GUESS WHO'S CONTRIBUTING TO DEAD DUCK???

If you check me out at Myspace.com, then you probably know where this is going. If not, then you're in for a pretty juicy bit of Dead Duck news....!

Over the course of the past couple to a few weeks, I've sent out e-mails to a handful of cartoonists whom I absolutely worship, asking them if they'd be interested in drawing a pin-up for my upcoming Dead Duck graphic novel. The list was short but specific, and each artist was chosen for the inspiration they unknowingly contributed to the development of my creation.

Out of that exclusive selection, one cartoonist, the guy, in fact, who I thought the least likely to respond, the guy who was by far the biggest name and biggest long-shot in my cartoonist wish list, actually wrote me back. He was extremely nice, and shockingly said he knew of my work (likely through Myspace), really enjoyed it and LOVED Zombie Chick! He suggested he'd be interested, but wasn't sure if it was something he could have ready immediately because of his busy schedule (and man, does he EVER have a busy schedule!). So I shot him another e-mail, telling him my deadline wasn't even until March of 2009, so there was plenty of time. After that, I left town to see The Kids In The Hall with Laura in Royal Oak. By the time I got back home today, there was yet another e-mail from the man, saying that YES, he would be able to draw the pin-up!

And who is this awesome cartoonist that I'm so completely head-over-heels for who's agreed to draw a pin-up of my characters? Well, let me put it this way...













You ever see the Disney cartoon Lilo and Stitch?

Chris Sanders, the film's creator, writer, designer, co-director and voice of Stitch himself (and now, the hilarious and gorgeous online comic Kiskaloo) has agreed to take on Dead Duck through his own gorgeous artistic vision. It will be featured prominently in the Dead Duck graphic novel which again, will be released in November of 2009. I am so gloriously excited about this, folks. To me, this is huge. And it's the biggest compliment someone's paid my work in a long time. Chris is now in an exclusive club of established cartoonists who dig Zombie Chick (Groo the Wanderer-creator Sergio Aragones conveyed his own love of my undead chicken when I met him last summer at the Motor City Comic Con).

So that's the news, folks! If any of the other's I'd written happen to get back with me, I'll let you know. But seriously, I'm on such a cloud right now that I don't feel I need anyone else. Chris is the ultimate!

More news later, kids!

THE BIG MOVE

I've been meaning to mention this for awhile, and I'm sure I've hinted at it here or there in various posts over the past two months or so. But now, I feel the time is right to lay the cards down and show you people the hand I'm playing.

Laura and I are moving. Not immediately, mind you, but in the next two months. She got accepted into the masters program at Eastern Michigan to study theater, so we're pulling up stakes and moving down there. We've signed onto an apartment in Ann Arbor and we're officially moving in on July 25th.

Now before any MORE of you can utter the now much-repeated phrase: "But what will YOU do down there, Jay?", I pose you with THIS question:

Do you even read this blog?

I've got a graphic novel coming out in November of 2009, with a March 2009 deadline, so that's what I'm doing. Plus, I'm a freelance cartoonist. I've already got work lined up into September with more on the way. If I decide I want to get a job around town, or if I even have the time to, I will. But I'm a cartoonist with a book pending, folks. Asking me what I'm going to do when we move is like asking Jim Henson "What'll you do if this whole puppeteering thing doesn't pan out?"

So anyway, now you guys know. I'll make sure to give out our contact info to any interested parties when the info becomes mine to give. In the meantime, to any of my friends reading this who happen to live or have family in southern Michigan, just know that I'll soon be in a bit closer proximity to hang, meet for lunch or engage in a drive-by should you insult my possee or dis my baby's mama (No mom, Laura's not pregant. It's an urban colloquialism, i.e. a joke). Hit me back with a response, either here, Myspace or my e-mail at fourpanelhero@hotmail.com so I know you got this and are aware that I'll be storming the lower mitten soon. Phone numbers will be appreciated.

More posts are coming, folks. But bookmark this one in particular. I hope to see you all in due time.

--Jay

A COUPLE WEEKS MIA BUT WELL WORTH THE WAIT!!!

