I'm happy to share today's Rhymes With Orange, which features my latest collaboration with the comic's creator, Hilary Price.
As is usually the case, the final comic has changed a bit from my very rough rough submission sketch. Hilary tightened up the dialog and made the interaction more of a conversation by showing the two dogs strolling along as they speak to each other.
During a recent Q&A session, I was asked if it's easier to write gags about people or animals, and I somewhat glibly replied, "Even when they’re about animals, they’re about people." To be sure, sometimes an dog or cat gag is no more than a clever comment on the animal's attributes, but I almost always use animal characters as surrogates for people, to comment on the human condition. I think that's the case for most cartoonists who aspire to any depth in their work.
This gag also highlights a consistent theme in Hilary's work—using anxieties and fears as a springboard for gags. She often discusses this when talking about her comics. I had hoped that this gag about making a good impression on a date would resonate with her, and it did.
As I've mentioned before, it is a true pleasure to work with other cartoonists, particularly someone as excellent as Hilary. She won a Reuben Award from the National Cartoonists Society this May, as well as an Inkpot Award this month at San Diego Comic-Con, so don't just take my word for how great she is. Both awards were well-earned.
As always, thanks for reading and commenting!
After a long break, here's a new Rhymes With Orange collaboration with my good pal Hilary Price:
This one percolated for a while before taking its final form. It started as a doodle in the margin of a sketch for another panel, and originally depicted a mime ventriloquist holding a dummy that looks just like him:
I thought the image was interesting, and had some promise as the seed of a gag, so I sent a larger sketch to Hilary to see what she might come up with.
Hilary thought that the ventriloquist shouldn't be a mime, but possibly a a novice, starting off with a mime dummy; or maybe a dissatisfied customer returning it to the store, saying "I couldn't get it to work." After further consideration, she came up with the very funny gag published today.
This is a perfect example of the way Hilary and I collaborate. Her final cartoon is often quite different from the submission sketch. My rough usually serves as a springboard for her own take on a concept, and the results are always surprising and rewarding to me. It's a joy to work with other cartoonists from time to time, and to gain a fresh perspective.
In fact, this sparked yet another idea that I just might use sometime in the future...
We have a few more joint comics in the pipeline, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you are invited to peruse our previous collaborations, archived in this blog's RWO Suitcase.
