Here's to you, Mr. Background Character

As mentioned before, the upcoming bake sale storyline was initially slated to appear farther down the road. Inspiration striking when it did meant I suddenly introducing parents without first showing their kids. The result was a surprisingly early entry and starring role for Kaitlyn. Ahh, but Kaitlyn's good about these things. Once the storyline is over, she gracefully shows herself out and the comic is allowed to continue with the classroom turf war the same as always.

Kaitlyn's classy exit does open up the door for ANOTHER classmate from the other side to get a debut. To lighten the sudden new character onslaught, I could have had her talking to Roddy. To be accurate to Kaitlyn's relationships, I could have had her talking to Quincy. Instead, little Vincent will get his time to shine... and promptly disappear from the strip for a long time. I believe his debut shall end something like this:

Kaitlyn: Back to obscurity with you, Vincent!
Vincent: Aww, shucks!

So why Vincent? He's the most innocent on the other side; if hopes are to be crushed, he's the fitting victim. Also: Kaitlyn syndrome. It's just weird to use a parent without giving the kid, the far more important character, some face time.

You might notice there's some schlub in the sketch above. It's hard not to notice the guy, seeing as he's the subject of the post title. This dude is Vincent's dad, who doesn't even get a name. He is there to add some dude into scenes where no other dudes are willing to step up. He's a token. He's a background character.

Continuing my horrible blight of hetero-normative behavior, the PTA meeting is dominated by the mommies. Look, I am not Mr. Wonder Artist who is willing or capable to draw a full PTA meeting with a bunch of background characters. The only strip I've done so far WITH any background characters is the Black Friday bonus strip that isn't even on the main Precocious site. The parental speaking roles in the bake sale plot are all moms. In steps... some dude! See, some fathers do care about the PTA! Sky's talking to him! He looks totally out of place, but he is there because FATHERS ARE DEDICATED!


While he doesn't have a name, he does have some background information. Daddy Iddenstein is a single father who is trying his best to be a good parents. Life is hard, man! Not only is he the sole breadwinner, but he's also tasked with parenting a little genius who likely has undiagnosed ADD. (Vincent's more the scrambled-brain type than hyperactive troublemaker, so his crippling mental problem is charmingly benign!) Anyway, that's still not enough to buy him more than one or two panels without dialog. Back to obscurity with you! SOCIETY DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOUR BROKEN HOME/CHILD!

I had fairly loose goals when designing this dude. He needed to be canine to sire Vincent, COMPATIBLE SPECIES and all, and he shouldn't look too much like Vincent. The first sketch featured the backwards baseball cap, but was too obviously Vincent's dad. I decided to try again. The next sketch turned into a fox by accident, which would explain Vincent's look - but I wanted to go for canine variety. Then I decided to see if I could draw a droopy-eared doggie and still make it look male. (There's a reason I have only one character with such ears, and she's the militant girl power chick.) The result was the above sketch, which I think is quite nifty for a background dude. Only problem, he now looks NOTHING like his son. This is not important if he's just a background character, but it does eliminate the chance for readers to make the connection. It would have been a neat touch. "There was this strange fluffy canine father in the background of one strip, and now there's a similar-looking fluffy canine child talking to Kaitlyn. I get it!" Now... Vincent's dead mommy bust have been one fluffy, stripy bitch. See, it's one thing for the Et family to be varied - such fur pattern variations are common with domestic shorthairs. After doing 15 minutes of Googling, I have decided Vincent is a Keeshond, yet his dad looks like an English Setter/less fluffy breed mix. CANINE GENETICS DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!

Oh, and those who have been reading this blog since post three or four (which is just me) is wondering if I'm going to follow up with my "rich lives of background characters" indicator that Dionne's mom was going to make an appearances. At the moment, she's been cut. Adding Kaitlyn in meant backgrounds will be omitted to accomodate dialog and the placement of small children. Heck, if I take a chainsaw to the arc and cut out a week - a strip with Sky pulling a "wall of text" to allow me to tie up logistical and conceptual loose ends is only interesting to me - there's a good chance my token dude's strip(s) get axed. I'm not looking into a play-by-play rundown of the story here. I want to get in, make funny jokes, gloss over the plot points and jump to the highly-amusing finish. I SEEM TO BE ENDING EVERY PARAGRAPH IN ALL CAPS!

The potentially-deleted strips also make jokes based on everyone understanding a character's personality. I've been dealing with these folks for years, so I know them. People who only read the comic (which is every reader but me) will only know these folks from the handful of strips in which they appeared. Good cartoonists know not to make these jokes until their strip is well-established. *I* made a joke based on Jacob's dad in the third friggin' strip. Jacob's dad makes his first appearance OVER A HUNDRED STRIPS LATER. Way to go, me! I mean, WAY TO GO, ME!

