This week I let Glen off his leash and gave him a few shiny shillings to spend…
The Making of Glen
Did you know that what Americans call pudding and what British people call pudding are two COMPLETELY different things? Here I am eating this amorphous puddle of sugary goo and the Brits are stabbing some sort of cake-like thing. This threw off my initial idea for a comic (which was going to be a riff off the “You can’t eat your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!” line in The Wall.)
Despite these difficulties I am really loving the retro psychedelic light show background….
This week’s comic was inspired by another random YouTube suggestion that I found myself smiling at. I had no idea Dimie Cat’s Everybody Wants to be a Cat was a cover of a song from Aristocats. Forgive me but I was too busy watching Tim Burton movies in my childhood. Disney flicks were kinda neglected… with that being said I love this cover! It’s goddamn adorable! It’s got 20’s flair and I can’t help but adore that.
And Glen agrees. He’s decided to sing along after giving his swarm of children dollar store cat ears. I am loving Rogaine and Placebo looking on with confusion, Placebo’s paw held delicately in the air in a mild state of disgust. I think this suits the sphynx breed perfectly. And Rogaine, who I have decided is a Ragdoll, looks on friendly and numb, also absolutely perfect capture of a breed personality.
This catcentric comic isn’t an obvious offering to the internet cat gods to bless our fresh website with more views… unless they like it.
You have no idea how happy I am to reveal this comic because it has been ricocheting off my skull for at least twenty years. You see when I was just knee high to a grasshopper I loved 1950’s music, which was weird for a kid born in the 80’s but anyway… One of my all time favs was Bill Haley and the Comet’s Shake, Rattle, and Roll but one line made no sense to me at the time and continued to confuse me until Google became a thing…
“I’m like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.”
I could tell you what it really means or I could just illustrate way too literally with Glen and a naked pussycat. I chose to do the latter as it’s way more amusing. I could not be happier with this comic. In the past there was only so much I could do with Classic Microsoft Paint but this little beauty was born to a Wacom tablet and associated software. It has details I could have never accomplished before. Note the realistic coloration on the cat and the tiny bit of drool slipping out of his hungry little mouth. It’s pure perfection. And Glen! He was hungry too so he grabbed a snack. What can I say?
As I set about drawing Glen I have been sharing the results with a lot of people. Some feel like Glen is an old familiar friend but others who are not used to this weird rubbery outburst are a bit confused by him still. One such person looked at me incredulously and said, “There is a lot of self depreciation in these comics.” I had no idea what to respond. I mean there probably is… seeing as Glen was borne from my teenage mind all those years ago but today I don’t have as much of an excuse…
“Well… I don’t know, maybe the lyrics that inspire them are self depreciating. I don’t think so though because most of them sound damn happy.”
“You still had to pick the lyrics. Do some Pixies!! That’ll be great!”
“Okay but I am in no way responsible what comes out of this…”
I decided upon Where is My Mind. It’s a beautiful song full of even more prettyful gibberish. Maybe a little too much because Glen made me draw three separate comics. SIGH. It’s almost as if the randomness of this tune was made to be gently teased by a caterpillar.
The Pixies vs Shark Week
With each of these three comics I had to learn something new. In the first I had to achieve movement and a weird body position. In the second I learned how to make a sunset while inserting the shark documentary that was playing on the TV behind me. In the third I took one of my nature photos and just drew Glen into it. Why is the fish in such distress? Why is Glen in camouflage? Is this some sort of trap? I DON’T KNOW BUT I WOULDN’T TRUST IT.
Alright, so I have a confession to make. Although I grew up predominantly in the 1990’s I was never fond of the music. In fact if you want me to instantly feel like shit just crank up some godawful pop from the era, you know something I probably had drilled into my brain while riding the bus to and from school, and bambo! I will be in a funk. A horrible 90’s induced depression haze. WOOHOO!
As such the only reason I have ever heard Oasis’ Champagne Supernova is because y’all kept pointing it out like, “Dude, these lyrics make no sense! Do this one!” And so I looked it up and you’re totally right. The lyrics are whack. So I sat for a few minutes wondering how the hell I was going to make sense of them. This is what Glen came up with and no, it’s not a coincidence he’s slogging through what appears to be a middle school hallway.
