This is the story of the life and times of Pete and Tom! Pete is a top hat wearing circle and Tom is a clever triangle. This might seem like a comic about simple shapes but there's more to it: The slice of life adventures these guys get up ...

While binge watching Schitt’s Creek, I started to see the emerging love story between Alexis Rose, Mutt the bad-boy, and Ted the veterinarian. That was when I wanted to discuss one of my favorite comic tropes of the alpha male versus the beta male.

In Spiderman, Harry Osbourne is ...

There were a few romances in the Uncanny X-Men series from the vanilla romance of Scott Summers and Jean Grey, to the mysterious love story between Havok and Polaris, and the drawn out love triangle between Wolverine and Jean. But the one romance that constantly tortured me with comic covers ...

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There are many kinds love. Love is a great thing to include in your story for all sorts of reasons: it's an easy way to develop ...

CHARACTER SHAPES

I remember hearing about this notion some time ago, on the dvd special features for an animated movie or show. I don't remember which one.

Characters derived from basic shapes can give a very strong impression of their basic personality type. This can help the audience feel ...

Love spells have been a part of literature for a long, long time. A Midsummer Night's Dream comes to mind, by that William Shakespeare fella, where a love triangle/quadrangle is made more complex when the wrong target is affected. The correction has only one dude under the spell ...

The other day I read a very interesting post by our very own Vickie of Used Books where she was talking about Romance. And what caught my eye the most was her description of the driving force behind romance stories as “relationship-driven conflict”- a very succinct way to put it ...

From the Best of Banes Collection…

CHARACTER SHAPES

I've never consciously designed characters this way, but I recently remembered hearing about this notion some time ago, on the dvd special features for an animated movie or show. I don't remember which one.
Characters derived from basic shapes can ...

art by Sandy Jarrell


The Hated, Part One - Villain Heroes

I've picked up all the “new” versions of the Archie universe and enjoyed them to different degrees for the most part. Sometimes there are a few laughs. Or some nice artwork. Or just the fun of seeing the characters ...

Pumpkin carving! It’s one of those funny types of art like Easter egg painting or decorating gingerbread cookies that you only ever get to do once a year. I never seem to get much better at pumpkin carving, but that doesn’t stop me from getting pretty intense about ...