More Synchroneity

Last time, I had some side-by-side comparisons of two thematically similar characters interacting with each other.  Since then, I've noticed some more eerie similarities with others I've seen and read.

In the early 90s, we were treated to a new Golden Age of animation from Disney, as well as a new supporting character in platforming Video Games who would eventually get his own title and different gameplay mechanics.  In both cases, the both of them were gluttons for punishment.  I'm talking of course, of Wario from Super Mario Land 2 and Chef Louie from The Little Mermaid (who also had a chase episode against Sebastein in Raw Toonage).

On one side of the Pacific, we have a weight-obsessed fashion-conscious shoe-shopping woman with minimalist art, Cathy.  On the other, we've got a Goth-obsessed young girl who's traumatized at the prospect of having to live a normal life, and is usually portrayed in a minimalist Chibi mode, Sunako from The Wallflower / Perfect Girl Evolution.

Going along the field of dramatic pompous old men, we've got the major antagonist for over half of Akagi, Iwao Washizu and the former prosecutor in Phoenix Wright, Manfred von Karma.  I would've liked to show the former with his full poofy outfit, but couldn't find one without too much distracting background action.

While we're talking about Video games, there's Baran, the Dragon General from the Dragon Quest Manga, largely influenced by DragonBall the "Best Shonen Manga in the Universe".  On the S-hero front, there's Omni-Man, from Invincible the "'Best Superhero comic in the Universe". Both men started off as heroes, then were guided towards the path of evil, and then after a confrontation with their sons, gradually gravitated over to the side of good.  It probably has something to do with the mustache.

Next, here's two war generals whose noble battle philosophy is based on hatred.  Den from Battle Angel Alita and Megatron from Transformers.  As an aside, now that Kodansha is no longer publishing the latest Alita volumes with variations of 'Angel' in their titles, they passed up the chance to name their last volume "Earth Angel".

When it comes to portraying Mad Scientists, such as Autobot WheelJack, and Shinigami Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi, the Japanese seem to have a tendency to have them portrayed with protruding spiral headgear for some reason.


Next on the list are anti-heros who're pretentious blowhards, Namor the Submariner and Vegeta need no further introduction.  And despite their outright condemnation of everybody being beneath their notice, are quite popular with the ladies.

Going into slightly obscure territory, here's two comatose tongue-dangling mascots; Fletcher from Something Queer is Going on, and Bill the Cat from Bloom County.

Lastly, there's the protagonist of Italian Noir Funny Animals comic that even haters of Furries (who've been unfairly bashed in the media) enjoy, Blacksad.  And a former antagonist turned ally from Fairy Tail, Panther Lily.

Peter, Peter, Bumpkin Eater

There are instances where the enjoyment of a story can be waylaid by simple miscasting direction.  It can take the form of outrage over Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe's singing as Valjean and Javert in Les Miserables, or inability to suspend disbelief that accident-prone Goofy would be a suitable match for Jacob Marley in Mickey's Christmas Carol.  In other instances, it can put a casting decision  in a whole new light.

The 5-issue comic, Three, written by Kieron Gillen, and drawn by Ryan Kelly, was created as a rebutal to Frank Miller's 300, which tended to glorify the barbarbic aspects of the Spartans while glossing over their more problematic philosophy.  Rather than go into a elaborative point-by-point explanation (though there was some page-by-page commentary for this comic on his blog), Gillen went for a more historically accurate fictional account of three Helots.  For those not hip to their archaic terminology, a Helot was a slave with land, with the catch that every year or so, a random group would be attacked by novice Spartans as a kind of target practice.  Even though they owned property, on the hierarchy scale, Helots ranked below slaves.

Any group setting of three people tend to rely on a typical formula which generally consists of The Hero, The Girl, and The Other Guy.  Usually, The Other Guy usually ventures into uncharted territory that The Hero generally won't go, and is generally more interesting.  In this case, the role of The Other Guy falls onto Terpander here, who is unlikable among his kind, even on the best of days.

One night, a group of marching Spartans are on a return trip from a mission, and request lodgings within the Helots' house.  The Helots have no choice to turn down any of their demands since they're generally unable to refuse hospitality from their masters.

During the course of their stay, the Spartans force the Helots to drink wine, which they are unaccustomed to.  When one Helot throws up his portion, the Spartans have stander-bys lap up the remains as not to refuse their hospitality.

As a way of revenge, Terpander starts telling a story about a Spartan victory that turned to defeat when the returning party was ambushed by nameless Helots who saw the opportunity to get some payback of their own.

This does not get much satisfaction from the audience, both in the home and visitor teams.  As a result, the leader gives the order to kill everyone, save the poet.  Somehow, one of the other Helots who'd been faking his injuries, managed to kill off the threat, leaving one Spartan survivor and three Helots on the run from their pursuers, since if any other Helots got the wise idea that their masters could be beaten, it could spread some ugly Spatarcus-type revolutions.