Hetero-Normative Behavior!

I'm am such a wholesome idealist. Well, in one subject at least. Since the foundation of Precocious is my idyllic childhood, that means the environment around my kids is extremely awesome! Gemstone Estates has just about everything a kid could ever want! Outside the houses we have lots of stimulation. Inside the houses... LOVING FAMILIES!

The Precocious parents are a fun bunch. They have happy, healthy marriages, do their best to motivate and encourage their children and they are delightfully insane!

I'm almost done drawing the Max's birthday storyline, so now the question is what to do next? I have a silly little brawl over dessert, or I can go back and do that much-hyped parents storyline. Ideally, I'll do both! If I built up a large enough comic buffer, then I have time to create the parents arc and just insert it into the archives. That's the dedication I have to you people! (I make no promises that will happen.)

Either way, it's time to practice my parent-drawing skills. I want to get the parents introduction into the archives soon, as they do tend to pop up in the strip. While I do my best to get their personalities across in their appearances, I want the chance to expand upon them. Once they are established, their lines in earlier strips take on new interpretations!

The only worry I have is that I naturally write more adult jokes for the adults. One couple met due to judgment impaired by alcohol and fatigue. Another punchline involves nudity, paint and the dining room. (I'll let you contemplate that one.) I love it, but such risky gags could hurt any syndication chances.

The humor is appropriate contextually, though. Insane geniuses don't just pop up out of the blue. I believe in nature over nurture. The environment may do some finishing in shaping personalities, but lots of my kids nuttiness is inherited. Each kid is the natural consequence of their parents spawning.

That is... if I don't blow the strips with a bad script. Before I draw anything, I've got to tighten up the story and connect the dots.

We're COMPATIBLE SPECIES!

Technically, that is true. But really, it's a "same planet; different worlds" sort of thing. What I like about the supporting cast of Precocious is that each is designed as a foil to my susceptible main characters. (Tiffany, being invulnerable due to spaciness, is "countered" by Roddy, a general irritant.)



Autumn is the bad kind of gamer - one who uses play to determine status. Each match is life or death because honor and social standing is at stake! She's been spoiled by a former life in which she dined on the weak and normal of a public school system. Now that she's among peers, it's natural that she'll test them to see where she stands.

Unfortunately for Autumn, she's the big loser in all of the intro arcs. The defeat that smarts the most is the one to Max. How can you compete with a person whose personality is so kind and innocent that competition means nothing to him? Autumn cannot comprehend how a person with Max's power - he has money, brains and superior strength - would never use it to push others around. Max thinks of Autumn as a good friend. Just like Ignatz throwing Bricks at Krazy Kat, Max's obliviousness only serves to make Autumn try harder to get him.



Bud has a nice thing going in Sapphire Lake. He's among like-minded jerks. They fight and war and joke about, but all do it with a spirit of fun! They can form all the supervillain unions they want, but in the end they're just playful in a convincing mean mask.

This is where Dionne comes in. She's *so* much better at the evil game than the rest of them, and she mops the floor with kids whenever she comes around. Bud, who is used to being the center and having control over his universe, is completely muted by the stronger predator. By the end of his visit to Dionne's in the pilot arc, Bud's reduced to the foolish straight man character. Later on, when he's about to lose the war before it begins, Dionne is the one that taunts him. Of course, just like with Autumn and Max, there is also a bit of attraction here. Unlike Autumn and Max, who are completely different, Bud and Dionne's connection is based on their similarities. One's greatest foe can be a great ally as well. (If you survive the partnership.)

The reason this one is holiday themed is because I decided to draw Bud wearing a coat instead of usual vest. Well, 'tis the season! I had an excuse to give Bud a hat *and* it allowed me to put Dionne in an ironic angel outfit!



Jacob, the pushover of the group, is the natural prey of Suzette, whose powerless feeling led her dominate whenever she gets the opportunity. All her perceived oppression is easily transferred to the hapless sidekick. Suzette is more than happy to beat up on someone her own size. Jacob is too nice (chivalrous?) to put up a fight. All the characters lead Jacob into doom, but Suzette does so with the most violence! Originally, the drawing was going to be an appropriate pose of Suzette dragging Jacob off someplace, but that proved too hard to draw so Suzette's hand was erased from Jacob's elbow. Instead of changing it to Suzette dragging Jacob on a leash, I went with the cop-out and mimicked the Bud/Dionne drawing.

If you're looking at all the images, you can see the battle I wage with cuteness proportions. Autumn and Max are a decent shape for now. Bud and Dionne resemble my former ways of drawing taller characters. (I shouldn't say "former," since it's more like the current habit I am trying to break - and it's still my default if I don't pay attention.) Jacob and Suzette are the Peanuts-ish big head approach I am trying to adopt - although maybe not that severe. Proportion is *my* nemesis.