Sorry for the two week hiatus from blogging. As much as I love to reach out to the fans through my blog (all three of you, including my mom), it takes a good chunk of time to create one of these updates, time that could otherwise be spent working on my latest Dead Duck pages. However, I'm an attention hog, so getting these blogs to you, the people (again, two of you and hi to my mom) is still a priority. So with that, I've got a mess of junk to show you, so cancel your two o'clock appointment and tell the wife you'll be late for dinner. This one's a read.

I'm combining production news from two different stories here: the first is just a taste from my last story, DAY'S END.

As you may recall, DAY'S END is a dialogue-free story that explores life outside of work at RIP Inc., as well as the complex relationship between Dead Duck and Zombie Chick, and the class division between minions and zombies. Sounds like a hoot, I know. But trust me, it's good. Anyway, I tend to put a lot of references to stuff that means a lot to me into these stories, and this one's no different. I make reference to one of my favorite John Hughes films, Pretty in Pink:



Though I'm a child of the 80's, Pretty in Pink always seemed like a girl movie, so I avoided it until this past year when I decided to give it a shot. Not surprisingly, I totally loved it, except, of course, for the end, where Molly Ringwald's character chooses the hunky preppie guy over the dorky outcast (played by Jon Cryer) who truly loves her. That was a real burn. At any rate, the dork gets one of the greatest moments in any comedy EVER where he lip syncs to Otis Redding's Try A Little Tenderness, a skill I myself mastered at age sixteen. And the dork's name? DUCKY. I shit you not. Now this is a discovery I made a good four years after I created Zombie Chick and had her call Dead Duck Ducky. If this ain't fate, then fate can go get bent, 'cause it sure feels like fate to me!

Onto my latest story. This one is another slice of Dead Duck's childhood, which sequentially speaking will come after his origin opus tale, DEAD DUCK RISING (Yes, they'll both be featured in the graphic novel). In this one, we see J.P. Yorick dropping Dead Duck off for summer camp. Contrived, you say? Too derivative, you think? Been there, done that, you rehash? Perhaps, I retort, were it not for the fact that this is CAMP SCHOLOMANCE, a Transylvanian summer retreat run by none other than the devil himself in the hopes of finding an evil apprentice! Why would J.P. send Dead Duck there? Who will Dead Duck encounter? Why are all these sentences in the form of a question like we were playing Jeopardy or something? Follow me, kids, for a few answers, at least…



These are the model sheets I've sketched for some of the characters Dead Duck will encounter. We have the devil himself (inspired to a degree from the awesome design of the devil in Nelvana's animated special, THE DEVIL AND DANIEL MOUSE and to another degree, the goblins from the Rankin Bass cartoon of THE HOBBIT).

We also have a young Dracula (come on, it takes place in Transylvania. Like you didn't see this coming). I decided to forgo the clichéd interpretations of the character, drop the bat motif and give Drac a reptilian quality with a great thick dragon tail, which has been so much fun to draw! It practically takes on a life of it's own. Yes, I kept the pointed ears, but gone are the two pointed teeth in favor of a mouth full of 'em.

I've also sketched up loose caricatures of Richard Nixon and Adolf Hitler who will also appear in the story as I imagine they looked as kids. Hey, it's a camp for the potentially evil. Now there may be those out there of a more liberal slant (I'm with ya, brother) who wonder why I didn't put in a youthful version of a more recent political figure, an "oily" character on his way out the door. My answer: too easy. Plus, despite his apish face, he's not that much fun to draw.

Lastly, we see a gypsy whom I've named Tibor. He's modeled loosely off Bill Murray, and based a bit on Murray's role as head counselor at Camp North Star in the classic comedy MEATBALLS. Like I said, I pay mad props to stuff I love.



This here is view of the script I'm working from. I type it up on my computer, print it off, then go through it carefully and decide how I'll divide up the panels.



Simultaneously, I sketch out a fist (my bigger interpretation of a thumbnail, which is a small sketch that defines what I'll draw on the finished page). Using the script, I number sections of dialogue and put the corresponding numbers in the fist's panels where they'll appear in the finished work. This is actually the first time I've tried this method, and thus far it's working very well for me.

