemed like more of a World of Warcraft black market type thing but i'm noticing more and more that video game companies are embracing this concept as a way to make more money. This may be old news, but I think it's silly. Let's go back to cartridges...

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Crime Hat

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The ending to this story reminds me of how my university put a ban on sidewalk chalk. I think the reasoning was they didn't want the campus looking "cluttered." So where am I supposed to play Hopscotch now? It was a pretty ridiculous issue at the time and something that shouldn't have been a big deal but was. It only takes one rain storm to wash off! But perhaps they felt that sidewalk chalk is a gateway drug to spray paint graffiti. Who knows? But I had a few friends who were upset because they couldn't pretend to be Banksy and the world was spared from their silliness that day...

This week we introduce The Crime Hat! Every once and a while our heroes will draw a crime from the hat and they will attempt to stop whatever they pick out. More realistically though (since they can't do anything without me drawing them) I think I'll start drawing crimes from a hat and basing my strip on chance. Sometimes you have to roll the dice a bit and who knows what the Crime Hat will choose as the comic strip of the week! Vegas style baby!

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Why Hello Mr. Pouty Pants! Is My Sidekick Home?

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This week we get the exciting conclusion to our duo's battle with El Diablo Hermoso. Rest assured we will see more of him in the future. I have to say I'm finding that Tuesdays tend to be my most productive days comic wise. Is it because it's a last minute thing? Not really. Well, kind of... I spent most of the week thinking about how I was going to conclude this story arc. I have most of the stories planned out well in advance, about 4 weeks worth of comics at a time so I don't run out of stories, but figuring out how to execute this comic was a little tricky this time. This comic only ended up taking a few hours to make though! That's sketch, inks, paints, and text started at noon and finished before 6PM. It usually takes longer so that's pretty neat.

I took a screenwriting class before I graduated from college and for our final project we had to write an Act I of a full length film. It was pretty fun. I wrote an animated detective film that was kind of like a reverse Scooby Doo, where instead of four kids and their pet solving mysteries it's four pets and a kid. And it's supposed to be the kind of comedy you would see on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block of programming. It was a fun project but we only wrote Act I. So it's unfinished. I'm thinking about finishing it but I'm also thinking about just animating the first scene of it, make a little pilot, and treat it like a T.V. show. 

I think that's my next project or at least I want it to be. I'd have to do all the voices myself, which is fine I guess. I always think i'm good at doing different voices but then when I go to record them they all just sound like me... Weak! But we'll see. Stay tuned...

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

For Food and Honor!

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So this week we get to see Flabman and Twig in action and we get to see them in ATTACK MODE!!! Yes, ATTACK MODE is as ridiculous as it looks and yes it is about 00.1% effective in battle and 99.9% waste of calories. 

When I originally conceived this comic I always pictured Flabman wielding Twig like a sword and that is just how they would fight. A fat superhero and his skinny sidekick are not particularly threatening to anybody. Their power has to come from the heroes working as a single unit. But once it was drawn out I realized how ridiculous this concept is. There is no situation where they would use ATTACK MODE and have Twig walk away without getting hurt. Certainly not after a sword fight with El Diablo Hermoso. And of course, Flabman would have to be completely oblivious to the fact that he is causing more harm than good.

But that's what I find the most funny about it and we will see a lot more variations of ATTACK MODE in the future. Sorry Twig...

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Can I Take Your Order?

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Wowsers! What you are reading now the most ambitious Flabman and Twig comic to date! Not only did I have to sketch, ink, paint four different characters and make the background look like an interior that one may find at a KFC or a Popeye's, but most of the dialogue is in a language I know very little about! Well that's not true... I took Spanish in middle school but I was terrible at it. I just didn't get it. I was so bad I ditched Spanish class to learn Japanese and ended up doing better there. That's bad.

So there's this tool I used to help me called Google Translate where you type in any sentence you want in English the translator burps it out in Spanish, or any other language that you prefer. I wasn't convinced though. If I've learned anything from a foreign language class it's that it is very hard to get a literal word for word translation from one language to another. So I put in the English words I wanted translated, got the Spanish translation and then I fed the Spanish back to Google Translate to see what it would give me in English just to be sure I wasn't getting something totally wrong. Sure enough, there were plenty of discrepancies that had to be sorted out. So I apologize if you can read Spanish and it reads like garbage. But I would also blame Google Translate.

The moral of the story is if you want your comic to be in Spanish just know how to speak Spanish. Or have a Spanish friend help you. I didn't think to do that at the time but that is a lesson learned.

Also we get our first look at El Diablo Hermoso, a new villain for Flabman and Twig to play with. We will see more of him next week. To be continued...


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Next Week!

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This week I was ready to introduce a new villain. A legitimate villain and not just another firefighter for Flabman to fight over who is the better hero. But then I got sick...  And I'm still kind of sick as I type. So that comic is being pushed to next week and this week ended up being kind of a teaser.

So this week Flabman is getting himself pumped for next week, which is kind of silly. In his head he thinks he's going to save the day, win over a girl, and the adoration of the city he protects. But we know better. Don't we?

I wouldn't expect a titanic battle sequence over four panels. That's not what Flabman and Twig are about. They are about trying to save the day and failing miserably. But maybe they get lucky? We'll see... Next week!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Date Night

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I keep telling my friends about this really good Asian Buffet in my hometown. It has a huge variety of food and the quality matches the quantity. It would just blow your mind how much food is there. I remember when they first opened and I had never seen so many smiles before in one place. Everyone looked like they stumbled into the Cave of Wonders and we're feasting their eyes on mountains of gold. They were all kind of hefty too. I think those were the people that had already been there awhile though.

