Here I am, I still exist! Phew doggie the Dinosaur Issue of MCFC was ferocious. It took an extra long time and a lot of work (as usual) but it is now at the printer and it promises to be maybe the best issue yet! Lots of great stuff coming your way. Great stuff with big claws and teeth.

 I want to talk about a lot of things I’ve been itching to share with you all while I was finishing the issue, but I’ll take it slow.

 This time I am just going to say

HOLY COW IT’S GETTING WET AROUND HERE!

We’ve had lots of flooding and extreme rain in the last few days (just like much of the northeast) and this is what the brook, or what is normally a nice little brook, behind our house looks like. Yikes. We’re high up the hill though, so the Yurt is safe.

 As soon as I finished the Dino issue, I jumped into a little project with a friend Eric who does posters for shows he sets up here in Peterborough, NH. He’s gotten into screen-printing his posters and I’ve been wanting to do an illustration for one. An upcoming show features the experimental jazz saxophonist Paul Flaherty and I jumped at the chance to do that one. So, I drew the picture and the designs and Eric did the lettering and printing.

I’m pretty happy with the way it came out. It’s nice to step away from MCFC and do something really different every once in awhile.

So, ages ago (a few entries back) I showed you an illustration for the upcoming Australia issue. Then around that same time 

editorbecky

Finally! The next Drawing Game! It's Foamlies again because you requested it. Well, one of you did at least. If you missed the drawing game last time check out the results of the first one to get an idea of what this is all about. Here we go.

CONTEST

Below I have posted a picture of an untouched Foamlie and I am giving you a week to take this and show the world what you see when you look at it. You can do this however you would like. You can draw over the Foamlie in a computer drawing program or print it out and draw on it by hand. Then e-mail an image of it to me (ryan AT moocowfanclub.com), or post it on the internet and send me the link, or mail it to me right away. Remember, show us whatever you see. I imagine foamlies come in all shapes & sizes so don't hold back!

RULES
-All Foamlies must be in by 10pm Sunday Nov. 26th
-Please include your name, age and a title with your entry
-Try to e-mail your picture to me, but if you can't you can mail them to
PO BOX 165
Peterborough, NH
03458

Since these drawings are all going to be from your point of view none of them can be more correct than any other. So, to choose a winner we will show Willy T. (our gallery curator) all of the entries and whichever one he picks to hang in the gallery we will declare the winner. I will post all of the entries on our website after the contest is over so you can see what everyone else saw.

PRIZE
An official Moo-Cow Fan Club T-Shirt in white or blue!

Here is your Foamlie. Quick what do you see?

Here it is, the Moo-Cow Fan Club's first TV appearance! We've cut out the show's opening where they said some nice things about us and made some bad cow puns, but you're getting the main piece. Enjoy.

Sorry, I kind of fibbed last entry when I said I would do another Foamlies Game this time. That will have to wait. But, I will talk about games!

In every issue of MCFC we have a game that somehow relates to the topic we are covering. Sometimes these games are based on traditional games and sometimes they are completely made up. Sometimes they are games you can play by yourself, right there on the page, and sometimes they take a friend and a little more preparation. I like to mix it up from issue to issue so that you always get something really different. My goal is to someday be able to make a really awesome Moo-Cow Fan Club game book that is compilation of all of our games. As you can see I get really into the game and I love when I have time to really do a lot with it. It's technically Ramses' article, but he's too lazy to do it all himself. Which means I do most of the hard stuff and he takes all the credit. But he did come up with something pretty cool for the latest game.
C The next issue (Pioneers out Nov. 1st)has a good board game in it that is based on an ancient board game known as fox and geese. Since we like to try all the games out before we print them Ramses suggested playing a large live-action version of what he decided to call "Ramses' Spectacular Buffalo vs. Settlers Showdown!" It worked out great and inspired me to make our first game with game pieces. The pieces for the board game are based on the crew of costumed friends Ramses invited over for the live-action version. Check out the Pioneers issue to see the final game, but here is a peek at the game pieces.

