Suburban Fairy Tales

A Smile for Savannah Smiles

Mar09

by francisbonnet on March 9, 2012 at 3:30 pm

So I did this Girl Scouts cookies gag a few weeks ago. Little Pig #3 talks about how much he loves Girl Scouts cookies, ordered a year’s worth of cookies and then it all ends with a funny punchline (at least I thought it was funny). The interesting thing is that it’s actually me speaking through Little Pig #3, because I (like most of America) love Girl Scouts cookies. My favorite has always been Samoas, but I just got a chance to try out their new cookie, Savannah Smiles, and I now I have another favorite.

Okay, so bottom line — Do I like Savannah Smiles cookies as much as Samoas? No, but they are a close second. The cookie has a very lemony taste — almost as if someone took lemonade flavoring and injected it into a gingerbread cookie. It’s pretty yummy… and just like Little Pig #3, I don’t think I’ll want to share them.

This time of year when Girl Scout cookies are being sold I tend to only order Samoas. Why would I order something else when I only want to eat my favorite? Well, this year I decided that I’ll be ordering a mix of Samoas and Savvanah Smiles. Besides, cookies make an excellent snack to munch on when you’re cartooning.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my advertisement for Girl Scout cookies. I should get paid for this.

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What’s in a Name?

Feb17

by francisbonnet on February 17, 2012 at 1:29 pm

Posted In: News Blog

Coming up with the name of a comic strip isn’t necessarily an easy process. You want your title to be something different than what’s already out there, and you also want it to be memorable. But most importantly, you want to make sure that you pick a name that will allow your strip to grow and change.

I’ve made the mistake of limiting the growth of my comic strip in the past with Crunchy. Crunchy originally followed the adventures of a pet turtle of the same name. As the strip went on, however, Crunchy the Turtle was featured less and less. Soon the strip started to focus more on the neighborhood kids and Crunchy the Turtle went from the strip’s star character to a recurring character. After I ended Crunchy I made a mental note that the title of my future comic strip series would leave them more open for evolution.

Shortly after Crunchy ended I came up with the concept for Suburban Fairy Tales. I had originally thought that Fairy Tale High School would be a good name, but then I thought… what if I don’t want them to be in high school anymore? What if in ten years I wanted my characters to go to college or even beyond? As a comic strip writer, you never know where your mind will be in five, ten, or twenty years from now. Suburban Fairy Tales sums up the concept that my strip is about Fairy tales characters living in a suburban community. There’s plenty of room for growth and change in that title.

Charles Schulz’s Peanuts is a great example of what a comic strip title should be. I know he hated the name and Lil’ Folks would have definitely been better, but the point I’m trying to make is that the name Peanuts didn’t handcuff the strip to its original premise and characters. If Schulz had titled his comic strip The Adventures of Charlie Brown, Shermy, and Patty he would have been forced to use those three characters for the next 50 years. But Shermy and Patty eventually disappeared from the strip and the Peanuts of the 1950s is a completely different strip from Peanuts of the 1990s. Peanuts was allowed to grow and evolve because the name didn’t hold it back.

So when coming up with the name of a comic strip, keeping your title open is advice you may want to consider. Because what you’re writing about when you’re 15 isn’t necessarily the same thing you want to be writing about when you’re 30.

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Goldilocks or Alice?

Jan03

by francisbonnet on January 3, 2012 at 1:00 am

Posted In: News Blog

As all my loyal readers know, in my comic strip Goldilocks is the second most popular girl in school after Rapunzel. But when Goldilocks first appeared in Suburban Fairy Tales back in March 2009, she was actually supposed to be Alice from Alice in Wonderland. Crazy, huh?

As you can see from this first picture, I originally drew “Goldilocks” with straight hair, not the curly “locks” that she has always been depicted with in the original fairy tales. Why did I design her this way? Well, that’s because she was Alice! It wasn’t until I was cleaning up in the artwork from her first appearance in Photoshop that I realized Alice just wouldn’t be a good sidekick for Rapunzel. I needed a fairy tale character who was more self-centered and snobby. Then I thought about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In the original fairy tale, Goldilocks apparently had no qualms about breaking into the three bears’ house, sleeping in their beds and eating their food. A character as self-centered as THAT would definitely be a much better sidekick than Alice. So in Photoshop I changed all references of her as “Alice” and made them “Goldilocks.”

The only problem with the quick name change was that it was too late to change the artwork. Suburban Fairy Tales’ Goldilocks didn’t really look anything like classic Goldilocks and that kind of annoyed me. So with each subsequent appearance I gradually gave her longer hair and “curled” it to give her the appearance of having “golden locks.” This second image of her was from her latest appearance in December 2011. I’m much happier with my new Goldilocks’ character design.

So why does any of this matter? Well I wanted to use this as an example to show that I’m not above making corrections to my strip. Sometimes I look back at my work and think about how I should have done things differently. One good example of this is coming up in a future storyline. I don’t like my Prince Charming — I don’t like this personality or his character design. So I’m going to introduce another Prince Charming. Oh, don’t worry, there will be an explanation… but I don’t plan on spoiling it here!

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Drawing Suburban Fairy Tales

Dec06

by francisbonnet on December 6, 2011 at 1:09 pm

Posted In: News Blog

Drawing a comic strip is a thoughtful process. Most of the time I sit down for an hour or so and sketch a whole bunch of ideas into my sketchbook — whatever comes to mind, good or bad. Then the following day I’ll go back to my sketchbook and re-read my ideas. Sometimes the ideas are really great and they go right into the comic strip. Other times the ideas are so-so, but have potential, so I attempt to re-write them to make them better. Other times the ideas are simply awful and I put a big X through them.

Sitting down to write these ideas is a pretty straightforward process, but sometimes an idea comes to me out of the blue. That’s when I have scramble to write it down somewhere because I know that in two minutes I’ll be distracted by something else and forget the idea entirely.

One example of an idea popping up is when I was sitting at my booth at NY Comic Con. I was drawing sketches for fans who purchased a copy of my book. Most of the sketches were characters in simple poses, but one sketch featuring Red Riding Hood spawned an idea that I thought would be great for the actual comic strip. So I made sure to snap a picture of that sketch before I gave it away so I could remember it for later use in Suburban Fairy Tales.

Below is the original sketch idea from NY Comic Con. The other photos are each step I take in drawing a strip — from pencils to the final product. The final completed strip was posted on October 28, 2011.

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Family Circus Creator, Bil Keane, Passes Away

Nov11

by francisbonnet on November 11, 2011 at 8:57 am

Posted In: News Blog

You may or may not have heard the sad news, but Bil Keane, creator of The Family Circus, passed away at the age of 89 on November 8.

Love it or hate it, The Family Circus is one of the most famous and treasured newspaper comics of all time. Yes, I know many people consider The Family Circus to be corny, but the strip has had a major impact on the funny pages since its launch in 1960.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bil Keane back in 2000 at the Reuben Awards held at the World Trade Center in New York City. He was a very nice man and actually very funny in person. He was kind enough to draw me a quick sketch, which I would like to share below.