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The inspiration behind the Cowbellis The idea of the Cowbellis came to me one day as I was returning a copy of the Sopranos first season to the local Blockbuster. I lived in Ohio at the time, known for having some farm country, and I passed by a farm on the way. As I drove by the farm, I noticed the cows wandering around and doing their thing, and the idea of a 'cow mafia family' struck me. I don't remember if it was Gary Larson who said that "cows are just plain funny", but I seem to recall him as saying that in one of his many books. Ever since reading that, I have taken serious notice of cows. Gateway computers have taken cows out of the farm and onto desktops, hollywood has had countless movies out with cows, one of which I recall was out at the time called Kung Pow which features a kung fu-fighting cow, and closer to home, I personally knew 3 different people who collected anything with cows. I've seen cows on everything from birthday wrapping paper to cards to containers of sour cream -they seem to be everywhere! I've always thought that I wanted to do something with cows because, yes, they are funny creatures. Funnier still are when these large, lumbering creatures that everyone thinks to be dumb, cud-chewing creatures are doing things they shouldn't possibly be able to do -talk, drive cars, gamble, perform kung fu, etc. When the idea of putting cows into a mob family setting came to me, I thought it was something I'd really like to see! I could see it as a mix of Sopranos, Godfather, Goodfellas, and every other gangster film you've ever seen along with George Orwell's Animal Farm. On top of that, I saw it being like the Far Side in drawing style. I took a few weeks to let this thought roll around in my head and gather up a few ideas of how I would like to see it presented, and the result of my ideas and creative juices have resulted in the Cowbellis. Character creation I began sketching the characters out a few days before the start of 2002, and began finalizing the sketches into character creation models on New Year's eve. Not the best way to celebrate the ringing in of a new year, but when drawing's what you enjoy doing, there's no better way. I began drawing directly from old Far Side cartoons, but Larson's cows, as humorous as they are to me seem very sketchy and loose and I wanted something a little different. Eventually the sketches began morphing from copies of Gary Larson cows into something more. I began focusing on cow individuality and deciding on who different characters would be and how they would look. I began attaching different items (a tie, a bell, a hat and a bow for a few examples) to specific cows to help distinguish the cows from one another as well as give certain drawn features to specific characters (the way Vic's eyes are drawn, for example, are specific only to him). The more cows I create will undoubtedly undergo the same attaching of items and features -like a Mr. Potato Head with unlimited things to use! The more I drew on this and followed this process, the more the characters began to develop on paper as well as in my head. Paulie began looking more and more like a computer geek -the glasses completed it. The idea of him sitting at a computer (and all things related to it whether it be webcam conferencing, instant messaging, or selling on ebay) suddenly became entire story branches from this one character. Okay, now I've got a shell idea of a mob-like family of cows for something long-running and I also have some characters drawn out who can all have individual stories built off of them. Now what? Creating the comic strips I thought about how best to present this story, and being that I always wanted to create a comic strip like those in the newspaper, it didn't take long to decide that this was the way I wanted to take the Cowbellis. I could easily visualize the story of these characters told through small, daily 'chunks' and each one, though continuing a story, also being funny as stand-alone strips. I began with a simple pad of paper and writing down the panels of the first few comics telling the story of the business getting handed down from Pa to Tony. From that pont, it was easy enough to take the dimensions of those in the paper, enlarge them to a size I was comfortable drawing in, get a fresh pad of Bristol Board, grab my pen, and get to it! I then set a goal for myself. I would create 24 dailies (Monday through Saturday -no Sundays) by the end of the month. I made 3 month's worth of cartoons, each month for 3 months, and sent them to syndicates before giving up the project. Scanned in here and presented for your enjoyment are the first 24 comics strips. The Future of the Cowbellis? As of this writing, there are no plans to bring the Cowbellis back, but time will tell. Perhaps someday I'll get back to them, but for now they're taking a break. I enjoyed making them and maybe someday I'll bring them back. You just never know. | |
