My Blog | Rackafracka by Fritz

Bird Calling Cartoon (Construction)

by Fritz on March 18, 2007 at 9:11 pm

After popular demand I have brought back the “Construction of a Cartoon” fro the “Bird Calling” cartoon.ï¿½ This one I thought of while trying to fall asleep like so many of my other ideas.ï¿½ The thing that inspired this one the most was the fact that its a Penguin responding to the bird call.ï¿½ First of all, what kind of jacked up bird call is this guy making that a penguin would turn its head let alone show up packed up ready to hang out.ï¿½ The suit case was Sam’s idea.ï¿½ After I ran the joke by him at work he thought I should put a suitcase in it.

sketch of bird calling

This is also a cartoon that took very little effort to do since I felt there was no need to elaberate on the background or the uniform of the guy other than the hat and the binochulars.ï¿½ It took all but one hour from pencil to posting on the web.ï¿½ I thought it would be funny if the guy was hiding in the bushes trying to fool any birds that would answer the call, and then the penguin who traveled from the South Pole no doubt shows right up to him exposing him and his hiding place.

Sketch ii of bird calling

From this joke, Sam and I started to riff and came up with several other jokes.ï¿½ï¿½ You can see the finished cartoon by doing a search on Fritzcartoons.com for Bird Calling.

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Construction of a RACKAfracka Cartoon

by Fritz on March 7, 2007 at 9:45 pm

This is the start of a RACKAfracka cartoon. This particular sketch came to me when I was out for coffee. But the real origin was while I was at work I was talking to my buddy Sam about the American saying, “Proof is in the Pudding”. We thought of a different treatment of this joke…but while I was at the cafe I thought of this solution. I rushed to sketch it down not really worring about detail. My goal was to get the idea down as fast as I can. Many times when drawing really fast you come up with stuff that is funnier. I love that the vat is so big that there is a ladder, plus the proof is just a arm hanging out of the pudding.

Once I decided that it was a go on this cartoon, I do another sketch in my bigger sketch book. This sketch book I explore different design elements to the drawing and it’s basic composition. Many times it doesn’t change between the thumbnail sketch above but in this case I worked out that I wanted a real body on the ground and there would be a baseball bat as a possible weapon. These elements help tell a story even though I have no idea why someone would have a baseball bat at a pudding factory.

Finally, I have plotted out most everything and I then do one more pencil drawing on Smooth Bristol board with an HB pencil. This is where I build more of the characters and thier costumes. My cops are a little old fashion but I figured this was the type of crime that needed cops from the past, after all who still mixes pudding in a vat like that? Actually I don’t know really how they make pudding in mass quantites. I love the “Sarg” in this drawing. He’s acting like he has seen it all before like saying, “Man…not again. Not in the pudding factory.” I like that there is a faucet coming out of the vat. As if that is a solution to empty the vat. Actually that brings up another point…once the pudding is made how do they get it out of there and put it into small packages? I don’t know much about factories but you still get the idea.

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The Story Behind the Toon

by Fritz on February 13, 2007 at 12:44 am

In this cartoon a guy is blown up from what appears to be a failed science experiment, until you read the guy that was not affected by the blast ask “Well at least how does it taste.”

I admit that this is not the best joke in the world but I have a story behind this cartoon. I was at Nate’s BBQ here in San Francisco with a friend of my Sam a couple of weeks ago and we were brainstorming some ideas for a direct mail blown up campaign that I was working on. The topic of Pharmaceuticals came up and Sam thought of this one. We both started cracking up! I had to draw it right away. I had my sketch book open and I drew it down as if I was going to lose the idea. I like the guy’s face in the toon. I don’t know how the explosion must have unfolded. It defies physics. If a guy puts a pill or medicine in his mouth why is there blast marks on his cloths (or blast marks on the table as seen in February 13th finished cartoon). And smoke coming from his head???

This cartoon also shows how much I sucked at science class in school. I really have no idea what a science laboratory looks like. I just put this weird looking ball of glass on a rod iron pedestal and hook it up to a tube that goes to a test tube. I really don’t know if my microscope reads well.

I also like how thick the glasses are on the clean looking lab guy. By the way, this guy is not sympathetic to the blown up guy at all! What a jerk! All he cares about is the taste. I hope that guys is not my lab partner…wink wink…..what? I don’t get it.

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