– Anthem – Spoofy Randomness

We Went Down In History

Five years ago today, Spoofy Randomness began. When I first began, it was a simple exercise to try to teach myself how to draw passable enough to draw science diagrams on a whiteboard. I figured it would last two months, tops. After dramatic art changes, upgraded technology, new characters, and TWO HUNDRED SIXTY-SIX comics (not counting sketchbooks and SR:Scouting), I have finally ended the story I set out to tell. I could not have made it this far without the support of fans and fellow cartoonists alike, and I am already working on a special thank you piece for you all.

That being said, don’t delete that bookmark! The story may be done, but I’ve still got some cool stuff to share! I plan on showing some behind-the-scenes work, sketchbook entries, and the like that I think you will enjoy. Also, this winter I plan on putting together a Kickstarter for a Spoofy Randomness book that will include all five years and some extra cool stuff. To give you a bit of a teaser, one of my students wrote a brilliant intro to a “Lightning Bug” episode that I will put into comic form as one of the extras.

And THAT being said, I’m taking a well-deserved break for a few weeks!

August 31, 2014

Together

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Anthem by Ayn Rand, the post-utopian story starts off with first person completely eliminated from language, and as time goes, “I” starts to be developed again. I found this interesting, but much like Percy’s speech, I felt that it is importnat to not discount the efforts of the group as a whole. Hence, the basis of this arc and the twist I added today.

Also, aging is fun! Can’t really see much with Nikki or Jorocks, but you can tell Sally dyes her hair and poor Chris is balding. Percy hasn’t really grayed that severely yet, but he’s using the transformative formulas to appear like Santa (although he apparently dislikes being fat). Matt seems to have acquired some way to resist time, much like his namesake’s species…

August 28, 2014

I, Santa

Ref: Little St. Nick

Oddly, I really don’t have much to say about this comic. Percy’s going gray!

August 25, 2014

I, Jordan

Ref: Architect | Root Beer | Elves

The Dalton Highway and Deadhorse are actual places in Alaska, by the way. For once my random road trivia was useful!

Of all of the comics in this arc, this was oddly the hardest to come up with ideas for, despite Jorocks being one of my most often used characters. I think it was because I had to come up with ideas for him to actually be professional… I did enjoy hiding little fun things in this comic, such as the root beer reference and Jorocks’ actual name (that was meant to be revealed in Secret Life, but got cut…). There’s another hidden joke; see if you can find it!

Fun fact: this is one of the few comics without Percy in it.

On an unrelated note, two weeks ago while driving to North Carolina, I wound up staying in the town of Santa Claus, Indiana. I thought that was appropriate given this comic. 🙂

August 21, 2014

I, Sally

Ref: Chad | Monica

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about this arc is because it is showing so much time passing, I can draw characters in lots of different outfits. Percy tends to lack variety other than colors, but Sally has always had a wide wardrobe. You can also see time progress in other ways in this comic, such as Percy’s new glasses. Much more St. Nick-like!

Sally was always meant to have a love interest in Chad, and it was supposed to be shown here but I wound up cutting it for space.

August 18, 2014

I, Nikki

Ref: Helping Percy | Teacher | PB&J’s Ice Cream

First, let me get something out of the way before I have to put out fires (again): PANEL 3 IS IN NO WAY A SUBTLE ANNOUNCEMENT OF MY OWN LIFE. I know a few readers who might make that assumption, but no, my wife and I are not expecting.

Panel 1 is sort of my apology to Nikki. Of the original four (Percy, Jorocks, Nikki, Chris), I feel like I’ve kind of developed her character the least, especially since the Tornado! mega-arc. That is one reason why I sent her with Percy to the North Pole (it also just plain made sense given their relationship), and the following story arc was supposed to be Nikki-centric before I decided to end the comic. The dropped arc was going to actually have her change her mind about teaching (there was going to be a bit of social commentary there), her relationship with Percy (early drafts actually had them breaking up, but I dropped that), and would also strengthen Sally’s character, who has been even more neglected than Nikki…

I gave Nikki a haircut and reading glasses to make her appear a little more like Mrs. Claus. She’s still young, but it shows her aging. Watch for other things like this. The article referenced is a real thing, in case you didn’t know. I debated between that and L. Frank Baum’s A Kidnapped Santa Claus.

You can accuse me of playing into stereotypes in Panel 3, but from what I’ve heard from several primary sources (friends that have been pregnant) is that pickle cravings are actually a thing that commonly occurs.

Also, for those of you who like this sort of thing, the scribbles on the board is a font from Blambot, and it does actually say something:

So this one time I had a hamster. She was cute. I liked her. I also like marshmallows, but that’s a different kind of like, you know? And the way I like my wife, that’s totally different from both of those likes. I also like drawing comics. However, I have never drawn my wife, a hamster, or marshmallows in comics. I guess my wife was in that Pokémon comic. The end is now.