While I'm not prepared to show you any of this tale's finished pages yet, as a consulation prize, I'm going to give you a sneak preview of what will be the very first story in the Dead Duck graphic novel. It's titled THE SOUL-TAKER'S APPRENTICE or WHEN YOU WISH UPON A SCYTHE. The title is an obvious parody of a famous animation studio's product, but the story itself is of a far darker bent. So if you're ready, here's the first four pages in what became a fourteen page tale concerning Dead Duck's first foray into Minioning….



And as if all that wasn't enough, I'm going to share with you how I support myself in between working on Dead Duck. I've been caricaturing at parties, schools and corporate events for about sixteen years now, and only in the last three have I really felt like I was getting the hang of it. Now I'm very proud of my ability to caricature, and with my latest gig at Northwood University I had the foresight to document my subjects with my camera. So for your enjoyment, here's the best of the batch that I drew a couple night's back. It's a lot of fun for the most part, and there are far worse ways to make a living.

Now aren't you glad you stuck around to the very end? And hopefully I've made the two weeks it took me to post a new blog well worth the wait. I can't swear when my next posting will be, but rest assured, I'll have just as much cool stuff to share with you guys when that time comes. In the meantime, take care, much love, and keep checking out my blog for all the latest happenings!

--Jay

NEW PRODUCTION BLOG, ARCHIVAL MATERIAL AND CREATIVE INFLUENCES!!!

I wouldn't say a ton has changed since last week's blog, but certainly enough to warrant showing you guys the goods. And as long as there's something fresh on the drawing board, I'll be here to share it.



This is the latest page from my Zombie Chick adventure, "DAY'S END." As I've mentioned before, there's absolutely no dialogue in this story, which has been a lot of fun. In this scene Zombie Chick hears a song she likes, jumps up on the bar and starts to dance. I didn't feel I was betraying my format to include musical notes, indicative of why she'll be going all "Coyote Ugly" in a few more yet-to-be-drawn panels. This story is becoming more fun the further I get into it, and the dance scene will be unbridled cool to create.

Going back just a bit, I want to show you some preliminary sketches for a couple Dead Duck stories that I've already created.



I know, I know. It's drawings of cows. Whoopty doo, right? Well, I'm actually quite proud of these little sketches, and I think the story I used them for is damn near the best on the book. It's a story I've mentioned before about the primeval cow Audumla from Norse mythology, and how Dead Duck and Zombie Chick have to help her out. I researched a lot of photos of cows to draw it because I didn't want to just draw a stereotypical cartoon cow, like Clarabelle from the old Disney shorts. I wanted a real cow. So these sketches helped a ton. I approached my cow as I would a rabbit, by focusing on those big beautiful ears. The rest was just a walk in the pasture. I'm anxious for you guys to finally read the story to see how cool it turned out.



























These are character sketches for a story I actually completed around the end of last summer/beginning of fall. The idea was to loosely parody the He-Man franchise from the early 80's, and these sketches show my earliest designs. I didn't want my interpretation to be too literal, so I made sure to keep my designs a bit more than arms length from the properties that inspired them. I only got close enough so that readers would get an idea of what I was parodying. I'll also note that the final looks of the characters I used are pretty far removed from these originals, so you should still be surprised when you read the story. But these were a lot of fun to create, and perhaps later on I'll go into greater detail about how I sketched them while sitting in a mall during a very lousy and unproductive caricaturing gig.

Now for a peek into the vaults. I've dug up every Dead Duck drawing I've ever done, and I'm pretty sure I have for you guys the first EVER drawing that I did of Dead Duck, circa 1990/1991. Drum roll please, or perhaps even a nice kazoo solo...



And there you have it, in all his black and white, low-grade water-based felt tip markered glory. My initial inspiration, as I've mentioned before, was Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, but my imagination veered off into a cornfield and headed to places unknown from that point. The circa 1900 era swimsuit look he's wearing was inspired by one of the original drawings of Donald Duck, as was his long bill and round belly. And the DD on his torso was an obvious borrow from Daredevil. I look at this character and think it wise that I waited twenty years to shape the character, shed him of his obvious influences and make him an original.



