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"