First off, the Sunnyville Kickstarter is winding down. It’s in the last days so please give what you can.
Now that Sunnyville Stories episode 9 is done with, it’s time to work on the tenth story with Rusty and Sam. I had the start of a script ready when I was wrapping up the ninth story. To be honest, I’m quite relieved that I’ve finished up Sunnyville #9. That was meant as a “lower deck episode” as it concentrated more on the Tanuki family; Rusty and Sam didn’t get much screen time. That will change this time around as Rusty and Sam play more into the plot this time.
As I was saying before, I’ll be introducing more characters into the Sunnyville universe in this story and the next one. This story will be introducing a wandering rock band called Das Eichornen. There will be four of them and I’ll have some character sketches up next time.
As this will be the tenth story in the saga of Sunnyville, I’ll be about one-fifth of the way through. Yes, there will be a total of fifty stories all about the adventures of Rusty and Sam. It’s at this stage that I feel that Sunnyville is growing the beard. I’ve done nine whole stories, I’m picking up attention (the first volume of Sunnyville has landed in a couple of libraries), and the character dynamic between Sam and Rusty is clearly there.
Rusty essentially plays the funny role and Sam is the straight role. In other words, Rusty says or does something funny and Sam is there to provide reaction. This dynamic will continue with the next stories.
It’s also my goal to shake things up a bit by trying some new techniques in my storytelling. As I’ve explained before, I’ve been taking cues from Cerebus (by Dave Sim) and I plan to start using some polyptychs in the next few stories. I’ve been working on some practice pages and they’ve turned out quite well. FYI, the polyptych is a depiction of moving figures on a static background. It’s a trick some have used in comics. It’s discussed a little more within Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. I’ve also been reading Krazy Kat by George Herriman. This masterful use of the nib pen and his layouts are quite amazing. I may have to use some of those in the next few stories.
That’s all for now.
