Rabbits Against Calamari

Today's sunday strip was a lot of fun to do although it took me forever.

It's actually a homage/tribute/rip off of this amazing double-spread by Wally Wood (art) and George Belkin (script) from issue #68 of Mad, circa 1962.  This is the uncut Bristol board image. Notice I stole one of the jokes!

One thing I decided up front was that due to the proliferation of characters and the much smaller space allowed for Sunday strips these days I had to restrict the numbers somewhat.  Thus I only included characters from current strips (no reruns with the exception of Andy Capp and Popeye) and included very few dogs and cats. I skipped the soap and adventure type strips too. Generally I picked characters that might actually work in an office and there is definitely a personal bias in there too. Also, as Dilbert's boss says "no webcomics".  The exceptions were people who have included my characters in their strips (Dark SIde of the Horse, Human Cull and Knight Life).  Of course I missed a few that I'd include if I was to do this over.

Here's the pencil rough before I started inking.

I was really happy to be able to make a band.  Hardest to draw was Dagwood from Blondie.  I need to practice that one more. Next up, the Comic Strip Characters Beach party!

Here's the complete list (approximately top to bottom, left to right):

Horace (Dark Side of the Horse), Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, Travis (the head in the jar from Scary Gary), Jill Kaplan (The Pajama Diaries), Jonathan Lemon (me!), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Alien Admin (from Human Cull), Rory (The Barn), Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time-Traveler from 1909 (Tom the Dancing Bug), Scary Gary and Leopold (Scary Gary), Buni (Buni), Dilbert, Helen Kudlick (Dustin), Keith Knight (The K Chronicles), Lance (Fusco Brothers), Dagwood (Blondie), Luann, Arthur (Sheldon), Pointy-haired boss (Dilbert), Petey (Cul-de-Sac), Popeye, Lettuce (Rabbits Against Magic), Roger Fox (Foxtrot), Charlie Brown and Lucy (Peanuts), Big Nate, Lio, Tina (Tina's Groove), Beatle Bailey and Sarge, The cloud (Wizard of Id), Zippy the Pinhead, Trixie (Rabbits Against Magic), Jeremy Duncan (Zits), La Cucuracha, Joules (Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee), Rat (Pearls Before Swine), Lamont (Candorville), Duke (Doonesbury), Monty Montahue (Monty), Bung and the Wizard (Wizard of Id), Andy Capp, Schroeder (Peanuts), Hilary Forth (Sally Forth), Poncho (Pooch Cafe), Bucky (Get Fuzzy), Bleeker the Rechargeable Dog, Thatababy, Hammie (Baby Blues), Marla (Retail), Eaightball and Weenus (Rabbits Against Magic), Grog (B.C.), Earl (Pickles), Oscar the Penguin (Arctic Circle), Enos (The Duplex).