Merry Christmakwanzanukah Solstice!

I was inspired by a Giles strip while working on this. It look two days of planning and sketching, and two more days to ink and apply the grey marker. May Ray (holding the streamer) is one of my oldest characters that I still like, whom I've put in a comic for the first time in two years. There's another four characters that I haven't quite yet put online yet...

Cinderelliot: Elliot/Cain, Miles/Arbrook, King, Pinhead, Fairy Godfather

Westbury Detectives: Mara Wright (all of the above are also in this, but still...)

Hyperspace Bunny: Bunny, Ray Hatcher

Skipper the Robot Kid: Sarai Mizuno, A.M.I., Robby Phillips, Bunny2000, Sera (from the remake)

Quinn: Rick Jones

Our Own May Ray: May Ray

The 27 Ghosts of Endo: Endo Hiramatsu (that guy about to get copped by the Godfather)

I'm also in the picture frame!

As soon as I finish some maths homework, I've got some model sheets of The 27 Ghosts of Endo to post. It's based on a dream I had (which I encorperated into an episode), and odds are that it's going to be my next project.

For anyone interested, this was the Giles strip I was inspired by...

Cinderelliot Site!

http://cinderelliot.tripod.com/index.html

This was made of pure HTML. I started learning HTML and CSS back in 7th grade or so, and it's helped out now, seeing as SiteBuilder had closed down and so has Geocities, and I'm certainly not going to Webon.

Anyways, the profile pictures for Miles and the Stepsisters aren't done yet, but everything else is totally functional. Let me know if there's anything I should revisit and edit there.

Also, I saw "Planet 51", and it was a...complete disappointment. I'll have a bigger review later on. I wish we'd just waited five days until The Princess and the Frog came out, because I really want to see that.

This is the best thing I've heard all day.

As a fan of Kyuukyoku Choujin R / Ultimate Superman R, I'd have to say that this is the best tie-in song, given how it embodies the series perfectly.

Also, I went trick-or-treating, because I knew I'd be stealing candy if I didn't. I went as Gendo Ikari again because it was too cold for my new flapper costume. Did you know they still make DOTS gumdrops? I mean seriously, what the hell?

Long story short, but now I am supposedly drawing the Fairy Godfather as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, because there is a supposed need for musical numbers and leather underwear in my output.

Too Soon?

Gift art for my friend Vicki, whom got the 6000th hit on my art page. Look, it's those two dudes from Death Note. Did you know that I generally shouldn't put anime characters in my style? I'm pretty much only in the clear with Tezuka's characters.

Well now that's wonderful

So apparently, if I make a character with black hair covering half of their face, there's a higher chance of that character being the most popular one in the strip. There must be a sexual trigger about it or something

Such is the case with Rick Jones, the chain-smoking 17-year-old best friend of the titular character in Quinn.

I don't want to get all weird on you people at 9:38 in the morning, but I can't believe a character based on dozens of different kids from my school living in crap lives became the best character.

What the hell is this

I'm listening to Michael Jackson and goofing off in printmaking, and wanted to show you all something. The following is the first result in a Google search of "Cinderelliot"*...

http://www.fictionwise.com/servlet/mw?t=book&bookid=35179&id=5069

So, apparently my debut comic shares the same name as a women's erotica book. However, this Elliot is a complete Mary-Sue and is effeminate. Look, another Fairy Godfather!

I tried reading the larger summary on that page, but I got the horrible feeling that the author masturbated to it while writing it. Luckily, this whole dilemna doesn't bother me too much, because I refer to my Elliot as Cain (which is technically his "birth" name, if I should be getting creepy on this).

Should I be concerned about copyrights? The book is selling for $2.98 and can probably not be brought up in polite company, so I doubt if there's anything that could happen. My biggest dream is to have an animated, feature film length version of Cinderelliot (my version! my version) and it would be funny if we had a Larry Potter disorder.

*Yes, I searched this. I am egotistical.

So, I've got Cinderelliot #1 in the school library's magazine section. It seems to be getting read...it's switching spots quite frequently, so either someone has a Mad Hatter-esque obsession of constantly moving the magazines over by one spot, or it's getting attention.