Now this is the cover of my very first attempt at putting Dead Duck in a comic book. It's from 1991, probably days after I created him. I managed to draw three pages, then I lost my steam. I wasn't the most focused cartoonist when I was seventeen, and if I got further than drawing the cover of a book it was a real accomplishment. Though I look at this artwork and shudder just a little (what the hell is that guy in the lower right corner wearing?!), I actually think this was the best drawing of Dead Duck I'd done at the time. The expression and the exaggeration of line really tickle me, and make me understand why I held onto this character for so long.

I would also like to show you guys the evolution of Death within the world of Dead Duck. According to the artwork I've dug up, there were four versions of Death that I used before sticking with the current version I use. But as I recall, there was one earlier version, based, I believe, off a skeleton cartoonist Kyle Baker had drawn in the early 90's that just blew my mind. The cartoon showed Dead Duck lecturing his boss about the dangers of smoking and Death waving him off saying, "I'm already dead" or something like that. Sadly, that piece, assuming I didn't imagine it, has disappeared, but the versions of Death that followed are fully intact, and interesting in their own right.



This version of Death was drawn for that very first Dead Duck comic book back in 1991. His look was inspired by old cartoon renditions of Death, ghosts, and creepy villains. Many years after the creation of Dead Duck when I discovered Disney's character The Phantom Blot, I was surprised to see the unconscious similarities. In this version, Death went down to his private lake and plucked Dead Duck from his surrounding to make him a Minion. In later version, Death wouldn't be quite so hands-on.



This version of Death followed his predecessor by days or months (kinda hard to recall after twenty years). I guess I figured Death should be more original looking, and by this time in my youth I was in full infatuation of movie monsters. So it was no surprise that I made Death scary looking. Looking at him now, he reminds me of gremlin with no ears, which would not shock me to find out that that's exactly what I was going for back then. I also introduced the smoking element to Death, not because I thought smoking was cool (I never smoked), but because it was a good prop, like Popeye's pipe.



This version of Death appeared in what was almost my first fully completed Dead Duck comic, a retelling of his origin with Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales thrown into the plot (You'll recall I mentioned this a few blogs back, and how I retooled the story to be included in my upcoming Dead Duck graphic novel). I suppose I figured I could do an even cooler version of Death than before, something more expressive and cartoony. To me he looks a bit like something you'd see in Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, and it would be a likely influence then and now. I switched him from cigarettes to cigars and made him a little more upbeat, but he was still Death. The downside was that I had a hell of a time figuring out how to draw his mouth in any pose but the closed position, which may be why I abandoned the look after I drew this comic. Ironically, I dusted off the head design this past year to use for the villain of my He-Man parody story, and by then I'd figured out plenty of ways to animate that huge hinge of a jaw.



Which brings us to the modern version of Death, otherwise known as J.P. Yorick. In 1994 I retooled my three-year-old Dead Duck concept for a comic strip format, and decided I needed a Death who was easily animatable, and whose head wouldn't be so huge and cumbersome that it couldn't easily fit in a comic strip panel. I used Jim Henson's classic puppet Yorick for inspiration, both in appearance and in name. I added the J.P. because it sounded like the name of someone in charge of a company and because it's my own name, too (Jay Patrick Fosgitt, y'see). At the time J.P. had a cigar, but I switched it to a cigarette in the last three years. It just looks better, I think. This was also the time I conceived the names Rigormortitropolis and RIP Inc., a lot of concepts that still stuck today. I sent out my Dead Duck comic strip to all the major syndicates, and it was shot down by each one. However, the editor in Chief of King Features Syndicate, the late great Jay Kennedy, wrote me a personal note and suggested I try and publish Dead Duck as an indie comic. So now, fourteen years later, that's exactly what I'm doing, and I thank Jay for being the first one to push me in that direction.

As one last little treat, I'd like to share with you probably the biggest inspiration for Zombie Chick...



