I decided to do three A3 comics on parodying and flouting the conventions of three different cartoons. I would've liked to have done more and perhaps compiled them into a small book but I didn't allow enough time.
I started with Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner and tried to represent the characters in a way that combined the original character's designs and my own way of drawing. Here I decided to use watercolour because the colour palettes seem to play a large role in the aesthetics of these cartoons and paint was a simple and effective way to emulate this.
These characters could have done with more development as I wasn't quite happy with Roadrunners body or coyotes face and expressions.
Here I tried to redesign Tom and Jerry in a recognisable but slighty different way. I am quite pleased with how the cat heads turned out, I was trying to make him look more evil than the actual character while still maintaining a friendly children's cartoon veneer.
did some more laboured drawings, sketching out in pencil first
Practising evil facial expressions
a successful cat face. I had trouble in the mouse sketches figuring out how to draw his mouth
characters in action, pouncing and devouring.
Practising the mouse character. I struggled to make an appealing and symmetrical face shape
Trying different heads and some smiley cheeks
The plan for my Tom and Jerry comic. This is based on the assumption of the cartoon that Tom will chase Jerry and never catch him, which I subverted with Tom mercilessly devouring Jerry. I tried to emulate shots seen in the cartoon, such as Jerry teasing the cat and the side view of chase scenes. It could've done with a lot more fine tuning but I had to rush straight into production.
Coyote comin on the left and Disney on the right. The left subverts the same plotline as previous (persistently unsuccessful chase between natural enemies ) but I chose instead to have coyote give up on what he can never accomplish and leave the scene defeated. In the first two panels he is building some kind of Rube Goldberg contraption but this will prove too complex to design in the limited amount of time. The Disney one is my least favourite as it feels like a slightly overdone theme. It flouts the assumption that the male and female lead will succumb to love at first sight by showing the princess not reciprocating the prince's affections. I won't make this into a comic though because I think it's weaker than the other comics, and there's something bothersome about a set of four comics.
A different plot for the coyote comic in which he kills roadrunner and is lost for what to do now that he's accomplished his life goal. I did prefer this comic to the other because I think the second page of had a nice moment where his life calmly crumbles, but I decided on the other one because this doesn't fit on A3 and because I already explored the outcome of predator winning in the Tom and Jerry comic, so I chose to portray a different possibility.
A3 sketch plan of coyote comic, I changed the machine to a large weight like those commonly scene in slapstick cartoons. This was much easier to draw and made more sense for roadrunner to escape from. I tried to play with the composition of frames using different angles for each image and imitating those used in the cartoon, such as the long shots into the distance with roadrunner approaching on the horizon.
I had already design this comic and practised the characters earlier in the project so I went straight to a second plan sketch where I omitted some frames to improve the pacing. I'm not sure about the tooth grinding image though because I can't decide on the onomatopoeia for teeth grinding, so without that they're just mysteriously bloody teeth.
Sketch of Tom and Jerry comic, this stayed pretty much the same as my original sketch but I changed the cat's facial expression to appear more thuggish, and the end pose I made him sit up to look more eerily smug.
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