A Difference of Opinion

Today's Quixote Coyote Strip:

One of the reasons I'm really enjoying this strip, is that it's fairly easy to write Quixote and Sancho (and Panda for that matter) for me, since both of them feel like natural extensions of aspects of my own personality.  Having said that, Panel 4 definitely echoes some moments between me and Mei.  We've definitely had some times where I've said something utterly ridiculous, and Mei's just been like, "I don't get you at all."  Heh.

Booga-Booga

Today's Quixote Coyote strip:

I came up with today's strip while waiting on pizza with my Mei on Sunday.  The idea for the strip just popped (almost fully formed) into my head.  I liked it, and now, two days later, it's online.  That's what I like about comics:  They're right here, right now.

Night Two Begins

Today's Quixote Coyote strip:

And so, Night Two in the Haunted Mansion begins in earnest.  I haven't reread the Fairy Tale that this arc is vaguely based on, so I'm not sure what's in the cards for Quixote Coyote tonight.  Instead, I thought I would start off with a good old fashioned ghost.  Except that this ghost is obviously inspired by the ghost from that one episode of Adventure Time.  You know the one.

The biggest problem I've found with this strip is that there's only 16 strips in a package of Bristol.  That's a little over three weeks worth of strips.  Whaaaa?  I need like a bulk strip package.  And yes, I know, I could just be buying large sheets of regular bristol and chopping them up, but 1) I'm lazy, and 2) I kinda like the blue line ruler marks that let me create relatively even panel borders (because anyone who knows anything about me knows that otherwise I'm just gonna freehand it).

You know why they invented the term "Starving Artist", by the by?  Because Art Supplies are expensive. 

End of the Week Wake Up Call

Today's Quixote Coyote strip:

What I like about Comic Strips are their Free Form nature.  You can kind of just improv and riff, and just throw stuff out at random whenever you want to.  Case in point, at no point in any of the previous Quixote Coyote strips have I established that the Haunted House is, itself, Sentient or can talk.  But in today's strip, it is and does.  Why?  Comics, that's why.

Thpbbpt.

Today's Quixote Coyote Strip:

I'm feeling very Sancho today, so I'm just gonna walk away with my tongue out.  Thpbbpt.

Gag Strip

Today's Episode of Quixote Coyote (where Quixote neither appears nor is mentioned):

When I decided to do a daily comic strip, the first thing I decided was that I wasn't going to waste my time trying to do a Gag Strip.  Now, there's nothing wrong with the Traditional Newspaper Gag Strip.  I love Peanuts and Pearls Before Swine and all that stuff.  But for me, the idea of being trapped into trying to come up with a Joke Every Single Day...  well, that just wasn't gonna happen.  I'm not built for that.  So, instead, I came up with this rambling, adventure strip-style format, which (once again) bears homage to Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse and (Southern Illinois Native) E. C. Segar's Popeye.

Having said that, I also wasn't gonna shy away from a good Gag if I stumbled into one.  Which is where we ended up with today's strip.  The whole idea of the Bogus Autographed Baseball just kind of popped into my head as a way to demonstrate Panda's... we'll be nice and call it Naive nature.  That the Baseball could then come back around later and be used to also demonstrate Sancho's more Skeptical nature, and lead to a decent joke?  Not planned, I assure you.

Kismet is weird.

Again, I'm still learning how to draw Panda, but, man, I get a kick out of drawing Sancho.  His facial expressions in Panels 3 & 4 are priceless.

Sancho & Panda

Today's Strip:

And so we formally introduce two of our Supporting Characters.  Obviously, I wanted a Donald Duck and a Goofy for this strip, but I couldn't actually have, y'know, Donald Duck and Goofy.  So, thematically, I thought about the whole idea of Quixote Coyote.  With the Quixote part, I had a name for these two characters.  Don Quixote had a sidekick named Sancho Panza, so all I had to do was split the name in half, and I had two names, Sancho and Panza.  I remembered there was a Hannah-Barbera Cartoon from the late 80s/early 90s called Don Coyote (possibly a minor influence on this strip as well), and the character Don Coyote had a sidekick called Sancho Panda.  I always liked that play on the name, so Panza becomes Panda.  When coming up with the species of these two, I went with the Coyote part of Quixote Coyote.  I thought about Wile E. Coyote, whose primary target/enemy, of course, was the Road Runner, while his secondary was Bugs Bunny (there were several cartoons where an uncharacteristically talking Wile E. attempts to outwit and devour Bugs, claims to be a Super Genius, and repeatedly fails in said endeavor.  Strangely enough, in another cartoon, Bugs simply plays the role of the Roadrunner, and as such Wile E. remains Mute throughout.  Bugs meanwhile gets to be his traditional wiseacre self, while scarfing down pills to give him superspeed... which, in retrospect, probably sends the wrong message).  So, Sancho is a Roadrunner, and Panda is a Bunny, who, strangely enough, has a Panda-esque Color Scheme.  Sancho is pretty easy and fun for me to draw.  He kinda reminds me of the Dodo from the old Porky Pig short, as well as a little of the Angry Crow I used to draw back in the original SDF days.  I'm still working on Panda.  The face and the black area around the eyes haven't quite clicked for me that.  I'll figure it out.  Anyway, the character template for these two obviously goes back to Goofy and Donald, in that you've got a tall, gangly, happy-go-lucky fool in Panda, and a short, unlucky, angry at the world fool in Sancho.  I'm looking forward to working with these guys.