Posts Tagged ‘Danielle Corsetto’
4 items.
Today is my wife’s birthday. The next day will be Capes & Babes’ “official” birthday (even though a strip won’t appear until Friday).
Last week, I mentioned this story on a couple of podcasts that I either co-host or were a guest of but in case you haven’t yet subscribed to Lightbox – Illuminating Webcomics (mine), TGT web comics or The Villain’s Corner, I will tell the story again.
For many years, I was a long time convention attendee to SPX and the Baltimore Comic Con. Every fall when both conventions neared, I would always get very excited about attending each con and possibly meeting or discovering new artists. Both conventions always seemed to spark a big creative boost in myself as well. And at the end of each con, my wife would comment how enthusuatic I seemed to be.
But around 2005 and 2006, something started to change. And my wife was the first to notice.
Instead of coming home excited and re-energized by meeting so many fantastic artists, I started coming home more upset with myself that I wasn’t doing what THEY were doing. At some point, I quit being a “fan” and realized what I really wanted to do was to be BEHIND a convention table instead of in front of one. Maybe it was the fact that my high school baseball coaching career had come to an end and I finally realized I had the time it took to dedicate to my art. I’m not sure, but the Baltimore Con of 2007 changed everything.
It was at that con that I finally got over my “star gazing” and started asking some really tough questions (at least for me) at people behind various tables in artist alley. Although I was a pretty accomplished artists already – and I even had a long running weekly web comic strip at Community MX, I knew something was missing and I needed to find out what that was. I didn’t want to come home from THIS con pissed off and angry at myself for letting more time lapse and wasting whatever “talent” I thought I had. In sports terms, it was time for me to get off the bench and see if I could really play in this game called webcomics.
Two people who were extremely instrumental during that con was Brad Guigar and an artist I had never really heard of before – which was amazing since I had been to every Baltimore Comic Con from the very beginning and yet, I never remembered seeing her. Or her large, green cactus.
I don’t know why I chose to approach Danielle Corsetto and ask her the questions I did but I just happened to catch her on a slow period the last day of the Con and she was EXTREMELY gracious at answering all of my questions of how she started, where she started and how could I do the same. She probably gets tired of hearing me re-tell this story but that day really meant a lot to me in ways I can’t fully communicate. There was a lot of “transitional” stuff going on with me professionally and artistically at that time and receiving her and Brad’s advice really encouraged me to FINALLY get off the bench and go play! So both of them have a very special place in my heart for really kicking me in the butt and telling me to get my ass in gear!
So, later that night, as I came home from the best Baltimore Con I had ever been to as a fan, I sat down and created Roy the werewolf. Soon after that, I suddenly had 12 Capes & Babes strips fully completed. A few weeks later, I was ready to launch the strip.
In honor of all of the super support my wife gave me, I wanted to launch Capes & Babes on her birthday. But I also knew I wanted to at least try a Monday, Wednesday & Friday schedule and her birthday fell on a Sunday. So, I launched the next day – making the “official” Capes & Babes birthday November 12th.
As much as I have said Brad and Danielle had a large supporting role in encouraging me to start Capes & Babes, no one had more influence, encouragement, patience (and you need a lot when it comes to dealing with me), advice and just plane flat out support than my wife did. She’s Joey for a reason, after all!
So, for your birthday, babe, thank you so much for Capes & Babes.
I love you so much.
Happy birthday.
-Chris
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Okay, well I had wanted to try and finish up my Halloween Themed strips by today (Friday) but I have so much fun drawing I.R. Hungré that I have a few more Halloween strips that I’m still going to do. So, for this year, in the Capes & babes universe, Halloween is going to be an EXTENDED holiday!
I also wanted to mention that as I started this strip, I wanted I.R. to have a bunch of his movie posters displayed on his wall. I was brainstorming, I had thought about putting up the poster from the first movie Joey and Marc saw together (check the archives way back when) but then I got a brilliant idea to do movie posters like the old B-horror fest of years gone by – the ones that tried to totally exploit sex whenever possible. Once I came up with THAT idea, suddenly it hit me to put Jamie and Hazel from Girls with Slingshots as the “stars” of one of the posters.
I almost immediately came up with the title: “Zombie sluts from Planet Z!” since that was sort of in the same spirit as those old 70’s drive-in movies. And, if Jamie and Hazel were my own characters, I probably would have stayed with “sluts” but since they aren’t, I decided to change the title to “Tramps” instead. Tramps is a bit more tamer than “sluts” but still conveys the same message.
The other problem I had was their pose. How do I draw them? I tried a couple of different sketches until I got ANOTHER brilliant idea… since I was paying homage to scream queen movies, I figured I’d also pay homage to Danielle herself by copying the same pose Jamie and Hazel are in on the cover of Danielle’s first book.
Here’s a larger version so you can see the details (the coloring was much more simplified than I normally do since I knew the final image would be drastically reduced in size):
Some Podcast News
Later on tonight (Friday night), I will be a featured guest on the TGT Webcomics Podcast. I’m really looking forward to this as I have been a long time Podcast listener of TGT and we have been trying to get together for quite a long time. So click the link and join us on Talkshoe at 9:00pm tonight!
Then, on the FOLLOWING Friday (November 6th), I will be a featured guest on The Villain’s Corner Podcast at 10:00pm. Here’s the Talkshoe link for that show as well:
So I hope you join us so you can listen to all the crazy things that concern the wolrd of Capes & Babes!
Have a good one ya’ll!
