Dec09
HOLIDAY VOTING INCENTIVE IS LIVE!
I felt, in the spirit of the holidays, that I needed to celebrate a certain cola company that for all intents and purposes birthed the modern Santa. Or at least celebrate the Puck universe’s off-brand equivalent. So here goes!
VOTE TO ROT YOUR TEETH WITH SUGARY JUNK!
As for this comic…
People were like, “What about PHOEBE? What happened to PHOEBE?!?” So here’s some Phoebe. She’s fine. Or as fine as … whatever this is here. Is this fine?
Okay, clearly the sugar rush is not yet over.
Now I’m singing that “Sugar Rush” song from Wreck-it Ralph. Shuuuuuuugah Rush!
Phoebe’s gonna need some decaffeinated coffee, when this is over.
I’m thinking more along the lines of Valium.
Why? It will eventually wear out …
Papa Shnorf should give her something to chill out.
I’m sure he’s got something in the van.
Of course, he has a van.
What else would he drive?
Or rather, what else would he have in it?
We don’t want to know.
I’m trying to think of the worst thing to happen to Phoebe, she lost her mom’s presence in her dad’s house, she got booted out of the same house, slapped Daphne, was insulted by Colin’s sister, regurgitated on park rides, was called ‘Taco Bell’, punched Puck, was stark nekkers on the quad, same situation but with Puck and Colin, had her sleep interrupted by Miranda.. I dunno, can’t think of anything else.
That’s a pretty good summary. She’s mentioned social anxiety and bullying when she was younger. I don’t think she had a very happy school experience. But nothing tragically awful.
Hanging with Phoebe once or twice a week would be awesome. Living with her? That would probably drive most normal, non-fey people bonkers within a week.
Well, when she’s not on a sugar high, she’s not that bad. She’s mellowed over the years. This is more a substance-induced return to old Phoebe from university.
She is fine — this is an art compliment, it has nothing to do with character development 😉
I see what you did there.
Well she had to make room for the horns anyway.
Yeah, the break makes it easier to draw for me. Not gonna lie.
She’s having such a blast. It’s a lot of fun to see.
And she has character coming out of her ears. Has ever since the ALF doll incident.
You shut your mouth! That’s not true [sees a beagle with WAY too much cream cheese] O.K., that’s a lot.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hG2otLyvuCQ
Tells you all you need to know about this.
“A BEAGLE with too much cream cheese” – now I’m picturing Snoopy hoarding cream cheese in his dog house…
There’s no such thing as too much cream cheese with beagles.
I knew I was misspelling that, I just couldn’t figure out how.
Ah well.
Maybe they can get an extra character to stand between them.
That’s … taking it in a new direction.
Phoebe is having fun, which is what one is supposed to do at a party.
Exactly! All these party poopers, pooping on the party!
Phoebe is not fine. Then again, she is not in immediate peril either. But she will be having a rather bad time when the sugar runs out.
That’s why you gotta keep that sugar train rolling!
“Sugar…ah, honey, honey…you are my candy girl…and you got me wanting you…”
The Archies are my favorite totally not real band.
Sorry. Monkees.
Great Phoebe! Vivacious and fun loving. You really gave her great energy and motion without using motion lines, instead using lettering! It paid off. Phoebe was the focus and broke the cute meter.
The Monkees were almost real, though. I mean, they were assembled by corporate execs and all their songs were written by hired guns but there were four real dudes who were in the band. The Archies were nothing more than an ephemeral corporate concept, with no band members, no corporeal presence. The Archies were totally not real. The Monkees were kinda real.
And yeah, it’s fun to draw Phoebe in this state. It’s very hard to get right, but I’m trying.
I can’t figure out whether Gorillaz counts as real or not.
It would be nice to have a cartoon-band megaconcert sometime.
Rather partial to Josie and the Pussycats myself, with Jem and the Holograms ranking a distant third. YMMV, however.
Josie and the Pussycats are a yes from me. Jem was just too … 80’s. And I love the 80’s, but like cream cheese, there can be too much of a good thing.
I love the color contrasts you have going with the storylines here – bright, bold colors for our main cast, dark and shady for Tracee and co., something lighter but more neutral for Daphne and the other supporting characters! That just what I’m noticing so far – nice coordination there!
I’m just kinda making it up as I go along, based on what feels right. Glad you think it looks good.
I approve of Puck’s swimsuit in the votie this week!
I was going for that vintage 40’s-50’s flair. I looked at some actual old school ads like that for some inspiration.
Do you want me to send in a pic of your stickers on my laptop?
YES!!!! PLEASE!!! DO!!!!!
https://imgur.com/CZNvGl3
That looks awesome. Culturally a very diverse and cool laptop, if I may say so. The coolest laptop ever.
Wow, I didn’t know my laptop was a diversity icon! 😛
Well, now you do. I am the authority.
Phoebe is very fine, and always a welcome sight. Maybe sugar will be the catalyst she needs to be less intimidated about dating. She certainly would be a fun date for anyone that can keep up with her.
Maybe? Maybe. Possible outcomes may vary…
Phoebe will soon have a happy, successful career- as a party planner!