In the meantime, I'm waiting to be driven to a friend's house for a Tetsujin 28 marathon, because we're almost done the series and are only going through the episodes with Kenji. I've been feeling mildly fluish since Tuesday, so right now I'm eating blueberries in the hopes that it'll do something for me.

For now, have a Fairy Godmother scribbling:

Someone suggested early on that it would be easier to offer the comic to people if there wasn't a gay man involved. Imagine the Godfather's personality in a woman...we have what is known as a Tsundere, and the thrill of inverted gender is gone. Similarily, if someone were to use a devious, attractive, sniper lesbian in something, everybody would love that character for the reason that she differs from the female "standard" towards the male. Not to mention that lesbianism tends to be more marketable...

Anyhow, this is who you saw in issue one. Now if you don't mind, my ride is late, and I have finished the blueberries.

I give you, Jack Arthur

Also, Becky Byrd the human. I'm going to keep her like that and make her Dr. Byrd's adopted daughter.

New Jack Arthur = Kenji Murasame + Kelly Johnson + David Tennant + Spike Spencer

If you saw the original WDA comics, you'd find that Jack was originally a pretty big moron who was incapable of working alone. Such is defunct, and now he's much easy to draw and operate.

Pinhead and Birdbrain's logo, with bonus katakana.

New Cover Page

If I were to have a formal paperback reprinting of the book, this is what I would want to be on the cover. Personally, I think King is the best-drawn person here, but nobody's going to notice him, because every living female who I have forced the comic on is in love with the Fairy Godfather. I had trouble colouring his party outfit, because I had never planned what colours would be used. Blue and grey, I think.


(Did I ever mention how Garrett Morris influenced King's overall being? If you're too young or haven't seen old episodes like I have, Garrett was the first African-American on Saturday Night Live. Despite being very typecast and having few notable parts, I always rather liked him. Not as much as Belushi & Akroyd, but Garrett was up there with them. Strangely, I just didn't like Chevy, and the only way I could tell Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner apart was by their hair.)

Lost Scene, #1

Midway through the comic, I started to come up with a lot of individual scenes that were only extra character development. I embellish my characters as it is, so there were three short scenes that never really went anywhere. I was planning to just let them go (or put them into an extended film version, DUN-DUN-DUN), but I realized that I'm the creator! I can make these supplementary scenes, and they'll be completely legit.

Today's page is of how King and Stepmama/Alexis ended up having the affair. Notably, you get to see Alexis when she was younger (by six years) and non-bitter, and King when he was a little less mature and easily moved by his libido. Did you know that I find it a huge turn-off when women smoke? I put this in, but you're probably more surprised that women would attract me in the first place.

The moral is, if anyone promises you a ridiculous amount of money for a one-night-stand, get that shit in writing.

Coming soon:
*Fairy Godfather talking to Mina near the end of issue two
*Elliot and his brother arguing in the apartment house lobby, early in issue one
Someday, whenever there's a professional paperback printing, I'll have all the pages together in one tidy alignment...

ALSO COMING SOON! HYPERSPACE BUNNY

Westbury Detectives - 2004 to 2009

I'm planning another comic, but given how many projects I've had since 2001 and the sheer volume of some of them, I need to choose one that'll be fairly easy to remake. I'm either going to go with a 20-page booklet of four-panel strips revolving around a group of kids (Quinn), or a science fiction parody based on the Japanese super-girl genre of the 1980's (Hyperspace Traveller Bunny/ ハイパースペースバニー). I made a webcomic called Skipper the Robot Kid, but dropped it two years ago in favour of remaking it completely, so I think it's time to bring out something I haven't touched in a while. This is...

L-R: Jack Arthur, Bearis Grizzley, Mara Martin (now Wright), Becky Byrd, Dr. Byrd, Princess Tahara, Queen Maga, King Byar (these three are all defunct)

...Damn.
Westbury Detectives is a massive and bizarre project that has unsuccessfully been trying to come out for the last five years. It centred around Jack Arthur, a young detective, and his coworkers at a bizarre detective agency. Originally, they were a planetary defence force. Just imagine Darkwing Duck, Duck Dodgers, and The Great Mouse Detective, all rolled into the worst proverbial sushi ever. There were random animal people because I may have been a furry from ages 12-13.