I also thought I would share with you some of the various kinds of games we've had in past issues. Click on the link to see them.

Okay, for some exciting Moo-Cow news of the week you can go over to editorbecky’s blog. Of course only after you finish reading mine though. You won’t want to miss this because I’m talking about one of my (and hopefully your) favorite subjects, COMICS!

 
Today, I’m doing the first installment in how comics for Moo-Cow (and comics in general) are made. This installment is called the Traditional Craft of Comics: Starring Eleanor Davis and the Bug Brigade.

Eleanor is a super excellent artist now living in Athens, GA with her also extremely talented comic artist boyfriend Drew Weing. Both Drew and Eleanor have done really fantastic illustrations for us in past issues (Scotland, Forests, Aztecs, Egypt) but Eleanor’s comic for our Insect issue’s Final Funnies page really raised the bar! She packed a ton of jokes, information and really appealing art into a 7”x 9” spot, which is really hard if you’ve ever tried it! Here see for yourself.

Eleanor was recently nice enough to send us the gift of the original artwork for this comic. When I saw how clean and well crafted the original page looked I immediately wanted to put it on this blog as a peek at a comic that is perfectly done in a more traditional way of crafting comics (as opposed to my method of cobbling a comic together from parts using the computer). So Eleanor then was doubly nice and e-mailed me her sketches that led up to her final comic.

These are some of her preliminary character sketches for the Bug Brigade. Here you can see Eleanor working out the look of characters. Also you can see a couple of names and sketches for characters that didn’t make it into the final comic. When you are developing new characters this sketching part of the process is key to helping you understand them. I only learned that too recently. And therefore over the years I’ve introduced some clunky characters into the Moo-Cow world. I’ve even had to develop the character’s looks in the actual issues because I hadn’t done enough sketches of them in the early days. So remember to get to know your characters in your sketchpad before you go putting them in your comics.

These are the pencils for the comic. This is the stage at which you use pencils map out and draw the comic to extent you need to ink it. Some artist’s penciled pages look almost as perfect and clean as their final inked pages. Then some like Eleanor get all the major parts down close to how they want them and are confident in their ability to fill in and fix the rest (like backgrounds, words etc.) in the inking stage. This takes some real talent and confidence in your inking. My pencils are much more rough than these and it’s not because I’m an inking wiz, it’s because I ink on the computer which allows me to alter and change things easily.

Here you can see the final inked page (isn’t it nice!) and how all those pencils were tightened up and backgrounds and final lettering added. Drew did the lettering on this comic and want to make sure he gets credit for it because he’s a real lettering pro! What you can really see from this picture is the use of white correction fluid (or white paint?) on the page. This is common in hand inked comics because no mater how talented you are you will always make mistakes or want to make things look even better. Also, it can be used as a more controlled way to fill in white areas after the inking is done.

I love when I see a comic fully realized on the page like this! To me it’s an awesome talent and one that is becoming more rare as more people (like me) start their comic careers in the computer age.

In all fairness this comic is not completely computer free though. We did ask Eleanor to color it with our 2 colors for that issue (we use a different 2 colors every issue), and the method in which we need that done requires the use of computer coloring. But normally Eleanor even does cool stuff with watercolors or inks that make her stuff completely done by hand. I’ll leave you with one of those images. Remember to check back next week for part 2 of this series, Computer Age Comics: Starring Me and the MCFC gang.

This might not look familiar to many of you because sadly lots of people do not notice our pet dedication section on the inside front cover of the magazine. Hence we don't get enough people submitting dedications. This is one that I did for our cats when we didn't have a reader's pet to do. Aren't they adorable! By the way the grey one, Pua, really is skinny you just can't tell from this picture.

The idea is that you send in a picture of your pet and a short dedication, along with your name. Here is an original photo we were sent of Katie the dog.