🙂
Uk oh….
Phoebe is casting a Spell.
A “extra” character ?
Answers to “Honey-Roasted” ?
HR is right out front, dearie.
Invite her in 😛
“Invite her in?”
Too late. Too late.
I’m bettin’ HR is already hibernating under Phoebe’s bedspread.
It sure is fortunate Phoebe has no sense of smell.
I actually ran a search on “Kroka noka” and the only thing that came up was some fruit and vegetable paste created over in Japan called, “Noka” that’s sold in pouches sort of like Capri sun juice drinks were back in the 90’s. I’m actually curious to give it a try, if I can find a place that stocks it.
That makes this about the first time that I’ve ever made up a fake product name and haven’t found later that it was an actual product somewhere in the world.
As Maggie Simpson famously said after putting an Axe in Grounds Keeper Willie’s back and pulling out her pacifier to say, “This is indeed a disturbing universe.” Which is why I sometimes run a search when interesting stuff like this pops up, because you never know.
Yea, the “Noka, superfood pouches” is actually pretty interesting, seems to be targeted at vegetarians and health nuts. I may given them a try if they’re not insanely expensive things if I come across them at a time when I’ve not forgotten about them. Now I’ll stop wasting your time.
Another upside: Broken crown sits better on her head, without her horns getting in the way.
New topic:
EG? I had an interesting thought, while looking at Satan and noting that his horns are at least twice the size of Phoebe’s.
What if half-devil Phoebe’s cute little horns grow slightly every time she commits an evil act (instantly, like Pinocchio’s nose) and Satan secretly hopes she’ll one day achieve her full adult devil maturity size like his own horns.
One day in her early teen years, Phoebe had notice she did something mean and saw her horns jump a couple millimeters in the mirror, and in a fit of teenage rebelliousness crossed with vanity in not wanting to look like her eternally-in-shadow daddy someday… committed to becoming the kind and sunny Phoebe we all know and inexplicably feel a bit guilty about leering at today!
In our actually script for this short series of comic pages, Phoebe has (entirely by accident of course) committed a classically evil or cruel act, resulting in her horns growing a tiny bit (with a sound effect? There should be a sound effect! For some reason my brain is insisting on the old startup noise for Windows 3.1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c7XtGzrf2k&t=23s ) which Puck notices, to Phoebe’s great mortification. Maybe Puck recognizing that noise is the punchline for that strip?
Following strip is flashback briefly expositing what I mentioned above about Phoebe’s history. Puck (holding Miranda, who is focused on digging her hand into the back of her diaper) notes that Phoebe’s horns are relatively large already. Does that mean she did a lot of evil evil acts as a child (Puck is hungry for this gossip!) “I can’t imagine YOU as a child doing evil acts!”
At this moment, Miranda pulls her hand out of the back of her diaper, slaps her own mother across the face, leaving a distinct brown handprint, and giggles in delight.
Puck. “…On the other hand…”
Phoebe: “There you go. Nothing bizarre about little kids doing horrible things. What’s bizarre is that we forgive them for it.”
Hmm. A possible concept, certainly. You’ll note that the picture of child Phoebe has much shorter horns. So the theory could check out.
I didn’t check back to the strip with that old portrait, but I had assumed so.
Ideas for Phoebe’s “Accidental act of undeniable evil” are a wealth of entertaining options by itself.
Example: Phoebe sees an elderly lady struggling to cross a busy street with very short lights. She escorts her across, forcing traffic to wait patiently (she’s been good at stopping traffic since puberty). Soon as she finishes crossing, a swarm of police cars with sirens blaring take advantage of the stalled traffic to zip across the intersection (from the other direction Phoebe hasn’t halted). Phoebe watches them go in surprise (they nearly swiped her dangling tail, which she’s now clutching in her hand). When she turns back, the old lady is speed-walking away with her walker giggling like mad. On the news that evening: “Elderly woman robs bank with only a knife: (bank security too uncomfortable to tackle her)”.
Windows TADA! (horns grow).
…Perhaps you’d like to come up with a scenario that doesn’t involve drawing quite so many cars? ^_-
You know me. I hate drawing all them cars.
Every artist has their comfortable specialty. Yours seems to be attractive women with surprisingly plausible proportions!
heh… oh well… ^_^
(Oh, and for the record, P.I.T.A. or not, no vehicle you’ve yet drawn has had any mistakes capable of catching my eye. Well done.)
When I was about thirteen years old, I realized that the hardest thing to draw was a pretty girl. I could I could draw monsters easily. You want a scary monster? Just add more fangs. Done. Easy. You want to draw a big, strong muscle guy? Add more muscles. Done. But a pretty girl? There is a defined line, a defined proportion that you need to operate within. And if you don’t hit the perfect line, it looks wrong. I’ve been kinda obsessed with getting it right ever since.
I am not always getting it right, alas. But sometimes.
And I find that the girls with implausible proportions (while the brand and butter of many Internet artists) are to my mind a bit of a cheat. The challenge is to draw a REAL pretty girl. Not some ghoulish caricature of a pretty girl.
I’m delighted this is a particular craft you’ve mastered.
^_^