-Chris
As Christmas fast approaches this week, I wanted to take a moment and thank a few people who have been very inspirational to me – and this strip – during the past year. So, if you will indulge me for a few moments, here is my list:
Michael Lohmar
Michael helped me a great deal with my current Capes & Babes design. Together, we were able to cobble a workable 3-column layout based on the first version of the ComicPress template. This is well before the latest updates to ComicPress that includes several different layouts. We did this all our selves – and, really, truth be told, Michael did MOST of the really hard work so I am very thankful for his help.
Tony Moller
Tony work with me at my full-time job. And he has helped me a great deal understanding WordPress. He also hosts my site on his server so my thanks for that can not be stated enough. And he also helps me whenever I have any kind of compuetr or IT work that needs to be done. Thank you so much Tony.
Brad Guigar
Even before Capes & Babes came to fruition, Brad had already given me a lot of advice concerning my weekly web comic strip, “CMX Suite” that I do for Community MX. But since starting Capes & Babes, Brad has been very helpful in posting various strip links on his home page and being very supportive of what I’m doing with Capes & Babes. That’s a pretty significant thing considering how busy he is with his own comics, the Web Comics Weekly gig and his full-time newspaper job. Being a ex-newspaper graphic design grunt myself, I especially know how difficult that can be. So, thanks once again, Brad.
Danielle Corsetto
I have told this story many times to other creators privately… two years ago, at Baltimore Comic Con 2007, Danielle was kind enough to invite a complete stranger behind her desk to ask her a bunch of questions about her strip, her success and, basically, a bunch of other web comic-related questions. In the end, after being so kind to him, she asked to see some of his stuff and after the guy showed her what he did, she proceeded to kick the guy in the rear and chastise him for not having the guts to get a table and join in on the party known as “web comics” because he was certainly good enough. For whatever reason, that small little event helped kick start the motivation this artist needed to finally quit watching the game on the sidelines. So, Danielle, thanks for that kick in the butt.
Topher Davila, Lee Cherolis and Joe Combs (C4 Cartoonists Group)
Thanks guys for, basically, just being there and offering a great support group for a fellow cartoonist and convention-goer. Our Talkshoe chats are really great and they always either energize me or RE-energize me. So I thank you for that and look forward to the next time we can all see each other at the same convention – maybe Baltimore Comic Con 2009, perhaps?
Rosscott, Inc. and Chris Impink
Thanks for welcoming me into the Washington DC webcartoonists group and sharing with me all of the comic and convention going experiences you guys have learned over the years. Much appreciated.
Judi, Dani and Tyler
There’s really no way this list of thanks and appreciation would ever be complete if I didn’t include the three most important people in my life and the three that are REALLY responsible for me trying to make Capes & Babes the best strip it can be.
For Judi, thanks for putting up with my wanting to show you the latest strip I just completed – no matter what time that might actually be.
To Dani, thanks for being such a great little artist in your own right, girl. The world is full of possibilities for you and hope those possibilities just keep growing and growing.
To Tyler, even though autism is a maddening, perplexing and mesmerizing puzzle, I hope that whatever is going on in your brain fills you with the same kind of wonderment I have whenever I look into your eyes – or when you look into mine.
And to everyone else who has discovered this strip in the last year, I hope my crazy sense of humor fills you with a little bit of joy and that you appreciate the wacky world that’s in my head. Otherwise, I would have to start taking some SERIOUS medication! I hope that you will continue to enjoy this strip and to let others know about the crazy antics of Marc, Joey, Roy, Al the Alien, Veronica, the valley girl vampire and all the other wild characters I have so far introduced during the first year of this strip.
Even though it’s not the New Year yet, I hope the holidays (and the New Year) bring you nothing but joy.
Sincerely,
Chris Flick
Psst! Psst! Hey… yeah, you!
Chris is a bit busy getting ready for the Baltimore Comic Con this weekend so while he’s busy locked in his studio putting together all o’ his mini comics and crap, I secretly confiscated his laptop an’ I’m writin’ dis here blog. My name’s Roy an’ I’m a werewolf. AWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Anyway, I jest wanna say dat I met da lovely Danielle Corsetto this here past summer at Heroes Con. Really… never heard o’ her before but I dug the way she drew chics – especially dat one with da nice chest… uh… Jamie I think her name is. Anyway, I was still kinda disappointed dat dere weren’t actually any slingshots in any o’ her strips. I mean, I kinda have dis secret little fetish fer girls with slingshots and when ya advertise “Girls with slingshots”, well, there should be slingshots all over da place, ya know? I mean, seriously, what’s a werewolf ta do, ya know?
But anyway, I digress…
Danielle’s a fine artist in her own right an’ if ya never heard of Girls with Slingshots, you should check her stuff out on da web or, if yer in Baltimore dis weekend, find her table an’ tell her Roy the werewolf sent ya an’ dat I say “hi”. But I would advise against tryin’ ta lick her on da cheek like I did. I think she must be allergic ta us werewolves or somethin’.
Ooops! I hear Chris in the other room talking to his wife and kids. Sounds like he’s headin’ back this way so I better hurry up an’ end this blog before he gets back.
But like I said with Danielle, if yer in Baltimore dis weekend, come ta da Baltimore Comic Con and look fer Chris’ Capes & Babes banner. I’m on dere sportin’ my kick-ass Vixen shirt (dose chicks are H-O-T!!!). An’ please say “hi” ta Chris. He’s one o’ dem “moody” artists an’ even though Joey, Marc an’ I keep givin’ him lots o’ encouragement, he doesn’t always believe us. So you gotta do our job fer us dis weekend, okay?
Opps. He’s walkin’ down the hallway right now. Gotta go!
-Roy!
