I know it's lame to laugh at your own jokes, but this one kills me. Why? I don't know. I mean, making fun of ... ahem, a certain caped crusader's tragic past is really Not Nice, but there's something kind of annoying about how he trots out his dead parents every time he acts like a jerk and needs to justify something. Batman, you are kind of a downer and probably not much fun at parties.
Anyway! Thanks to io9 and Scott Kurtz and a few other nice folk Superhero Girl got a little bit internet famous this past weekend. Hello to all the new readers! I hope you'll stick around and leave a comment here or there. :)
And we find out what superpowers Superhero Girl has. They're pretty standard. I like how
Skeptical Guy is really not impressed. Lifting heavy objects, leaping over tall buildings? Boo-ring.
First of all, thanks for all the comments left on the last two strips! I appreciate it, guys. It always makes me laugh how the comics I produce that I *dislike* end up being preferred by readers... art's funny that way: you're your own worst judge of your work. ^^;;
Anyway, the above strip came out of me trying to figure out how to integrate Superhero Girl into regular life, which was especially difficult as I felt she should (almost) always wear her mask. Forgetting to take one's mask off when one is maintaining a civilian identity is a comedy goldmine that I enjoy referring to when I have creeping deadlines and my wrist hurts from drawing. :)
Okay, you guys get two strips today! Mostly because I hate one of them, and I can't just post something I hate. I have to post something I like too. Otherwise I'll be sad.
This one is dumb. I was still trying to figure out where I wanted to go with the strip, and this is more in the direction of "clueless superhero does clueless stuff." Ugh. Usually I show my boyfriend my comics and if he giggles, I know it's a good comic. He didn't like this one, and I agree. The character doesn't even look right... her hair is all grown up and coiffed. Anyway... on to the next strip:
That's better. I felt I needed to ask myself where I wanted to go with the strip: did I really want to do something that was a straight parody of superhero comics, or something that was about a girl and her life and she just happened to be a superhero? I decided on the latter, thank god.
Yeah, I know Batman is a billionaire playboy and can afford to pay someone to make his outfits, and Superman's mom can sew his supersuit out of a blanket left in his rocketship, but what's the superhero on a budget to do? I always figured they'd re-purpose some leftover halloween cape. That's probably what I would do, since I can't sew. Anyway, there are way too many easy jokes to be made about superhero outfits, and I decided early into this comic I wasn't going to make them. So insert your own commentary about spandex here...
Once I had a co-worker, a woman in her mid twenties, tell me she'd never done her laundry. Ever. Her mom always did it. The reason being that she was absolutely sure that she wouldn't be able to do her laundry correctly, and would end up with shrunk or otherwise ruined clothes. I've done my own laundry since I was 14 (y'know, 'cause that's when my mom decided she was no longer doing it for me), and I've yet to shrink/ruin anything, and I don't even separate my clothes.
Anyway, the point is that laundry ruining stories, while amusing, are about as unlikely as superheroes in real life. :)
Happy Tuesday everyone! Here's your Superhero Girl update.
This is what I felt (at the time I was drawing this) would be the essence of the strip. Cats in trees. Later the comic evolved into something else, but I like the idea of a superhero doing really mundane thing. (Btw, the original of this comic strip is sold, so it's not available anymore.) Also, cats = adorable!
So let's get this thing started! I've decided to try updating twice a week, at least until I'm caught up with the comics I'm currently drawing, and I've randomly decided to post updates on Tuesdays and Fridays. Might ajust that if I find those days don't suit my schedule, but we'll see... So! The Adventures of Superhero Girl comic number one!
Enjoy! ... I have always had a fondness for sound effects that describe exactly what the person is doing...
To get things started, I'm going to do a post about the origins of this comic. It started as a joke (as most things do), and was maybe originally a comment about girls/superheroes/comics/whatever. I can't really remember. But one day I sat down and doodled this goofy comic:
It is pretty goofy, huh? But it got me thinking that I should do a comic about a superhero girl and her kind of ordinary, kind of crappy life. And that's where all this began. Then a few months later a local Halifax weekly, The Coast, was looking for a new comic strip for their paper, and I figured it'd be a great way to motivate me to actually draw the thing. Dealing with the restrictions of a newspaper (I have to draw everything a certain size! Ick!) is frustrating sometimes, but the Coast lets me do what I want (as long as I make my deadline), so it's been a good experience. I'm 35+ comics into the strip, and I'm looking forward to posting them online for the internet to see.... I feel like I've been keeping a comic secret for a while. It's nice to finally share.
