Dear Readers;
After
almost 5 years working on "Plastic Babyheads" and its follow-up,
"Jetpack Jr.", I've come to something of a cross-roads. If you read
my last post, you probably know where this is going.
via GIPHY
I've
got lots of ideas for other projects. There are a lot of other things I'd like
to do-and sad to say, I can't do them all. After a lot of deliberating, I've
decided the time has come to put "Jetpack Jr." and my comic strip
dreams aside- or at least on hold.
It
hasn't been an easy decision to make. I've loved every minute of working on
PBHFOS and JJ, and I put my heart & soul, as well as blood & sweat,
into the strip. I've been proud to be a part of the GoComics line-up for the
last three years. But from day one the strip had problems at GoComics,
and it never caught on with an audience. I've grown increasingly frustrated
with its inability to attract subscribers( a subscriber base of just under
1800; for months it hovered near that mark, and then once reached the
1799 mark only to lose 5 or 6 the next day!)--and more than that,
frustrated with the core of the strip itself, the character of
"Jetpack".
While
the surrounding characters became clear to me as I worked along, Hank and
Marsha in particular, after "Babyheads" the character of
"Jetpack" seemed to lose focus for me. Increasingly, he seemed to be
an alien without motivation. The concept of the alien in the home has
become so well-known, from "My Favorite Martian" to "E.T."
to "Home" and so well done--it seemed to leave "Jetpack"
little room to move. Who needs another alien at home story?
Coupled
with my growing interest in animation, as well as other projects I'd like to
return to or begin--it began to feel as though continued devotion to working on
"Jetpack" was akin to chaining myself to a hollow log. I'd come to
realize my hopes for the strip were clouded by denial;"Jetpack"
wasn't going to develop a bigger audience, it hadn't really connected with the
audience it had-- and more than that, I'd begun to doubt my premise and main
character. Once you lose belief in the world you're creating, it's very hard to
get it back.
And
then "Bella Dilemma" came along. And other ideas. I don't know if any
of those will have the public platform "Jetpack" has had( small as it
has been), but my heart tells me this is the way to go. There comes a moment
when remaining steadfast to one set of ideals poses a potential threat to the
very spark of life at the center of one's creativity--and I think I'm at that
point. My ideas are moving in a different direction now, and deferring them in
favor of some misguided hope for the comic strip seems self-defeating, if not delusional.
So
it's time to call it a day. But just as this day ends, another begins. And I'm
already at work on my next projects; "Bella Dilemma" being foremost
among them. The work on the strip these last 5 years hasn't been in vain. Far
from it! It's not only given me valuable experience but "Bella
Dilemma", and a host of other great characters--all of whom play a part in
my upcoming animation projects. In fact, PBHFOS has found new life as one
of those projects--and here's a clip from a pitch
for an animated series I'm working on!
Plastic Babyheads from Outer Space_test trailer from Geoff Grogan on Vimeo.
There's more to come here--and who knows where that might lead?
So--while
it's always sad to come to the end of one phase of life and it's never easy to
say "goodbye", it's exciting to come to a new fork in the road-and
wonder what lies ahead. Like most of my projects, it may not attract the big
audience I've always dreamed of--but it's sure to be interesting. And who
knows? "Jetpack" may yet find his way into my animation. So, wish me
well. Until we meet again....
Geoff
Ladies and Gentlemen, here she is--in her first -ever film appearance: Bella Dilemma starring in the "Bella Dilemma TV Show Trailer" with music by the Duffy Jackson Big Band from Nashville, TN!
Bella Dilemma TV Show Trailer from
Geoff Grogan on
Vimeo.
The time off from my strip, "Jetpack Jr." has not all been spent lounging by the pool. Nope, 10-12 hour days, 7 days a week for six months or so has been eating, drinking , sleeping this one minute trailer. Talk about compressing time! But that's what happens when you get older; 15 years goes by like a Summer afternoon.
So why Bella Dilemma, and why a trailer rather than a proper film?
To answer the first; there's a story to tell with that character, and readers of my strip seem to react positively whenever she appears. I don't know, it must be the Bee-hive.
The second:
I had a relatively brief amount of time in which to make a film, and a
lot to learn, designing and animating the entire project myself. Doing a
trailer allowed me to create a broad narrative while spanning a variety
of scenarios, all in just over a minute.
And I wanted to try my hand at creating a TV series. "Bella Dilemma" is the kind of series I'd like to see, and I thought there may be others who would find it entertaining as well.
