Welcome to another issue of the Skook Works in Progress newsletter. Thank you for stopping by!
Personal news will be up front. Art and discussions thereof will follow.
These Days …
Cooler weather. Large parcels. My computer thinks that ten minutes in plenty of time to spend in Photoshop and makes my screen go to sleep if I spend more than that on an image.
Sigh. That’s a pain. This is a new bug and I’m trying to figure out a fix. Until then I have to remember to save far more often than I’m used to. Constant saving is a good habit to have but I’m not going to thank the computer for helping me to develop it.
My knee has improved. Now it mostly just complains when I make the transistion between sitting and standing. It lets me know that it’s not happy when I go up or down slopes and stairs but its complaints are less strident than they were last week.
We’ve eaten out a lot more. My friend who is in town for cancer treatment is taking advantage of the greater variety of choices of cuisine here than in Fairbanks and we’ve joined her for a number of meals.
Upper management at USPS is threatening to move our start time from the currently 7:30 to 8 am. They seem to believe if we start later we will get out of the station sooner. Idiots.
Yellow Brick Road
Open on: the Studio, early morning. Not that the hour can be determined. The Studio is in a basement with no windows. The Cartoonist works at his drawing table. The Salesman enters. He pauses to study what the Cartoonist is drawing and then sprawls on one of the couches.
Salesman: Oz? POD stores are full of Oz merch.
The Cartoonist makes a scrunched expression.
Cartoonist: Most of that stuff is either unauthorized fan takes on the MGM movie, on the Wicked musical or swiped Denslow and Neill illustrations. This is the Oz Squad.
Salesman: For the general public that’s not a big distinction. Does Oz Squad have enough fans to make making merchandise worthwhile?
Cartoonist: We’re making merchandise featuring The Face. That’s a silly question. Oz is a cornerstone of the American imagination. Everyone recognizes Dorothy and the gang.
Salesman: The 1939 Wizard of Oz movie is a cornerstone. You’re doing your version of Steve Ahlquist’s version of L. Frank Baum’s characters. Baum may have written fourteen Oz books but most people don’t know that. Most people see Dorothy as a brunette and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman as Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr.
Cartoonist: Most people are ignorant and need to read more.
Salesman: You’re insulting our potential customers.
Cartoonist: You just told me that we had no potential customers.
Salesman: Minimal customers. We’d have more if you drew more mainstream stuff.
Cartoonist: The world is full of mainstream, appeal-to-everyone stuff. Why compete with that? Why not stake out a niche and grow it? Like Disney. Like Dr. Suess. Like Terry Pratchett. Like L. Frank Baum.
The Salesman sighs.
Salesman: Point taken. But why Oz Squad? Why not your own update of Oz?
Cartoonist: Partly for nostalgia. Partly as apology. Steve and I worked on a revival of the series and I dropped the ball. Partly because Steve’s update is more interesting that any of the updates I thought of on my own. His version is more clever than any of my own Oz ideas so when I try to imagine illustrations in that context I have to work harder. And partly to stake a claim on the IP.
Salesman: You’re trying to co-opt Oz Squad from Ahlquist?
Cartoonist: No, no! It’s his IP. If he told me to leave it alone, shut down the website and never draw any of versions of his versions of the characters again I would. I’m making the merch to keep the IP in existence. As long as something new comes out we can say that Oz Squad is a going concern.
Salesman: We?
Cartoonist: He. If anyone tries to use the name in a media property he can point to the website and online shops as evidence that the copyright and trademark hasn’t been abandoned.
Salesman: Is he paying you for this? Are you paying him? Do you have contracts? Or are you just narcissistically assuming you’re being helpful?
The Cartoonist laughs.
Salesman: Right. Narcissism and ego.
Cartoonist: Duh. Someone is always going to be doing Oz sequels and updates. I like Steve’s version the best. If my keeping the series alive, just a little bit, leads to it being revived or adapted into other media, then, yay!
Salesman: So why update the characters? Why not just duplicate the original artist’s designs?
Cartoonist: Why are you asking so many damned questions? Can’t you just look at what I’m drawing and figure out how to sell it?
Salesman: It’s easier to sell things that are already massively popular.
Cartoonist: So, you’re lazy.
Salesman: I’m a capitalist. The most successful capitalists co-opt something, rebrand it and saturate the market with it. Ideally they create monopolies and prevent competition.
The Cartoonist stares at the Salesman.
Cartoonist: We’ve wandered a bit off topic, eh?
Salesman: We always do that.
The Unspeakable and the Inhuman
Early in this 21st Century my friend Derek Fetters produced a comedic take on the Cthulhu Mythos with the podcast The Unspeakable and the Inhuman. While he was working on the project, a mutual friend asked me to provide illustrations for the podcast’s website. He was designing it as a class project. I don’t think it ever went live.
Last month I was reviewing archived images to see if any of them would make good designs for my shops.The following three images looked like good starts. I’ve added color and expanded on (and reoriented) a couple of the images to fit the new composition. As I’ve been designing specifically for my stores I’ve been trying to come up with more images that fit a t-shirt. I’ve got a lot of rectangular images. I think they look good but neither the human body nor your average t-shirt is stricly rectangular. Curvey designs look good on t-shirts. Circular designs make great clocks and buttons and magnets and stickers. You’d think I’d have thought of this before!
Ah well.
These illustrations aren’t of any specific incidents from the podcast. They were intended as flavor for the website. Now you can use them to decorate your chest. Or other schtuff. They can be found in this collection in my Redbubble store or this collection in my Zazzle store.
Of course you can just look at them here and never look at any my stores. I’m happy with that. Part of he fun of running print on demand stores is that none of it exists until someone completes an order.
Thank you again for dropping by. The weekend is coming up. If you’re one of those folks whose work week goes Monday to Friday, please enjoy the next two days. If you’re working, please enjoy the next two days anyway. See you in seven!
