09-24-09 Not Rich Nor Debonair!
CartoonistWill on Sept. 23, 2009
I hope I didn't go overboard with the fence graffiti. Figure out what it all means and I'll give you a cookie.
Ah, the dreaded Garfield curse. Gather round, because you're about to learn the true true true tale of SuperMilo's origin. My stomach muscles wince in abdominal pain at the memory. Anyway, I originally made Milo as a Garfield clone. Jim Davis' Garfield is what got me into cartooning in the first place. Over the years of my youth Milo evolved into SuperMilo. I did include overtime a lot of original non-Garfield content in my series, though. But every now and then someone not in the loop points out that my old comics feel too much like Garfield. Which is why for the reboot of the series I've been trying to go 100% SuperMilo with the time traveling paradoxies, alien goo splattering, pop-culture and superhero genre spoofing, and other funky sci-fi weirdness and bad guy pummeling that is normally found in my favorite series such as TMNT, Sam and Max, The Tick, and Darkwing Duck. But this strip above is a little too much like Garfield. As a matter of fact, having these characters doing anything a real cat (or Garfield) would do painfully looks to me like Garfield. What do you all think? Come on, don't be too shy to comment. I know you're reading my comic, I get at least 10 views a day.
If I haven't mentioned yet, I'm completing and posting this in advance and letting Drunk Duck auto-reveal them to the world. And good news for me! I've finally figure out how to share my comics here on facebook via link (I was sharing SmackJeeves as they have a nifty FB button) and now my average amount of daily views has gone up by 70%! Well, on the day I share it, anyway, har har.
Juvenile_Jay at 11:37PM, Sept. 24, 2009
LOL cool one dude.
CartoonistWill at 3:06PM, Sept. 24, 2009
Thanks, guys, for the comments! @ProfessorF: Right, that's from the old TMNT sewer HQ play set that came out during the 80's and 90's. There was a cardboard fence on the street level of the play set that had Foot Clan Anti-TMNT propaganda on it. :-) Actually, all of the turtles have red masks in the original comic, but I'm glad the cartoons and movies gave them different colors, because it gets confusing. The heart thing is an inside joke, but the "BRAT WAZ HERE" is from something from the 80's that is still putting out new content today.
Ted The Terrible at 9:48AM, Sept. 24, 2009
Looks great man. Regarding Garfield: I never thought of the similarity until today when I saw them sitting on the fence, then I read your post and laughed. Well done.
ProfessorF at 5:19AM, Sept. 24, 2009
The one bit of graffiti appears to be the foot clan sharing its distaste for Raphael, but the others have me stumped. As for the strip, I don't think it's too "Garfield" like. In fact, I think it adds to the humor to show pre-Super Milo as an honest-to-goodness cat. Them sitting on the fence in the second panel is a hoot!