To make the picture of your pet fit our "all illustration all the time" rule here at MCFC, I color over it in such a way to make it look drawn. Then we place it, and the dedication, in the scene on our inside cover.

This is the final "illustration" of Katie (she's on a football field from our sports issue).

We can work with whatever picture you send. Sometimes the weird pictures end up working out the best. For instance

Here's one of Shmoopie the cat. The dedication that came with it was

 "I'd like to dedicate this issue to my cat Shmoopie (aka Jacob Von Shmoopen) who I've had for almost 8 years! Likes: yogurt, olives, banana bread. Dislikes: thunderstorms, strangers, getting his fur brushed. -Elza K."

I did the "illustration" of Shmoopie and then went to put it in our Weather issue and realized just how perfect it and the dedication fit with the lightning I did for the inside cover.

I love this section of our magazine and I want to make sure it keeps going. So you should all send us pictures of your pets with dedications right away! In fact we need one for the issue we are finishing right now, and I'll use the first one we get! So, hop to it.

 You can e-mail me pictures and dedications (ryan A moocowfanclub.com) or you can mail them to

Moo-Cow Fan Club
PO Box 165
Peterborough, NH
03458

 If you send an original pic and want it back please include a self addressed stamped envelope.

 
For all you livejournal users who have added us to your friends list, I'm sorry about the length of my posts, please let me know if it gets annoying. I would put stuff "behind the cut" but I don't want to add anymore steps for people who just casually click through from our website.

A Boy and His Cat by Loraine A.

Totally cute! This one reminds me of my cat and I snuggling.

by Wayne A.

I love this Santa. The use of the shape for the beard is really well done.

Nice! Propeller hats are always the right choice.

Foam Thief by Dan H.

Great idea. Are those his eyebrows?! Those are some serious eyebrows.

And the Winner is.....

Popeye by Alex C.

Willy T. told me he picked this one not because the quality of the drawing (Alex is obviously very talented) but because of the original point of view. Alex is the only one who didn’t see a face looking forward, and the only one who worked the bump on the side into part of the face.

I agree, I never would have thought of this, it’s great! But, honestly I think Willy T. picked it mostly because he’s a big Popeye fan. So Alex will be getting the MCFC lunchbox. Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone who entered. I hope you enjoyed this. We’ll be having another drawing game in the next few weeks so keep your eye out for it.

Today I scanned a bunch of fan art we've received into the computer so we can get it off the desk and hung up in Willy T.'s gallery. I thought I might give you a little sampling of the awesome art our fans are creating. As soon as we find an enormous keyboard big enough for Willy T. to use with his trunk he will start his own gallery blog, where you'll be able to see new MCFC fan art regularly.


Teenager Moo-Cow  by Eric B. (Pen on Paper)


A Colorful Gang by Leah H. (Pencil and Crayon on Paper)


Skydiving by Connor M. (Pencil on Paper)
Connor is easily our hardest working fan artist. He has sent in dozens of great drawings in the last couple years. I think we're going to have to make a whole room of Willy T.'s gallery dedicated just to his work.


Moo-Cow's Moment by Rachel P. (Marker on Paper)


Moo-Cow vs The Alligator Pirates! by JT L. (Pen on Paper)
I love this one. Alligator pirates! How cool is that. 

I hope you enjoyed this little peak at some of the new additions to Willy T's gallery. You can get your artwork hung in the gallery just by e-mailing it to me (ryan at moocowfanclub.com) or by mailing it to

Willy T.'s Gallery

PO Box 165

Peterborough, NH

03458

I also want to remind you all to put your drawing skills to work for the first drawing game. You still have time to enter! Entries are due this Friday morning at 10am. We've only gotten a few so far but they are great and I want to see more! It's really cool to see what different people see in one plop of foam. Anyway, all the information for entering is in my last post. SO GO ENTER NOW!
Dont forget that on this blog all contests are always ALL AGES open to everyone. So, kids and adults should feel free to enter.