Okay, whether by saying something actually gives meaning is open for debate…

August 14, 2014

I, Chris

Ref: Computer hackery | And again | Wait a minute, is that…

I’ve been looking forward to this particular “I” comic for a while. Had I the time to continue the comic for year and years and update daily and all that fun stuff, there were several options that I had for Chris. One possibility was that he would become disillusioned with Percy (Ichabod got this story instead), go to work for the CIA, and come back as a friend, only to reveal later that he was a spy. Another option was that he was recruited by the CIA, but wound up filling the same role as he did here. There were a couple of other options as well, but all of them basically involved the CIA singling Chris out as having a lot of potential. This was actually one of the first subplots introduced to Spoofy Randomness, although it was VERY subtle and never really got resolved–this is why the shadowy character didn’t want Chris to get involved! The switch from CIA to NSA was a recent one given current events. Originally, there was going to be a joke about John in there, but he’s mellowed out after his island adventure. I still think he would be outraged at the NSA, though.

And yes, there’s a reason why Sally is particularly interested. The reason is *spoilers*

August 11, 2014

I, Matt

This is like a triple dip of fan squee today! The most important of which: the switching of “we” to “I”. If you’ve read Anthem, you can see where this is going. Matt of course continues to geek out with Doctor Who, which as you can see fits perfectly with the Santa Claus mythology (and who says he isn’t, red bicycle when you were twelve). It’s been established that Percy isn’t a Doctor Who fan, but apparently he knows enough Star Trek to paraphrase a quote. I myself am not a Trekkie, so I had to ask friends for a technobabbly Star Trek quote about time travel. Chris gets awesome points for providing me with the quote below:

“A black star of high gravitational attraction began to drag us toward it. It required all warp power in reverse to pull us away from the star but like snapping a rubber band, the breakaway sent us plunging through space and time, out of control to stop here, wherever we are.”

August 7, 2014

We Learned About Ourselves

It’s hard to show flight and driving at the same time… And yeah, backgrounds are kinda lame for two reasons. Reason 1: they’re in the Arctic. Not a huge amount of scenery. Reason 2: I don’t have a SketchUp of it.

Don’t worry, Chris has long underwear. Looks like Matt has another similarity to his Time Lord namesake: resistance to cold. Percy and Nikki’s coats have been seen before, as has Jorocks’. I researched women’s coats for Sally’s; most of what Google Images gave me would not do very well in the “keeping warm” department in a Nebraska winter, let alone the Arctic. (And yes, I’m aware that they would probably need heavier coats than that. ARTISTIC LICENSE.)

August 4, 2014

Celebration

First of all: CELEBRATION!

*dances to fun music*

…Erm, where was i? Oh yes, the comic. This one was hard to draw, but fun as well because I get to draw my characters growing up. Graduation hats were invented for the sole purpose to drive amateur artists insane drawing them, I swear… Jorocks and Holly in Panel 2 were also quite difficult, and I actually had my wife look at several different sketches to help me. I also had a hard time with Nikki and Ella; at a wedding girls often do something special with their hair, but how to show that without it looking like a different character in my simple drawing style? Ella in particular; this is actually the first time she hasn’t been drawn upside down in the comic! Eventually I just went with straight hair for Ella and had Nikki let her hair down and curl it a bit on the end. The dresses were also difficult; Nikki’s original dress was hard to tell that it was a nice dress and not just what she would normally wear (the fact that you don’t see the bottom made that difficult), so I made it single-strapped. Matt also almost didn’t make it in the comic (hence why he’s off in the corner) as I accidentally forgot him. Recall that Holly graduated last year and Chris is a year younger.

Graduation cord info: Nikki and Percy both graduated with honors (the medallion), as they are the two in the group that are the most book-smart. (Well, and Nikki was an ed major. And before any of you yell at me, I was an ed major. It’s a lot of work, but most of my ed classes were completion grades.) Sally has a stole from Germany; when I graduated, Doane was trying a new thing of wearing a stole from the country you studied abroad in (this would also explain Sally’s prolonged absence in the comics). I quite enjoyed this, as I studied in Wales and therefore I got to wear a stole with a DRAGON on it. Academic honor societies: Nikki has the education one, Sally the business one, Matt the physics one, and Percy has the biology one and two academic honors ones. Jorocks has none, as his academic progress had some problems… Fun fact: I was supposed to graduate with the education honor cord, but I misplaced the letter saying I could get in and didn’t actually open it until months after graduating. Oops!

My wife and I pulled Nikki’s trick when we got engaged. We got engaged shortly before Doane’s Relay for Life event, so we were with our friends for EIGHT HOURS before we finally decided to tell them. (We were also really tempted to elope while going through the wedding planning process, but what couple isn’t?)

Jorocks in a tux still amuses me. And I couldn’t resist the top hat.

Finally, if you haven’t read Ayn Rand’s Anthem, go to your library and pick it up. It’s a good read, and while this final arc is understandable without it, it will carry more significance if you’ve read it.

July 31, 2014

Chapter: – Anthem

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