Just this weekend I discovered the Goon. Now I can't get enough. I'm only a couple of anthologies away from having all of it.
About the only parallel I can think of for wackiness might be Herbie.
I think someone here a year or more ago suggested I check out the Goon. I did, you were right, I like it a lot.
I've made the headline a link to the Chris Sanders strip that Scott recommends in the thread
I only became aware of it when it was recently optioned by a studio for feature film(s) work ... I then looked up some of the pages, etc. on the Internet and really liked the visual style of the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteI might have recommended the Goon at one point. I bought the first issues and loved the art and the craziness. Eventually I stopped buying it after a year or so. It got just a little too gratuitously crazy. But tell me what you think after you've read the whole series.
ReplyDeleteI really like the color palette of this picture.
ReplyDeleteDid you know E.C. Segar created the word goon? More cartoonists should be in the Dictionary, haha.
I never mentioned it because I thought it struck too close to home for you. You ARE a goon. You smell like a dock and you're surly and wear weird hats. It's probably the same reason you've never mentioned Superman to me.
ReplyDeleteI just bought the second Popeye DVD of the Fleischer cartoons. As I hoped it contained the "Popeye on Goon Island" cartoon. That episode really creeped me out as a kid.
ReplyDeleteThe Goon in the Popeye comics is even scarier with its oscilloscope word balloons. Then they dressed Alice the Goon in female clothing, supposedly to make her less scary, but it made her EVEN CREEPIER!
Buncake, check out Capt Smartass
ReplyDeleteKali, I did know that about Goon being a Segar coinage. Jeep too.
ReplyDeleteAlice the Goon. I've seen those strips somewhere. Great stuff. Maybe it's in my big second volume that i haven't read yet.
Powell's The GOON takes a little Popeye vibe to itself. The goon himself is more Popeye than Goon. And he fights hags and monsters with punchs mostly.
And as someone in one of the anthology inroductions rightly points out, it has quite a bit of SPIRIT in it's makeup.
Many say the Army Jeep was nicknamed after Segar's Eugene the "Jeep" character.
ReplyDelete"It has been theorized that the Jeep vehicle was named after this character: soldiers in World War II may have nicknamed the machine after the then-popular character because they shared an ability to "go anywhere".
Also the word Jeep was a slang term for new recruits during WWI.
Man ... this thread encompasses both the sublime and the ridiculous ... and a buncake sighting to boot.
ReplyDeleteGot the last of the Goon anthologies. One thing from reading all the GOONs I'm thinking of the beauty of short form stories vs auto impulse to think graphic novel.
ReplyDeleteThat has been my only real success at mounting enough applied effort for a finished pub with my Bounty of Zone Z. 3 ten page stories.
I think I will break away from the idea of making a movie vs making a world. A world where stories happen.
As you may be able to tell, i found these Goons very inspiring.
I've come to a similar conclusion Ellis. There are many different ways to tell a story, build a universe, and express your ideas. Each medium has unique ways of doing things. Short stories, poems, songs, even 30-second commercials have their own ways of telling stories. There's so much talk that assumes comic books are just movies in the rough, waiting to grow up. But they don't have to be. Sometimes the best books and novels make the lousiest movies because they don't translate well.
ReplyDeleteEllis, I know what you mean about thinking smaller with shorter stories instead of grandiose insurmountable graphic novels. Of all the treasures I found at the Con this year, my greatest find was my last purchase on the last day and was almost an afterthought.
ReplyDeleteChris Sanders, I'm sure alot of you know, is the creator of Lilo and Stitch and he's put out two excellent sketchbooks. But he's also decided to put out a small collection of comic strips he's been working on the last year called Kiskaloo. I bought it sight unseen and was so impressed with the humor and goofiness of it that I immediately started working on a strip of my own. I have two done so far. (I should be working on the last pages of my graphic novel I know, get off my back.)
But it's easy to get inspired by the smallest discoveries. If you want to check out Kiskaloo you can find it at www.kiskaloo.com. I'll post my strip 'Cork' once I create more and decide whether they actually suck or not.
Thanks for the link Buncake. Kali should look at that. She's always going to school on "cute." And that is uber cute art.
ReplyDeleteInescapable comparisons to Calvin and Hobbes but it compares very well.
I'm looking forward to your strip posts. You were always the gag writer.
I remeber the early attempts at writing just gag cartoons before you verred into comics.
Verring is like erring as you veer.
ReplyDeleteLooks cool Tom!! I'll have to check into that. I too like running into the unexpected find.
ReplyDeleteAnd Buncake, sorry I didn't run into you as I normally do each year. I felt that we needed some time away from each other and work through our "issues". Oh and I too picked up "Kiskaloo". Looking forward to "Cork" fully collected into a 800 page Omnibus at next year's Con.
You broke my heart Jeff... all three of them. Actually, I'm planning on releasing some similar set-up like Kiskaloo at next Con. If of course I create enough of Cork to make it worth my while.
ReplyDeleteFor those who want to know, Cork is the name of a goth-ish teen wood nymph who gets sick of the fairy life in the forest, wanders into the local town, meets a hamster who delivers pizza and owns a curio store, and eventually ends up running a bijou next door that caters to both people and animals. Oh, and there'll be robots too.
I'm looking forward to your strip too Scott. Sounds like a fun time, especially with the giant robots.
ReplyDeleteYes! This is all very inspirational! Thanks for sharing the Sanders strip. Once the dust settles on all the crazy stuff happening up here I think that I will try my hand at a few more Creeple strips.
ReplyDelete"Thanks for the link Buncake. Kali should look at that. She's always going to school on "cute." And that is uber cute art. "
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to link me! I looked and couldn't figure out where it is hiding.
Oh- jeese- now I feel dumb. I knew him. GAH!
ReplyDeleteYes cute cute cute!