At Night All Mice Are Gray (page 3)

Fitz on Aug. 18, 2007

So, we get to know more and more about The Girl. As I mentioned before, she's not a fictional character, either. She's as real as can be - if I can say so about someone I met online ;) Aaanyway… Erica's one of my best friends, and my official Muse. And she's taking that role seriously. She keeps giving me inspiration for new espisodes and tells me everything I need to know for my writings. Not to mention teaching me ghetto talk! LOL! Also, it was her that gave me the idea for the comic and helps me develop the story.

So what's the origin of “A Bit Cheesy”?

Erica lives in New York, which - as some of you might know - is not exactly the cleanest place on Earth. So, every now and then I'd hear of the mice invading her apartment, making poltergeist noises in the middle of the night, successfully depriving her of sleep - and of her scheme to wipe the rodents of the surface of the planet. One time, I suggested that'd be a cool idea for a cartoon - a story of mice triplets called Die, Die and Die. She changed that to Die, Dead and Dying - as in Ed, Edd & Eddy.

The next day, I decided I'm doing a comic about them. Even though I hadn't drawn anything in years.

We talked about the basic premise some more. She wanted it to be an Itchy & Scratchy sorta thing. She'd be this Lara Croft-esque chick, bullets strapped to her leg and an eye-patch, and a gun with which she'd mutilate and massacre the menacing mice - by the names of Die, Dead and Dying. I loved the idea, and actually had ingenious character designs in mind for them.

But then, all of a sudden, I got a DIFFERENT idea.

I thought: ditch the uzis! Ditch the hate! What if one of the mice actually FELL IN LOVE with her? That's how I came up with the story of Mick trying to approach the girl and Ryan half helping him, half putting him down all the time. No bloodshed. No casualties. So, in the end, the only thing that was masacred and mutilated was the original idea. Hee hee hee :) She kind of hated me for that.

But now she loves the comic.

She's always the first one to see the complete pages. She also owns a custom made t-shirt with Mick on the front and Ryan on the back - and soon will get more A Bit Cheesy goodies. She finds both characters “cute”, but actually prefers Ryan. She likes his style. She even pictures him with a five-o'clock shadow. I asked her: You do realize it's a mouse, right?

On a side-note, I really love the sofa and the pillows in the big panel. It's hands down the best piece of shading I've ever done.

And as always, I encourage you to try and fish out the hidden motifs and not-so-hidden allusions :) I love putting them in all kinds of places and I'm happy when people notice them :D