Goldie Hawn's look in the 1960's TV show laugh-In had a profound influence on me. The shaggy mop of blonde hair, the bikini, even the painted tattoos suggested the stitches Zombie Chick would sport. And the fact that Hawn personified the iconic dumb blonde only solidified the connection between the two characters. There were other influences in Zombie Chick as a character, but for her look, Hawn was where it all began.

Well gang, thanks for sticking with me through this behind the scenes peek at Dead Duck. More news to come for those who are interested. The countdown to November 2009 ticks louder with each new page I draw!

--Jay

DEAD DUCK PRODUCTION BLOG: 4/14/08

There's plenty going on at the duck factory (a term I'm borrowing from a long forgotten and short lived 80's sitcom starring a young Jim Carrey as an animator. Man I loved that show…) and I'm anxious to show you a little of what I've got.

Having just completed a six-page story about Dead Duck's history of encounters with The Nova Scotia Cosa Nostra (a very fun story with lots of cool Canadian history and tributes), I've been hard pressed to choose what sort of story to tackle next.

I have a small backlog of scripts I've written, some complete, some sketchy outlines, and some short synopsis that I'm waiting to create into fully formed Dead Duck stories. But after the Scosh' story, I felt like I needed to create a story or two that were less about Dead Duck and Zombie Chick's adventures and more about them personally. Having already done two stories that dealt with different chapters of Dead Duck's origins, I felt I was long overdue for a story focusing on Zombie Chick.

It was a harder task than I imagined. Choosing to do a story where, for example, Dead Duck and Zombie Chick have to save the life of a giant primordial cow is considerably easier than conceiving a story about their personalities. In the case of the cow, it was as simple as my saying, "I want to draw a giant cow. Now I just need to write a story around that." Seriously, it was that easy (and in my opinion, one of my best stories). But when it came to me writing about Zombie Chick, I was truly stumped. "Should I tell her origin?" "Should I do something less funny and more dramatic?" A few days passed before I even had a slight idea. So I did what I always do when creatively constipated.

I took a shower.

And as always, it loosened things up for me mentally. I began to form my story. The title came first: "DAY'S END." I wanted my story to show life outside of the 9 to 5 world of minioning for Death. I wanted to explore Dead Duck and Zombie Chick's relationship outside work. And most of all, I wanted to define the relationship between minion and zombie, and show that class division in the land of the dead. I know, it sounds heady for a book that's supposed to be funny, but I dig depth in my characters.

The real interesting thing with Day's End, for me anyway, is that there's no dialogue. About six or seven years ago I'd drawn a one-page comic with no dialogue about very serious subject matter and it was some of my best comic work ever. I wanted to try and recapture that quality of storytelling with Day's End, and now, being three pages into the story, I'm feeling like I'm getting close.

Here's the penciled first page of Day's End (click on the image for a closer look)…



My biggest conflict with telling this particular story is ignoring the obvious comparisons to previous creations. Tim Burton cornered the market on cool representations of the afterlife, and Pixar established the time clock-punching workday world of monsters. Much as I want to create something wholly original, it's inevitable that there will be similarities between my representation of a creature-filled workday and those guys' concepts. So in the end I have to bite my lip, trudge through and do my best to be individual while accepting unavoidable connections, unintentional though they may be.

I do admit to plagiarizing myself in drawing some of the background characters. The minion behind Zombie Chick in the top panel is based on my Pinhead character from as far back as 1988 when I created my own superhero comic (for fans of my Mother's Goofs comic strip, I also used Pinhead as a model for The Krazybread Man about eight years later). The zombie with an axe in his head (3rd panel) is based on my character Chok'o from a comic book concept I created in high school.

I've also got a couple fan tributes in there, such as the minion with his arm around Dead Duck in the last panel. He's very loosely based on 60's TV dragon H.R. Pufnstuf, who despite being a very shitty puppet had a very cool design. And hopefully horror fans will notice the blatant plug for the godfather of zombie movies, George Romero, in the sign on the wall pointing the way to the zombies' homestead.

