This week’s M-W-F theme was supposed to be “David Draws Batman Stuff In Different Styles Than Usual,” culminating in a Batman: Brave and the Bold strip, but before I could get to Friday’s strip, I had some fun time on the ice outside. I was smart and broke my fall with my arms and hands instead of, y’know, my face, but I have some really fun cuts in some really fun places that make it awkward to draw for very long.
I was originally planning on running this guest strip next week while I was at Toy Fair, but now you can enjoy it early! It’s written by T Campbell and illustrated by John Waltrip, who I’ve worked with before on Rip and Teri. T Campbell also writes Fans! (which I’ve illustrated for him a few times) and Penny and Aggie.
T Campbell has apparently been super into the recent Robin/Leslie storyline, as evidenced by his voluntary guest strip, and you can see his thoughts at length over on his own forum.
Ouch, hope it’s not too serious and you feel better soon!
Get better! D=
And I actually had this wacky idea of, “What if Willis teased everyone with filler Mon-Thur THEN had another cliffhanger!?!”
But not this week. Alas!
O.O my God. i must do that and d*mn the consequences
this strip just makes me want to see Leslie and Robin together again moar (after Robin makes up for what she’s done, since it was crappy)
Love Leslie’s softly-spoken “I’m a bird.” So d’aww. ♥
OK, in which continuity was there a Venusian invasion? And are most of them completely wacky?
Well, since Mars invaded the US, Venus decided it wasn’t going to be shown up, and invaded Britain (as evidenced by the Parliament line, and the “bird” compliment.)
I laughed at the strip. I laughed again at “Muffy Diver”
The Venerian Invasion might have only affected those on the side of the world adjacent the Prime Meridian.
*Teleports a slice of Papa Ken Bierce’s famous medicinal Apple Bread to David Willis* Enjoy ToyFair and get well soon!
It appears Mr. Campbell’s studies here have not been in vain!
Again: Holy shit, it’s T Campbell.
The important thing, Mr Willis, is that you had fun falling on the ice. Otherwise it’s just not worth going outside. Ever.
i liked the pac-man reference.
Shouldn’t she be working at McAwesome’s?
Do they have a comic-book wing? In the UK?
Who else DIDN’T notice the change in art at all?
Jason is so flexible in his art that it’s amazing. He was really good at emulating Gisèle’s style and getting to make it more his own in the process, and for some people it took a while to figure out the guest strips were, well, guest strips before he took over art duties. Another guest strip done by him in a totally different style, another style he managed to emulate.
Awesome.
Agree completely on the quality and flexibility of the artist’s style, but the artist here is in fact Jason’s brother, John.
This is John!
Funny, I noticed it instantly, even before I registered that I didn’t know who that person on the left was.
Or I guess more specifically I noticed that the linework is different (Willis’s is hand-drawn and this looks vector or otherwise digital). Does that count as a different art style?
Yipe! I wish you a swift recovery and no more pain than you deserve.
Agreed. May you feel no more than a minor twinge for every “Damn you, Willis!” you have earned on this site.
On second thought, collectively that would probably be agonizing.
I’m sorry Mr. Willis (yeesh, flashback to highschool with that one), but this guy draws Leslie better’n you do.
But she’s not *supposed* to have whites in her eyes!
She sprouts them if I need her to look around.
I always think it looks better when you draw characters with white eyes. It’s often the difference between your throw-away characters and your main ones, with a few exceptions (Leslie, Jacob, and Joe in DoA come to mind, who looks pretty dated in style compared to the newer characters). It is especially jarring when these characters suddenly get whites in their eyes to show a surprised reaction or something.
Just my two cents on the matter.
I don’t think there’s any correlation at all between having dots for eyes and being throw-away characters. Both Duncan and “Bucket of Blood” guy, for example, have full eyes, and they were both throw-away characters. Sydney Yus, too. Amber, meanwhile, has dots for eyes and she’s as main a character as you can get.
I dole out eye-styles pretty evenly, and I do this deliberately.
There is no draw better in art … there are only different styles.
Mr. Willis … next time remember to never fall on your moneymaker.
Ouch. Hope you feel better soon. At least nothing’s broken.
And, uh, am I the only one getting a bajillion xd_proxysomethingsomethingsomething error messages popping up every time I open a Shortpacked!/DOA page? (And something trying to download itself without asking me first.)
Wow, I never ebouned so hard I manipulated the Trope-Force aroun dme and GENRATED an expy. Damn. Make sme think you should Franchise Willis. A lot of good Webcomics are going to close soon and that menas there’s a lot of talent for you to snatch up.
What?
I meant that if Willis ever wanted to extend the brand so to speak, he’d find a lot of talented WebComicers (Web-authors? Web-Publishers?) Out there. And as T Campbell’s own current Comic is ending this year, and because he’s pretty much established himself as the Grant Morrison to Willis’ Alan Moore, he’d be a perfect pick.
I think he’s saying “what?” because your first sentence is gibberish to anyone who doesn’t read TVTropes religiously.
Such folk are not fit to live.
Damn it, wish she had been my MP… All I get is an ex-Secretary of State for Health.
I suppose someone has to be an ex-Secretary of State for Health but Muffy seems just a little bit more eccentric and only the other day I watched talking-heads decrying the loss of these types of politicians from public life. Everyone would love a former Venusian abductee as a Minister surely.
Aw, no love for Guilded Age which they’re both working on together?
*frown*
What comic is that character from? Is she not from something specific?
Unsurprisingly I suppose, whenever I google her name, I get only porn.
I’m glad not too many people seem to have reacted as you did, Jetstream. I was worried because two of my friends did, all the way down to googling Muffy Diver and only getting porn.
She’s a new character created for this guest strip, in Shortpacked‘s tradition of near-doppelgangers and opposite numbers (Jake Manley, McAwesome’s, Walter Mondale). She’s the ideal “Robin substitute.” Almost every trait she has is similar to one of Robin’s, but she’s juuuuust different enough that Leslie can fool herself until her friends tear the veil away, as good friends should. The exception is Muffy’s name, which parallels Leslie’s instead.
Ah. Ah-hah. Got it. Good to know.
This strip needed a death star in it.
Are those the same Waltrip brothers who did the great artwork for Robotech: Sentinels?
Yep.
Cool.
Oj, and if the Waltrip Brother’s are listening. Thanks for doing a damn good job On The Sentinels. When I heard the book was going to be black and white, I groaned and rolled my eyes. But their artwork was so damn good, made me think I was looking at black and white photos.
This is about 20 years too late, but since the opportunity is at hand, wanted to pass along that complement.
So, what comic is Muffy Diver from? I didn’t spot her in the cast pages of any of the linked comics & couldn’t find anything relevant in a web search.
(Disturbing? Yes. Relevant? No.)
Until I read the name, I almost thought it was supposed to be an older Word Girl (PBS cartoon).
Muffy is from this strip and this strip only. If she can’t be found in any other cast pages, nor anywhere else on the Internet, it stands to reason she must be new!
When are we gonna see new G.I. Joes, Transformers: Prime stuff, and new My Little Ponies? Hasbro, show me reasons to give you my money!
David could you stop allowing amateur fanboys like this “T Campbell” to do guest strips?
You’re only encouraging their fantasies, you know.
This will teach me not to wish you “a cracking good time.”
Alyx Vance?
Hm, guess Drew’s annoyance with Ethan’s toys wasn’t as dormant as I thought.