They have everything you would want from an Asian Buffet. They have sushi, crab, craw-fish, oysters, prime rib, RICE!!!, and just about everything else you would find in a Chinese Buffet times ten. And I tell people this and they are never impressed. They say to me "so it's just another Chinese buffet?" No it is not!

Then I tell them there is a chocolate fountain... AND EVERYONE LOSES THEIR MINDS! They get mad at me for not telling them sooner as if I was holding out on them and all of a sudden our lives depend on eating there immediately! It's just insane. I think a chocolate fountain is kind of cool. But is it cooler than a mountain of crab legs? Or all the prime rib you can eat? Nah. But it's still kind of cool. 

I guess the key to owning a successful restaurant is to have a chocolate fountain. It increases the classiness of your establishment ten fold. So get one if you haven't already! Customers won't be able to resist...

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Turf War!

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Christmas has arrived a bit early this week. I have to wake up pretty early in the morning and I don't want to post this comic too late in the day tomorrow. But I do hope you enjoy this fantastic confrontation between Flabman and Fireman! Boom!

Although I guess we should address a potential plot hole here. Why would the wealthy heir to a fast food burger empire care so much about not being paid to be a superhero? I can provide two answers at the moment...

1. "If you're good at something never do it for free." The Joker, The Dark Knight (2008). Although they aren't really good at being heroic so maybe this quote doesn't apply here...

2. It's his parent's money and he doesn't inherit a cent of it until he proves himself worthy to them. I may need to go back and fine tune the first strip to make this canon. But the idea of having a comic one day where we get to meet Flabman's parents does intrigue me a bit. What sort of personalities would they have? There are so many possibilities!

But they would definitely have to be fat...

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Enter Fireman...

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So does anybody watch South Park? It's a show on Comedy Central. Anyway, whether you like that kind of humor or not one must respect the process that the makers of that show go through while making an episode of that show. If you haven't seen 6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park I highly recommend it, especially if you are an animator like I am. 

Basically without spoiling too much (because you should watch the documentary) these guys can make one episode of the show in six days while most shows take weeks or months. Not only that, but by the time they are finished they have to immediately send it to Comedy Central with minutes to spare before they are due to air on television.  Most of the time they don't even have the story finalized until the very last day. Meanwhile, the animators work long hours with little sleep in order to have the finished product. It is pretty incredible. But I am sure it is stressful. It is the very definition of last minute panic. I can't help but be inspired by it though. 

Anyway I mention South Park because I had my own little last minute panic of my own making this strip. Actually I had it mostly finished, except one of the panels took longer to make. But it doesn't matter because here it is! Enjoy!





Wednesday, July 25, 2012

A Fat Knight

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I got to see The Dark Knight Rises over the weekend. Wowsers it was good! Lately I've felt kind of burnt out from all the superhero movies but I've always been a big Batman fan. The animated series was one of my favorite shows growing up and I loved all the movies. Although when I was younger I didn't realize how bad Batman and Robin was. Yikes! And I do like Batman Forever. Yes, I said it! I think that was the first Batman movie I ever saw now that I think about it.

So the anticipation had been driving me crazy! But shoot, now that it's over I don't have anything to look forward to! First Star Wars and now Batman! I mean, they are going to reboot Batman eventually but I don't really want them to do it. At least not for many years. It's the reboots that have me burnt out too (even though it was my favorite Batman movie, Batman Begins, that sort of started the trend.) How many movies dedicated to origin stories do we need? I only need one per franchise. I heard somewhere awhile back that they were going to reboot Green Lantern after one movie. I'm not a Green Lantern expert but I always thought he was neat and had cool powers. With that said, I wasn't fond of the movie but I'd almost rather see a sequel knock the first movie out of the park instead of just starting over every time a movie doesn't live up to expectations. Just try to make things better without starting over! But I understand studios trying to build a franchise and it is hard to build one with bad eggs. The problem is once you see a bad movie it cannot be unseen. People remember it. It's not like one can delete a movie from existence.

Although Green Lantern would be easier to reboot since Green Lantern isn't just one character. There have been several different Green Lanterns. And I have my own ideas of how they could keep making Batman movies without necessarily starting over but I can't say because of spoilers. So why mention it? I dont' know.

Anyway, that quickly snowballed into a rant... and that rant shall never happen ever again because this is a webcomic not a blog (Even though there's blogger written all over it.) I do think it's important to supplement the strip with some thoughts and insight to the creative process. I mean, there is a reason for every strip that I create and really this comic was inspired by seeing that movie. Also I'm seeing how four panels looks as opposed to three. I feel like four is the way to go but we'll see.

I was very sad to hear about the tragedy in Colorado that happened during the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. That sort of thing should never happen. Period. And our prayers are with those people and their families.

Thanks for reading!

Christopher Dobbs Jr.









Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Fantastic Origin of Flabman and Twig!

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Well... I guess this origin story isn't quite so fantastic after all. There really isn't much to tell in three panels. They pretty much just ran into each other one day and decided to become superheroes. But this is the first of many weekly comic strips! So check back next Wednesday for more adventures, or misadventures, or non-adventures of Flabman and Twig! Thanks for reading!

Also it turns out this strip isn't as big as I would like it to be when you click it to zoom in. The text still appears small... The solution may just be to use bigger font next time. Or to just post the individual panels instead like the panels below. We'll see what happens next time!