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!