...and every day the rats eat a little more of my foot!

This is what I get for living in a basement.

Tonight has been the full brunt of the subterranean lifestyle. First, I was forced to bail water from the stairway leading to the basement because it was raining biblically hard (and the roof was dumping directly onto the stairway) that the drain couldn't handle everything. I managed to clear enough debris to get the drain working properly and prevent flooding.

THEN came the the real joy of living in squalor! As the weather gets cold, nature tends to sneak into the warm confines of the house. Naturally, my vermin peers ended up in the basement as well. Tonight, they got BOLD!

Early on I heard rustling. Uh oh. Later came the visual confirmation... as a mouse bounced around my bed! I saw it scurry off towards the TV... so it's a Battlestar Galactica fan, I guess. Or maybe not, since it chose to double back and CRAWL ON MY FOOT! My kicking only seemed to embolden it, as I caught it later wandering around behind me. I cornered it under the dehumidifier.

IT IS ADORABLE! Not as cute as the one I caught in the bathroom a while back. That one was black and the cutest mouse ever. This one was gray and only adorable. But she is my bedmate, so I should be thankful for any bedroom action no matter the definition. (Now I will call it a "she" because somehow it seems less gross. I don't know why.)

She got away (not that I was prepared to catch her) when I shifted my weight to get a better look. That was hardly enough to intimidate her, as she's been happily scurrying about as I type this post. I just gave her a scare by taking a flying leap onto my bed. This is called coping with one's environment. (She's already running about again! This is going to be adorable right up until my face is eaten in my sleep.)

Anyway, instead of just making mouse jokes alone, I figured I'd try to draw a cute cartoon mouse girl. It's my first ever, so be forgiving. I have zero intention of drawing anything but doggies and kitties, so moving beyond species is weird for me.

Edit: So it's 4am now and I've seen this mouse bouncing around this room without a care in the world. Oh, and I do mean bouncing. She's like a rubber ball, that mouse. SO CUTE! It's amazing what the creatures do during the hours humans should be asleep. (I didn't take my sleep meds today, 'natch. 4am + bottle of wine = not remotely tired. I flunk at life math.) I just had her walk right up next to me. I could have reached out and grabbed her if I wanted. Instead, I leaned over and asked, "What are you doing?" Off she went!

Oh, I even braved the night to wander out to the mailbox. Since today was marked by the cataracts of heaven, no one got the mail. Surprise: NEW NETFLIX DVD! Battlestar Galactica is seriously awesome. Lucy Lawless as #3 is proving to be a massively compelling character. Rock on, Xena!

Mothers Day

Ok, so technically that day has passed and Fathers Day is closer. Whatevs - I hope to have the daddy sketches ready for display soon enough.

Continuing to share sketches of the Precocious Cast, I offer the two main moms yet to appear on the blog. They also happen to be the last two characters that appear in the first arc of the comic strip. While the first arc is all about the Poppinstock kids, a cross-neighborhood epic tale invariably passes through the homes of our players. As three of the four houses are fairly hetero-normative - with the husband out working and the wife at home - it's the mommies that play the parental roles in this case.

Granted, these women don't always enjoy the housewife role. Ivy Pingo is "between jobs" and refuses to say that keeping the home from disrepair is a valid career option. (Don't glare at me, housewives of the world, that's *Ivy's* cognitive dissonance there!)

Deirdre Linkletter, however, is the natural homemaker. She cooks, cleans, organizes, enjoys charity work and is active with the PTA - all the wonderful mommy stuff. Even better, she does it with cheerful and bubbly innoncence. This is not your typical bored housewife harpy trying to grab any power she can. Deirdre is a sweetheart despite working in a realm where sticks up one's rear are common. It's so improbable; she might just be a robot.

Sky Et is the other true stay-at-home mom. Unlike Deirdre, Sky never saw her life taking this path. She was going to be a biologist... maybe a doctor... cure cancer... do awesome science stuff! Then she got knocked up. Ok, that's fine too! The former free spirit now has five children (aged 9, 6, 4 and a double-dose of terrible 2's) and spends her time wrangling brats.

Let's put it this way: At a PTA meeting, Deirdre can effortlessly maneuver through the egos and bureaucracy to get things done. Sky would sit to the side, make sarcastic remarks and sip from the flask she sneaked in. (If you're wondering about the other moms: Ivy would only attend if someone else volunteered to drive. Yes, the school *is* within walking distance. Sydney Oven would send a check to fulfill her obligation.)

Here's another set of sketches I did last night. Like my constant botching of Tiffany's details, I forgot to color the tip of Sky's tail. Deirdre is also a bit thin, but who doesn't want *that* bank error in their favor?