In the midst of my struggles to create this story, I found myself debating which movies I should play in the background to inspire me. I went through two or three, great as they were, that didn't produce the needed effect. Finally I dug out this little gem, discovered when I was thirteen and solidifying my standing as a full-fledged fan of animator Ralph Bakshi:


Fritz the Cat was Bakshi's first animated movie, and became notorious for it's rating (the first X given to a cartoon) and its subject matter (drugs, violence, race issues, profanity and all kinds of cartoon erotica). No, this is not cartoon porn, any more than the 1969 Oscar winner "Midnight Cowboy" was porn. It's a very dark and trippy movie, which is Bakshi to a fault. I’d be remiss not to mention that it's based on underground cartoonist R. Crumb's characters and stories, but given that Crumb despised the production, it seems pointless to dwell upon.

Fritz really helped me get into the frame of mind to create a seedy bar district on paper, which is a major stage that the story plays upon. Suddenly I could really envision how dark and haunting a tavern called The Grand Guignol would look, and was able to let my mind wander with some of my design elements, much as it felt that Bakshi did in Fritz. My leering moon at the top of this page is a perfect example of letting my imagination lead me around. And the spare sky behind the complicated building is my attempt to break away from the claustrophobia of the first page, with the dark buildings baring down on everybody.

During this process, I also experienced proof that inspiration comes when its wants to, not when you want it to. The struggles I've had (and am having) creating this Zombie Chick story have been palpable. Essentially I'm working with no script whatsoever.

And as I drove home from work the other day, my conflicts with creation ran through my head as I listened to my car stereo. A CD I'd burned awhile back played a couple cool songs that brought to mind, for me at least, massive characters throwing cars around and causing all sorts of destruction. Ironically, I think I was listening to Journey. Anyway, by the time I pulled in my parking lot, I had the seed of a story that was already beginning to write itself in my head as I hurried up the stairs. I managed to type out the synopsis and what little dialogue that came to me.

It's going to be a very cool story concerning Zombie Chick, her status as a zombie, and how protective she feels for Dead Duck. It'll begin production as soon as I finish Day's End.

If you've stuck with me this long, as a special treat, I'll show you some long buried artwork from my personal collection (it's all my personal collection, after all. I'm not Charles Schulz, where people have their own collections of his work. I'm just a dork who draws and throws away nothing).


These two pieces are from my sketchbook from early 1991, which would make me 17 at the time. Dead Duck had been bouncing around my sketchbooks for two years at this point, and these drawings mark my first attempt to put him in a comic.

As you can see, he originally wore a turn-of-the-century man's bathing suit (a tribute to an early design for Donald Duck), with an insignia on his body that was obviously borrowed from Marvel's Daredevil. Part of me misses this costume, and it may pop up in some way in a future story, if only to embarrass Dead Duck about his dorky past.

This was also around the time where I drew everything in pen (low-grade gas station-stock water based black felt tip marker, to be exact). I used to think drawing things out in pencil, the way comic pros do it, then inking after was a waste of time. It only took me a year after this to figure out I was wrong, and saw how much more control you have over your art when you sculpt it out in pencil first, then polish it in ink. If you read the whole story you'd also see how I was tailoring Dead Duck to be an undead superhero, which today seems like a huge mistake but back then seemed "totally awesome." He even zaps some bad guy with an inexplicable hand ray at the story's end. Thank god for twenty years of hindsight and continual refining.


In this page we see for the first time Dead Duck's fellow minions. It's interesting to note that while they all wear spiked armor, Dead Duck wears beach attire. Yet according to what I wrote, he was one of Death's rowdiest minions. Weird. The spiked armor thing stuck with the minions up until this year when I decided they'd all wear black hooded cloaks like Dead Duck, as seen in Day's End. What still sticks is how boozing it up in a bar is still crucial to the fabric of Dead Duck. Ironically, I didn't drink when I was 17, I don't really drink now, but I feel very comfortable and knowledgeable in drawing bar scenes.

So that's it for now. Hope you enjoyed this production blog, and hope to see you when the next one comes around. More cool stuff's a' coming, folks!

--Jay