#33: Scoops, Shorts, and Spiders

Hello brave captains,

It’s that time, obviously. The time for another batch of cartoons.

This week we take a bet on a few scoops, a bet on the weather, and a bet on a household assassin’s effectiveness.

Fighting a good fight,
Chris

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Caption: “Place your bets! Place your bets! How many scoops will survive?”

One scoop, two scoop, no scoop?

I love a good ice cream cone. The flavours, the chill, the sugar rush: it’s all there and it’s all kind of glorious. But if there is one thing that’s guaranteed, it’s that every moment is a lick into the unknown: will it slip off the cone and fall to the ground? Or will it survive long enough for the next mouthful?

Maybe you know the feeling?

A little artist’s note: This cartoon is simple, but also kind of packed. The questions I needed to ask myself were: How could I make the bookmaker look enough like one with the least amount of detail? How could I build up a park without making the background too complex? And, how could I use colour without making it feel out of place or, alternatively, overwhelming? The answers, as you will see, were a combination of things. The bookmaker needed a suit, a stand and a hat, although he does look a little Oppenheimer-like now; the park is a simple one, with a clear floor with a few things on the ground; and the colours, well they are muted but enough to know they are there.

Caption: “It's a bright sunny day with a cool change expected right when you're too far away from home to change your clothes.”

It’s just that time of the year.

Whether you’re in the southern or the northern hemisphere, the weather is likely an unpredictable mix of a little sun and a little rain. How the day plays out will be entirely up to chance, circumstance, and a reliable weather report. And all of those things can be tall asks.

Maybe we just wear everything?

A little artist’s note: This cartoon is quite simple, really, and it’s also a lot of fun. It was, somehow, my first time drawing a TV presenter, so that added some interesting turns around spacing. How big do you make the TV? How big is the presenter on screen? And in my first draft, it turns out that the answer to both of those questions was: far too small. So, a redraw later, you can see that it’s all just about the right size.

The other fun fact is that the people for this cartoon were originally drawn as onlookers for the previous cartoon about the ice cream and gambling. But, once I had put all the pieces of that carton together, it felt crowded with the bystanders. Thankfully, they felt right at home with this cartoon, after a little modification, that is.

Caption: "Remember me, the spider you thought you had killed and flushed away?"

We try not to kill spiders in our house, but sometimes you just have to.

Now, I should clarify that in Australia, we don’t just have spiders, we have viciously deadly spiders. The kind of spiders that people could make the subject of horror movies. And they can be pretty frightening at times. So, often, you just need to kill them off in order to protect your loved ones. But, I then find myself asking the question: Did I actually kill it, or do I just think I did?

And then I wait for something like this to happen. Maybe you do too?

A little artist’s note: Let me start by saying that this cartoon took forever.

Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but it did take forever to find the angle. I knew it needed to be heavily shaded, and that it had to feel almost like a horror movie. But the rest of it was kind of about feeling my way in the dark, much like the character in this cartoon.

I guess what I’m saying is that this cartoon is the result of a significant amount of trial and error. And then some more trial and error. And then, well, you get the idea.

Thanks for reading MiddleSquiggle!

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