Capes-n-Babes

I have heard various webcartoonists who have been doing this thing longer than I have say, on many occasions, that you should never write about the strip you’re posting. In a lot of ways, what they say is valid. If you have to explain your joke in a blog post, then maybe you need to re-work the joke enough so that it doesn’t require a write-up explaining it.

Well, I’m not exactly going to be doing that here but I did want to talk a little bit about the writing process. That’s a lot different than explaining the joke, isn’t it?

In any case, when I sit down to work on a strip, I very seldom have a written script in front of me. mainly that’s because I have already been thinking about that particular strip for a couple of days and already have everything mapped out in my head. So, when I go to write the strip, it goes relatively quick. Oh, I’ll change some words or sentence structure around but the basic premise of a particular joke will stay the same.

Today’s strip was a little bit different. I had the premise in my head but it was more like a “theme” than a “premise”. I knew what I wanted to say but I was having a really difficult time coming up with the words that could properly match the theme of the strip. So I had to do something I rarely do… I had to write out a script for the strip (say that five times real fast!).

And then I had to re-write and re-write and re-write it again before I was satisfied that the words matched what I wanted the strip to convey. It was a tough process and even included a lengthy discussion about Roy with my wife. Bouncing ideas off of her gave me a chance to eventually find the words for today’s strip.

So I hope you appreciate the struggles I went through this weekend. It was tough but someone had to do it, right?

🙂

-Chris