I need to explain the frequent prescence of Dr. Edward Byrd and his daughter Becky...I've been thinking of having Dr. Byrd, when he was a non-anthropomorphic child, be put through a "humanizing machine" and raised by a researcher as her son. Then years later, they put another chick into the machine and made it his daughter. More later...

These are the villains, which in 2005, included a self-aware hand puppet and a talking chicken. They briefly changed to the West Maulers, which is just as bad. Basically, four of these people are remotely re-usable to me. The bat girl (Batricia) was a thief who later joined the WDA to pay back the city. Pollenatra was a rip-off of Bushroot, whom was a Poison Ivy parody, and I've only now remade her:


Dr. Byrd's mother Laura, top righthand corner. I decided that Pollenatra would be a Dr. Polly Nathan, who was pushed into that machine by her fiance whom was opting to murder her. She got blended with a plant, thought Jack Arthur put her in, and she steals the machine. She's probably too legally-risky to use, but I like her better now.
The boy is "Birdbrain", whom was the second guy in that earlier picture. BB has gone from being a midget with a bird living in his head, to an amnesiac teenage midget with patchy hair, to a naiive orphan with a full head of hair. I've redesigned both Pinhead and Birdbrain, due to the fact that I stole them from a Little Audrey short. Neo-Birdbrain is sort of based on Sludge from the Astro Boy movie; he was raised by his pickpocket uncle, then inducted into Pinhead's gang. This Pinhead is indeed the same guy from Cinderelliot.


Behold Emma Bishop, a normal-seeming woman who occasionally pulls of high-tech robberies while dressed as Haut Kunstlich, a supposed cyborg man. Cain/Elliot and Arbrook/Miles are her assistants. She's my favorite new character in Westbury Detectives.


Here's the updated cast! Bearis Grizzley, I'm cutting you out. Mainly because you're a damned talking bear.

Mara Wright's new design came to me in an abrupt vision, and when I tried drawing her as the above, her personality developed in a day. Keep in mind that she had existed for five years prior. Jack's new personality is coming in, but the problem is that I don't know at all how to give him a brilliant, original design. I'm planning to somehow blend Black Jack, Spike Spiegel and the Tenth Doctor...

Relevant to Some

Having shown the comic to a dozen girls, I can tell that the Fairy Godfather now has an immense offline fanclub. Katelyn, if you tell me "he needs a sexy boyfriend" one more time, despite my adding of the characters George and Klide the hitman, I'm going to come at you like Nevada-Tan. Aside, I'm very happy to have made a character that is such a hit, and I wonder if it'll be the same results when I test the comic on male classmates.

To my extreme disappointment, these same girls a) hate Elliot, or b) want to pair him with the Godfather. Remember in issue one? I immediately severed any sort of Godfather's attraction to Elliot that would secure him from being paired like so. The reason for this is that Elliot, alternate name Cain, is extremely important to me. Let me break down the influences that brought Cain together:


In a Tezukian method of character creation, Cain/Elliot is based on my favorite actor of all time, whom unfortunately died of a drug overdose just when he was trying to get into a different genre of movies. He was supposed to be in Ghostbusters, for God's sake! Disturbingly enough, I've mourned this man more than I've mourned deceased family members. Adding to this, Hideki is based on him too, but if you look at pictures of Cain from late 2008, he has a bastardized version of Hideki's hair. Cain is pretty much a distant substitute for John. Unfortunately:

...When I first showed off the first issue at a sleepover, the following verbatim conversation resulted:
K: Maybe this Elliot should just get together with the Godfather. You know, just go, "This girl's too hard to get! Maybe I..."
V: No, he said he found him ugly, remember?
K: Oh.
In my head, I was pleased that making the Godfather extremely unattracted to Elliot had worked. But this was a requested piece, and my only consolation was not having Elliot blush as well. Because he doesn't want to do it. I'll tell you people when you can slash someone.
(KingxGodfather is acceptable)

Fan Art & School

So, recently I've been bringing issue one with me to school, and letting people read it if they want to. (I'm considering offering it to the school library!) By a complete landslide, the most popular character is the Fairy Godfather, so far having seven fans in real life. I've never been responsible for an actual fangirl; what should I do? And I'm actually not surprised by this turnout...I wrote him to be a likeable and entertaining character. Personally, I have more than one favorite character, but then again, I am the series creator. You need to be able to tolerate all of your characters if you want to be able to draw them consistantly and repeatedly. (While you think it may be a good idea to make characters every day, or make ones designated to be hated, that will become a burden on you.)

