Post Cosmo #3: Bunny McSniff and Bruiser McGann

The post-Cosmo project I'm most looking forward to, in a weird way, is Bunny McSniff and Bruiser McGann. Ever since the Hadrons had the best response from people of all the stuff I've done because, to be honest, it's the least niche, I've found myself longing to go back to the world of children's picture books. I've said before that one of the things that finally got me to taking mini comics seriously again and cartooning was seeing an episode of Vern and Lettuce and boggling at the utter joy and enthusiasm there was in Sarah McIntryre's art. It was not a long leap from there to suddenly really appreciating children's picture books and I honestly believe that the best books by Judith Kerr or Wanda Gag or the James Marshall George and Martha books are as good as any bit of sequential art of storytelling out there. And the masterpiece that is "The Story of Horace", which - irrespective of genre - is simply one of the funniest books ever written by anyone. Ever. Period.

So in many ways Bunny McSniff/ Bruiser McGann is a children's picture book, although it may be a little too... dark for that at the moment. It started as a way of initially amusing Sarah every night with one set of pictures and then horrifying her with the comedy of the next. The vague idea is that McSniff and McGann are best friends meant for each other, but who have never met and who simply suffer at the hands of their uncaring current "best friends", the caddish Bunny Huggles and Vincenzo O'Snapdragon. The book is a series of unfortunate nearly meets for the two of them, and a series of disappointments at the hand of the cads (with occasional moments of unplanned "revenge" such as the one above where a well meaning Bunny McSniff tries to amuse a horribly hungover O'Snapdragon who cancelled on a night out to the opera with McSniff to go drink cocktails with Bunny Huggles). The problem is I don't really know how to bring the narrative together at the moment... but on the way to it I'm having tremendous fun.

It also allows me to bring in a few future simpler ideas in the back door such as Bollo Jigsby, the Sweet Shop Monkey and the Amazing Alphonse and Fat Man Tubby, by using them in crowd scenes. Plus, the most attractive thing for me is that it's a simple redemption narrative (with a comeuppance for the cads) with no outre fripperies to distract me like everything else I write. I'm also aiming to play around with Photoshop colouring for it too... so it's a nice simple one to do and I look forward to finally finishing the thing. Soon. I hope.