While reading the first chapter, I couldn't help but notice that the the part of the smarmy poet, Terpander, had facial expressions that reminded me of someone.  Furthermore, his one-shoulder loincloth and 5'oClock Shadow seemed reminiscent of another blonde smartass on the comics page:

While it's easy to get Peter and BC mixed up, there's an easy way to tell them apart.  For starters, BC is more naive, and has flat red hair, while Peter is blonde and has poofier hair.  Just think of him as a false prophet who seeks out to make a profit.  It's tempting to think that Caveman Peter was reincarnated as a Helot in a later life, only to suffer from his overconfidence of his ability to manipulate his audience.

Peter regularly has late risers for breakfast, and can run circles around the opposition with his infallible logic. When a potential business opportunity comes up, chances are he'll be there to set it up when supply and demand calls for it.  Otherwise, he'll create demand where none existed.  In the BC V-game sequel Grog's Revenge, Peter is the one who's in charge of the toll to allow Thor admission to the next mountain level, which requires him to pick up an insane number of clams lying around in the level if he's going to continue.

It takes manual dexterity to be able to write upside down in a hurry.

The scenario that cemented his reputation as an opportunistic conman was the Christmas Animated Special where he made up a holiday with the intention of having his friends buy rocks for each other.  And by rocks, I mean the granite kind, not the shiny diamonds kind.  After all, he who dares, wins.

Synchroneity

For a long time, one of my dream projects in finding an artist suitable enough to do personal requests to combine two similarly themed characters meeting each other at the same time, and being surprised at what they see.  So imagine my surprise when upon doing a random image search that I found someone else had done something remarkably similar.


In addition, Luis' artwork is suitably cartoony enough for my liking and appeals to my taste.  Also, while my idea was for the characters to be standing across from each other (something to make it easier for the artist to differentiate on drawing styles between the two), Luis was able to integrate both characters interacting with each other.  My personal favorite is probably the faceless argument between Rorschach and The Question:

It's nice to find out that someone else's had a similar idea to yours and improved upon it.  (Though it can sometimes feel a little discouraging as well)  The whole thing started out from a silly illustration between Hellboy and Etrigan.  Though my initial thought was that it would be a meeting between Etrigan and Firebrand from Gargoyle's Quest.  Two powerful demons that are well-reputed for being incredibly difficult to control and destroy.  I suppose the fact that I'm not heavily invested in S-hero comics might have something to do with it.

As a bonus, here's the two of them in sprite form.

While the most obvious choice for this kind of setup would be something along the lines of Captain Picard of Star Trek: Next Generation meeting Professor X of the X-Men (especially since both were played by the same actor, Patrick Stewart), I opted for slightly more obscure comic figures:

Don Martin's Captain Klutz and Domino Pizza's Noid.  Two ridiculously costumed men who constantly set out to do their missions.  (And fail)

Right-Wing political duck Mallard Fillmore and Noir anthropomorphic detective Inspector Canardo.  Two birds that are constantly shown face on, and look awkward when seen in profile.

Two short creatures that look nothing like the typical races they're supposed to portray: Alf, a furry alien creature, and Cerebus the Aardvark with an extremely short pig-like nose.  Note the similar tuft of hair!

As a bonus, there's a fan drawing of Alf drawn Cerebus-style here.

Some others I wanted to include, but couldn't for lack of finding appropriate images:

• The Medical Hologram Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager and The Sturgeon General from Martha Washington (Give Me Liberty) arguing over medical ethics with The Doctor looking exasperated, while The Sturgeon General just calmly wags a single finger, probably talking about "cleanness".
• One of MAD's Black Spies from Spy Vs. Spy carrying a briefcase and looking behind him to see a Plague Doctor carrying a medical kit and looking just as surprised as he is.
• Roy Rooster from Garfield & Friends in the role of Cornfinger from Orson's daydreams of being Double-Oh Orson, and Steelbeak from Darkwing Duck.

But all that's merely just a warm-up.  What I'd really hope to accomplish is a drawing of Brooke Shields of the infamous Jeans commercial inflated to 50-foot Woman proportions, knocking down buildings in pursuit of screaming young blonde boys in red striped shirts with the caption:

Ripped From the Headlines

On Thursday’s Doonesbury, there was some confusion regarding Roland Hedley’s tweet of his point bulletin sound bite message where he was giving up-to-date accounts of what was happening in the region he was in. A trait that has gotten lesser reporters in trouble for alerting troops where they were going to attack in advance to the media. (Thus giving their targets time to readjust their strategy) EDIT - just remembered it was Geraldo who did that during the Iraq Gulf war. This reminded me of a certain duo of Sunday comics that I was naturally confused by.

On one side of the page, I had a Cathy, which ended with an unseen sound effect from behind an elevator.


































Coincidentally, that very same sound had a very different meaning for the throwaway panels in Adam right across the very next page. At the time, I didn’t know that RIP could be abbreviated for Rest in Peace, and thought it meant that the milk carton should be torn up and thrown away.

















Still, this was a very rare occurrence of two completely different strips having a common element at opposite sides of the spectrum - one at the beginning, and the other at the end, somehow (but not quite) linking them together. I often make a big show off how cartoonists lift ideas from each other, but this kind of synchronicity is probably almost impossible to accomplish nowadays.