In the meantime, I had a person in France who wanted to buy both issues, but was too young to understand Paypal. I offered her a chance to get both issues for free if she could draw a picture of Elliot and the Godfather. She did, and the issues are on the way.



by ~AKHTS
I actually have this in my school locker as well. My friends (big Fairy Godfather fans) saw it, and their general reaction was "OH D'AWWWWWWW"

Monkey-Punching

Last night, we went to the Cliff Wright Library, and I took out 11 volumes of the original Lupin the Third series by Monkey Punch. I did this drawing in an attempt to blend styles, but then it didn't work. I took two common Lupin poses from the manga, but in my style, it looks like Elliot/Cain is going to fall over.

What a ridiculous study! Some of the comments are unintelligible and awful.

Bonus Tip

*Have you ever drawn something and thought, "Wow, this is really good! Wait, maybe I should touch this up..." STOP YOU FOOL PUT THE PEN DOWN AND MOVE AWAY FROM IT. Your drawing is in what I call the Quintessential State, and any other changes will ruin it completely. Usually when I do something good and try to add a small change - colouring/shading something, adding a tiny detail - and it usually goes horribly wrong. If you ever make what you think is a great picture, resist making any last-minute changes in pen.

Cameos

In issue two, I needed to fill space during two scenes in the last few pages of the comic. Only two of the characters are mine, and ergo, I am possibly breaking the law. Here's what to look forward to...

Ryusaku and Tatsu Murasame of Tetsujin 28. They appear clearly in two panels, which would be pushing it, if people could instantly recognize them. They actually look like the following...

(If any of my offline friends are reading this, I would like to warn you that you will be forced to watch at least one episode of this series. You guys would love the Murasame Brothers if you could get over the "giant robot" matter.)


Shinzuka Ichinuma and his father, Kuro, from The Outlanders. That is actually a more graphic, psychological series with an intricate plot that I'm still trying to finish. Shinzuka is in three more panels with one spoken line.

Osamu Tezuka's villain character Skunk Kusai. This is a heavily-modified version, based on his appearance in the animated Astro Boy series from 2003.

Issue Two Now Available

Rough draft from mid-March 2009; final panel from Issue Two

My incredibly non-fancy printer is out of blue and yellow ink, so the latest I can get the comics printed is Monday. I tried printing the cover, but it was mostly red and looked terrifying. The comics'll be released in-store hopefully on the same day. The prices are as follows:

(Note: Shipping is included in these prices)

Issue One = $2

Issue Two = $2

If you do not live in Saskatoon and want both issues, they are at $3.25, which is an internet-exclusive offer from now to September 30. If you do live in the area, go to the shop and please save me money on postage.

Here's part one in a series of cartooning tips:

*Write the speech before you draw the speech bubble. I used to do this backwards when I was eight or nine, and as I noted from experience, it limits how much text you can put in. This is worse when you have a really good line and are forced to cut it up accordingly.

*Never limit your secondary antagonists to just being dumb, cliched thugs. Give them each a significant design, and maybe have one of them say a good linne. For more information on what not to do, see every one of Dr. Claw's henchman.

*Don't avoid drawing hands by putting them behind your character's back. (i.e. stiff arms pulled back, with mid-forearm hidden by hips) It's better to draw a bad hand on your first try, than to avoid drawing a hand entirely. In fact, look at your own hand when you draw one.

FIMO Clay Elliot

He stands at 3 cm (11/5 inches). I also made Miles, but he's disproportionate in many a way. I'm still very proud of this, though.

I've got some Gashapon capsules laying around...how do you guys think it would go if I were to make little clay figures of the comic cast? I could raffle them off if the comic gets popular enough in-town.

