“Striking Sparks” — Page Thirty-Six

Aug03
by Bob Forward on 2014-08-03 at 21:00
Chapter:

Hey! Eyes down here, mister! Sheesh, what’s a girl got to do?

So! On this page, we get to see the two things Max enjoys drawing most — pretty girls and bad-ass machinery, especially cars. Seriously, most artists can either do one or the other, but finding a webcomic artist skilled with drawing both is so tough I had to actually breed one myself.

To be fair, the incredibly talented and prolific Minna Sundburg (currently doing Stand Still Stay Silent) also seems to enjoy people and complex machinery but she’s the only other webcartoonist I can think of. Most of the others on my reading list can do both, if need be, and often do, but you can tell they favor one or the other. Max actually likes drawing cars. And people.

(Commenters! You are invited to illuminate me on other artists skilled in both tech and terpsichorean topography, because I’m always happy to add more material to my Comic Rocket reading list, but please limit it to webcomics. Big-name comic book artists and graphic illustrators would be kind of cheating.)

Anyhoo — my script for this page simply called for a “modded-out Tesla” but Max felt the Tesla Roadster just wasn’t bad-ass enough so I think he borrowed some Lamborghini testosterone for the final design.

More below!

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Bobservations

In Case You Forget I’m A Girl

 

Back in the days of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, I worked at a busy animation studio along with a number of talented artists and writers. Seriously, the roster is like a “Who’s Who” of people who would eventually become known industry-wide and beyond. I shared a trailer with J. Michael Straczynski (who went on to create Babylon 5) for instance.

Anyway, one of the female artists (who later went on to direct an extremely successful and award-winning animated feature) would show up most days dressed just kinda whatever. Baggy jeans, boots, drab sweatshirt, no makeup, hair just tied up sort of haphazardly, horn-rimmed glasses. Rather like Sandra Bullock at the beginning of “Miss Congeniality.” I don’t think she was actively dressing down; she just had work to do and wasn’t about to spend time each morning for the benefit of, let’s face it, a bunch of freakin’ cartoonists. I mean, talk about wasting ammo.

But every once in a long while, like Halloween or just when she got tired of being invisible, she’d show up in what we’d call a “Don’t forget I’m a girl” outfit, which was generally so far the other way that male cartoonists would be walking into walls and falling down stairwells. Yeah, going back to “Miss Congeniality,” the studio door would open and it would be like that transformation reveal when Sandra Bullock strides out of the hangar. You could practically hear the “Mustang Sally” music.

The word would go around the cubbys:

“Dude! Guess who’s a girl today!”

“Whoa! I’ll go check it out!”

Make no mistake, she was always a solid professional, and still is. But every once in a while, I think she wanted some drooling. On her terms. She got it, too.

I like to think Marissa’s kinda the same way.

 

— Bob out

ARTIST’S NOTES:
Hi guys, no, I don’t design cars in my spare time, i just take existing designs and splice them together to make new ones, just like everyone else 🙂
-Max