Take Note: Another Week-in-Review

Music note that is…

Wait a minute, it’s not a music note – but it IS a musical symbol (if that’s the proper term) that will kick-off this week’s Week-in-Review.

In this day and age with people not happy with their looks and getting implants, plastic surgery and other body modifications, it only makes sense that – if musical symbols had thoughts – they may want a few changes as well.

They’re just looking for that finely-tuned image.

As for a dogs life, well, life on a leash is no way to reach your full potential.

Dogs that go far in life usually live indoors or have a fenced in yard.  Those are the type that can speak, sit and lay.  Ask Lassie.  That boy, er – girl – made it pretty big.

Talk about big – what’s bigger than a bear?  (Okay, lots of things.)

There are a million and one puns that I could use here, but I’ll stop myself and use NONE.  Bear in mind that….oops.

Anyway, I’ve featured koalas in previous cartoons and have mentioned them as bears.  I typically get a handful of emails or comments about how THEY’RE NOT bears – they’re marsupials.  It appears to offend some people when mentioning them by what they’re not.

However, aren’t they technically called Koala Bears?  I dunno…. I’m confused.

My next cartoon was my favorite of the week, but I don’t think it was for everyone else.  It didn’t seem to “take-off” on social media or elsewhere online as much as I thought it would.  Again though (I’ve mentioned this many times in the past) that doesn’t mean anything.  A good cartoon isn’t measured by “likes” and shares.  It just isn’t.

In my personal opinion though, I like this one.  If you look at it closely, it has several layers of humor I tried to add to it.  At least I think.

If you thought my vacuum cartoon sucked (Ha!  Another pun!  Eh…sorry.) you might enjoy one with some colorful birds involved in it.

Has this bird joke been done before?

It was one of those obvious gags when I wrote it.  And as far as I know, it hasn’t ever been done by another cartoonist.  I try to stay original, so I hope I was the first one to this.  But c’mon…’grounded’.  Get it?  Get it?

And on this next cartoon, I’d label this a hardcore pun.

Can a pun get any worse than this?  I’m not too sure it can.

An interesting note on this next cartoon.  When I first drew it, I had the bigger TNT saying the caption.

I thought about it though, and it would make more sense to have the littler one saying it.  Why?  Well, because it’s smaller and would have a smaller “boom”.

See, even if I don’t know what I’m doing at first, it often times comes together with the help of the eraser in Photoshop.  (Yes, the original cartoon of this has two lines forming out of the speech bubble.  Looks awkward, at best.)

That’s it for this week!

Have you been over to Nate Fakes Cartoons yet?  I wrote a post about it’s GRAND opening yesterday.  Click back to read it or just head on over by clicking here.

 

Oops I did it again

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No, I’m not trying to do a take on that awful Britney Spears song.  But I did, well, do it again.

What was it?

Well, years and years of cartooning will amount to a mass collection of thoughts, ideas, sketches, etc.  Normally though, even with the thousands and thousands of piles worth of content, I can sort out in my brain what I’ve done.  Typically, I can recall if a certain idea or comic was done before by myself.  And that’s a good thing!  It keeps me coming up with fresh (hopefully fresh) ideas regularly.

However, sometimes something will slip through the cracks.

The other day I was sketching out ideas.  I came up with some goodies.

One of them featured a couple of bears.  I thought it would be funny to see a bunch of torn pillows, stuffing and everything around the male bear and have the female saying, “You were mauling in your sleep again.”

Good?  Do you like?

Okay, well whether you think it’s funny or not, I did.

So, after an idea of mine gets approved by myself, I take it onto the drawing board and sketch the sucker out.  Then ink it it.

Here are the results of that particular comic:

Above:  My comic on my dirty drawing table.

After inking, I then scan and color in Photoshop.

BUT WAIT!

It hit me after completing this.  Some thoughts arrived.  Some like, didn’t I use this premise already?

I kept thinking and thinking.  I KNEW I saw this before.  And then I started thinking maybe it was someone else who came up with it or something.  Paranoia hit.  Yikes!

So, I started to dig through some of my old stuff (comics).  The chances of me finding what I was looking for was like searching for a needle in a haystack.  (Sorry for the unoriginal take on what it was like.)

But, lo and behold.  I was right.  I ran across something.

And here it is:

The above cartoon of mine I did a few years ago.  SO I WAS RIGHT!  I DID use this same premise/idea before!

Ugh.  So you know what that means….

I scrap my newly completed comic with the bears.  Sorry, bears.

But, that’s cartooning in a nutshell.  You win some and you lose some.

I’m glad I caught my, um, mistake though.  I don’t like putting out content that has been done before….Especially from me!

There you go.  It’s bound to happen again.  Luckily though, my editor caught this one before it left the gate and went out in public to join the others.

Whew!