I might also offer alternative language translations of the comic, mainly French and Japanese. I even translated the title into Katakana: シンデッエリオット

Crossover Business

I've been saving this illustration for a while now, since I wasn't sure how people would handle it. I'm very good with crossovers, but this one could be borderline disturbing to most. I drew Elliot and his brother as Jake and Elwood Blues, but that's sort of an inside joke.

I had a very bizarre dream a few days ago that involved me meeting 14 year old Becky, whom was a freshman in my school and an enormous fan of the comic. Only problem was how she had a fan character (with the same first name) that she inserted into the end of the comic, shackling with Elliot, thus forcing Charmy out. Also, she paired Godfather and King.

Model Sheets

Since Ponyo isn't playing anywhere Saskatchewan, we went to see Night At The Museum 2 and it was wonderful. They had young Al Capone as an antagonist, which I appreciated, because I've been interested in mobsters since I was eight. The only problem was Abraham Lincoln's voice. He was played by Hank Azaria, whom already plays another character in the movie, and his voice was too recognisable. They could have gotten another actor with a natural low voice, like Jamieson Price or the like. Amy Adams was perfect as Amelia Earhart. But still, everything was pretty good.

In honour of this, here are my original Cinderelliot character designs from February 27, 2009...

(Of course, I had been planning CE for about a month before drawing this.) Most notably, you can see my original intent to make George and Mina like birds and mice (a la Disney's version). Speaking of which, 1/4 of Disney's movie was just about the animals, for God's sake...

The Fairy Godfather was a little less enthusiastic-looking, didn't switch from stoic to feminine easily, and smoked. I've been trying to take the smoking out of my more attractive characters, given that smoking is gross and it ruins your overall look.* That aside, he originally had a light Brooklyn accent that would have been hard to put legibly in text. Charmy and King were briefly going to be Italian, with reddish-brown hair, but I changed that to add some diversity to the comic. And then almost went back when I worried the grey marker for their skin would look offensive.

And Elliot's hair! It's frizzy, compared to the insane poofy thing I gave him in the comic. Have you guys ever heard of Hideki from Nerima Daikon Brothers? His design + John Belushi's personality inspired Elliot. Elliot and his brother (who you'll see in #2) are actually called "Cain and Arbrook" in another one of my projects. It's a Cain & Abel pun, except Elliot doesn't kill Miles and marry their sister.

*I once was infatuated with a girl named Carlene, whom was a few months younger than me but tall and mature-looking. In 10th grade she took up smoking and loose sex with university students. No, I'm not bitter.

Kenji Murasame Block

Not necessarily Cinderelliot-related, but I recently made fan art for the Tetsujin 28 series...

Translation: MURASAME KENJI
"Is something wrong?"

One of the good things about Tetsujin was how distinct the syle was; it all looked like a rounded, shiny Fleischer-esque world, compared to the overused shoujo look of today.
Kenji Murasame was my favorite character in the show...he had a bright pink suit, puffy black hair, and a dozen throwing knives on hand. He and his two brothers (Ryusaku and Tatsu) were briefly shown as a small band of thieves, but for some reason, both brothers died before the third episode. That kind of thing always drove me nuts as a writer; I always felt the Murasame Brothers could have had plenty of good scenes if the two hadn't died.

Buon Giorno

Welcome to the blog! I'm "Robotkat" (the androgynous name I use online), a young cartoonist in Saskatchewan. I'm currently working on the second half of a locally-published comic "Cinderelliot" and preparing to work on several others. If you are looking through the archives after seeing the link in issue two, thank you for buying it, and I suggest you buy several more issues.

I'm only going to be posting pictures from the production of my comics, including model sheets and moronic sketches. Unless something insane happens in real life, not much of my personal life will be mentioned. Also, I probably won't swear that much.

My favorite TV shows are Astro Boy, Tetsujin 28, Assemble Insert, Sonic the Hedgehog, and The Young Ones.

My favorite book material includes Bloom County, Calvin & Hobbes, Shel Silverstein, Osamu Tezuka, and an obscure novel called "Summer Home" by Cynthia D. Grant.