So there's not only the trailer, but a Pitch Bible (with lots of pretty pictures!) and a fully-worked out premise. In coming weeks, "Jetpack Jr." will feature an introduction to the series in an "imaginary" Jetpack story( just like those old 'imaginary" stories in "Superman's Pal"Jimmy Olsen". It didn't really happen--but it did.).
Every pitch starts with a logline, a 1-2 sentence summation of the premise that might get viewers to give it a shot on Amazon or Netflix--and here's mine:
A Hollywood Movie Queen and a diminutive stunt-man in a monster costume,
lost in an alternate dimension where every movie is its own reality.
And the premise:
You say you’ve never heard of Bella Dilemma; “World’s Greatest Movie Star”? It’s no surprise really.
Bella Dilemma WAS the “World’s Greatest Movie Star” until one
evening, while she slept soundly in the comfort of her Beverly Hills
home, a shadowy figure broke in and absconded with her Oscar, after
which she woke to find herself on the sound-stage of a world gone mad,
where no one had ever heard of “Bella Dilemma” and she was just another stand-in on a Hollywood movie-set. This alternate dimension is the
“Cine-Verse”, where all the movies ever made are their own reality and
the Oscar is a mysterious Genie-like figure rumored to have the power to
make dreams come true. Together with her unlikely companion, Al Z., a
diminutive stunt-man in a monster suit and a grizzled vet of many a
back-lot, she travels from one movie scenario to another in search of
the elusive Oscar, and the life she once had.
That only scratches the surface--and a blog post isn't the place to go into more detail, but suffice to say there are plots written for a bunch of episodes already, a variety of other characters with backstories and the whole bit. So tune in to "Jetpack Jr." in September to see how Bella Dilemma unfolds.
And now that most of the work on the trailer is done, I should have time to post a bit more than I have. There's a lot of stuff left over that didn't make it into the trailer- and lots of drawings-that I'd like to share, and I've kept up with my reading too, so there are books to talk about too!
Meanwhile, I hope you've enjoyed the Bella Dilemma Trailer--and I hope it makes you want to see more! If so, please share it as often as you can and maybe together we can make that happen!
Cheers!
Geoff
If you read today's "Jetpack Jr." at GoComics, then you know "Jetpack" will be on vacation for a month or so--but while he takes it easy on some interstellar beach somewhere in space, I'll be toiling away here at home on another project involving JJ's best pal.
Bella Dilemma comes to life!
Yes, indeedy--I'm working hard on the pitch for an animated TV show built around the babe with the biggest beehive this side of Planet Uterus!( *see my previous post) More to the point--I'm working on an animated teaser/trailer to whet the whistle of potential viewers and TV development execs! Check out this sample:
via GIPHY
This gif is the result of a character model sheet I was doing for Bella( which means drawing her in the round,for those who don't speak the lingo). I got inspired and took it a little farther than intended--but I
couldn't wait to see her move. This is only a sample test run--the following piece is a slightly more ambitious bit of animation; a "pencil test" for a segment in the middle of the proposed trailer/ show opening:
via GIPHY
Befitting a geezer of my years, all of this material is old-skool, hand-drawn animation on paper. Exactly the method I learned forty years ago studying animation at PCA (before it was the University of the Arts in Phila.). I'm not entirely a dinosaur, as I work into the project I'm utilizing ToonBoom software to help bring it all together.
If you've read some of my previous posts, you know I've been moving towards animation for over a year now. The gravitational pull has been irresistible-so I stopped fighting. "The project" at this point is attempting to give the viewer a feel for what the proposed "Bella Dilemma" TV show would be like. The theoretical show opening, or teaser/trailer, will take the viewer through the series scenario in thirty + seconds or so; and if all goes well--excite he or she enough to make them want to tune in.
If it's not as complete a view as a pilot episode can provide; certainly it's as much as I can do on my own within the limits of the time allotted to me to work on it. As this is my first animated project in many years, I felt my best chance for success was to limit the scope of the undertaking--and even at just 30 seconds or so, it's a lot; there's so much to do-aside from just animating the characters!
In the next few weeks I hope to post some images of all that "so much to do" and maybe some more animations, and maybe I'll clue you in to the show scenario; it's quite different from the world of "Jetpack Jr." and the Bella you know there.
So-- that's why I'm taking some time off "JJ".
