With links to a few of my favorites (image later this evening).

I developed the Sanford characters about 7 years ago or so while I was in college.  I was doing twice-weekly editorial cartoons for the school paper, and Sanford was one of two comic strip ideas that were kind of percolating at that time.  (The other was an idea I’d had in high school that I refined and rounded out in college.)

I drew up several Sanford Park comic strips at that time.  Sanford was named after the company that produces the Sharpie marker (I’ve never in my life seen an episode of Sanford & Son).  Tweedly comes from a skit by the great Stan Freberg.  Fillmore was originally “Filbert,” but I got his name wrong once and liked it better.  I redesigned the characters and re-drew the strips for the 2010 run, but of those, this one is my favorite joke (although the panel-2 drawing here is one of my favorite drawings).

What’s most interesting to me is how the characters have changed, at least in my own mind.  I’ve already posted about Llewellyn, but I’ve been really happy with how the other characters have progressed.  Sanford was originally more sarcastic and cynical than he seems to be now.  He’s also a bit more playful, and the tiniest bit more social.  This has allowed me to use Tweedly more and it let Curly become a little bit more a legitimate friend than an irritating tag-along.  Fillmore has pretty much remained unchanged.

Avery (the mouse) and Jimmy (the lizard) were new characters, and I like them both, especially Avery.  I had originally planned to use the pigeons more, but I got paranoid about them looking too much like gangsters.  I wanted to make doubly sure they came off like high school jocks or playground bullies, because the Goodfeathers have already been ripped off.  (I’m pretty sure this comic was the only one anyone cited definitively as their favorite.)

Disconcertibird (Uncle Reggie) was another new character, and that seems now like the biggest storyline Sanford Park had.  I have to give credit to my friend Errol for that one – we used to live in an apartment, and on a post outside our door this pigeon would sit and stare at you constantly.  You couldn’t fake him out or get him to fly off his perch at all.  Errol named it Dosoncertibird, and I decided to make him into a ghost story.  It was really fun to figure out a way for that to resolve itself.

I also really loved the running gag that developed of “human kids (dogs) are crazy” (which I obviously got from Asterix).  Other than that, I liked the Christmas strip.

But for some reason, this is the strip that I look at and think “If that concept is the thing people remember me for, I will have done pretty well.

This kind of reminisce seems kind of silly since the strip only ran for a year and just over 100 strips, many of which were late.  But I thought it would be neat to share a little bit now that it’s over.

As far as what’s next for me, I’ve developed a caricature style that I’m looking into marketing as a service online.  That should resolve itself in about a month or so.  I’m also looking at possibly starting up a different comics-related project which would have a kind of “preview” in August and start full force in September.  Neither of these is to a point yet where I can link you to any web presence, but if you’d like updates as these projects progress, I’d love it if you’d send me an e-mail at cartoondan@gmail.com.  (That’s my personal e-mail, and I don’t’ use it for other “marketing” or give out others’ info.)  I’ll try to have some information at least monthly.

As far as what’s next for Viper, they’ve of course got plenty of things going on that you can keep up with, including Kung Fu Bean, and RiverSide in archive.

Other than that, I want to mention again how much I truly appreciate you reading, and I hope it was fun for you.  It was a blast for me, and I’ve got more fun on the way with whatever’s next.  Seeya in the funny papers!

(And one more to link to.)