But when this project is done, it's back to the drawing board!
I'll be 56 in May. I try not to focus on that, but it does rear its (bald) head now and again--in particular when one is traveling along a well known path, and something unexpected happens, something that requires...attention. I thought at this age all the decisions had been made, all the difficulties of youth had been settled and all I had to do was ride it out until retirement--and then sail on off into the sunset with my wife and pets at my side. Isn't that what "old people" are supposed to do?
Instead-at (almost) 56--I've decided to start over again--well, almost. For the last few years I've been drawn more and more into the study of animation, picking up where I'd left off as an undergraduate art student back in 1981. It began with animation history( for a course I began teaching at Adelphi U.) then design and layout (to adapt into my comics work)--and now, the practice of the medium itself. Over this last weekend I received my idol Richard Williams' great The Animator's Survival Kit, along with Marcie Begleiter's book on storyboarding, From Word to Image--and I've been immersed in both books to the neglect of everything else ever since.
That's not all, prior to that I'd read (and written about) David Levy's From Pitch to Production, and I recently finished Joe Murray's Creating Animated Cartoons with Character-both of which were excellent introductions to the world of TV animation. As a result, I've spent the last month or so, working on a project I never thought I'd do--a pitch bible for a possible animated TV show.
Yup! And I've got to say--while it was one of the most challenging projects I've ever worked on, it was also a blast! What's the show, you ask? Well-here's a sneak peek:
Whaddya think? I don't want to reveal too much about the idea just yet, but obviously--it's a spin-off from "Plastic Babyheads" & "Jetpack Jr." and starring my most popular character; Bella! Just a word--it's very different from the worlds of my comics; a different scenario and a different Bella too. I'm pretty excited about the results, excited enough that I'm working on a storyboard for a proposed episode, and may even work up some sample animation. And while I don't have any connections in the industry, I've been trying to get it in the right hands.
"Bella Dilemma"' isn't the only pitch in the works. I have a bunch of different ideas, many spun off of different aspects of my comic strips--and I'm going to try and see them all to some sort of realization--even if it is only a two-page pitch. But TV isn't the only avenue--I'm hopeful that at the very least, I'll be able to make my own shorts and pick up where I left off 35 years ago. It's late in the game, I know, and I frequently ask myself, "what are you doing?"
The answer is simply, living life. Our culture places a premium on youth, it's built into the cultural DNA--but such a view shortchanges life post-40, which for many can be half of the experience--and in many ways, the better half. As generation succeeds generation, and one pop culture replaces another in the economic "mainstream", a tendency to dismiss those no longer tethered to consumerist cycles becomes a prevailing cultural attitude. It has nothing to do with vitality or experience, and everything to do with economics (and technology-as it is tied to the economy). What I'm trying to say is, we shouldn't be so dismissive of people who don't sit on pins and needles waiting for every next tune or music video, or who haven't kept up with who's on "Jimmy Kimmel". But we "older folks" sometimes allow that thinking into our own conception of self, and it can be self-defeating. It's no minor thing, to work past that little voice in your head that whispers every morning " you're too old, you don't have time, you're irrelevant, you're not a kid anymore. What do you expect to accomplish?" But working past it is what we have to do. What I have to do.
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Having said all that, I've gotten great information and inspiration from the suite of books on animation I've been reading, starting with the aforementioned David Levy's book, "Animation Development: From Pitch to Production".
Prior to Levy's book, I'd read-and thoroughly enjoyed The Noble Approach:Maurice Noble and the Zen of Animation Design ably adapted from Maurice Noble's lectures and notes by protege, Tod Polson.
Filled with terrific illustrations from
Maurice Noble's work for Chuck Jones
at Warner Brothers and elsewhere, it serves both as retrospective catalogue and a course in layout and design from one of the great masters. I continue to refer to it for inspiration in both my comic strip work and my designs for pitches like "Bella Dilemma".
Similarly, Joe Murray's book, Creating Animated Cartoons with Character: A Guide to Developing and Producing Your Own Series is chock full of terrific advice from an experienced animation producer, and includes insightful interviews a wide variety of pros such as Steve Hillenburg and Craig McCracken.
Murray lays out a clear path from imagination to pitch to production, and while success of the kind he's detailing may be elusive, he is both an encouraging mentor and engaging raconteur. This attractive book is also filled with Murray's illustrations, which is a big plus.
That's all for now! Thanks for reading!
