As you can see I have been doing a little sketchwork recently.  ‘Casey and Scotty’ seemed to have run it’s course, but I got to thinking what would happen to the dogs and cat when Casey left for college.  That situation is actually coming up in real life, so I thought it might give me the opportunity to focus on the animals in the strip and get away from the human aspect.

I was toying with a little different character style, even though I’ll keep many of the ‘Casey and Scotty’ characters.  I had started the strip with a simple style that Casey could easily draw, and even after he stopped helping me, I continued to use the same style.  I grew up drawing Garfield, so in deciding what I could do with the characters, I thought I’d give them large eyes, and make the style a bit more like what I’d draw by hand (even though I am still using PowerPoint 2003 for ALL of the drawing).  The result was a new styled Scotty the dog, and since they are all 6 years older, I guess they’ve changed as they aged.

The real test of how this might work is to see if I can keep the character set manageable.  ‘Casey and Scotty’ had almost 30 named characters before the strip went on it’s last hiatus, and I’d like to keep it to about 5.  I went back and re-read all of the ‘Dub’ strips and decided that the ‘commentary/I know I’m a character in a comic strip’ was a little more in line with my sarcastic nature(and a little easier to WRITE), so the new strip will almost be a hybrid of the two old strips.

I’m still mapping out how this will all shake out, and I’m shooting for end of Summer 2010 to kick this off.

Stay tuned

~Moose

Although I have not been able to find the time to get back to drawing ANYthing lately.  I have made progress on one other front.  Started Weight Watchers in late October, and in 8 weeks, I have lost 19.2 pounds.  So, posts on the 148 Studios site will take on a different vibe for the time being.

I said a long time ago that I would not add new characters to the strip since we already had so many to keep up with.  However, my brother in law (the man who has been like an older brother to me for nearly 20 years, and like a second father to Casey) recently had surgery to remove a brain tumor and I remembered that he was the first one to buy our book, he reads the strip religiously, and in real life, any time I need help with anything at all, he’s the first one in line.  In fact, he is that way with every single member of our family.

‘Moose’ is an amalgam of several people including Steve (in fact, many of the kind hearted things Moose has said in the strip have come from conversations that Steve has had with me.),  but, if I can break my rule for ANYbody, it’s gonna be him.   He appears in Saturday’s strip.

Get well soon, old boy!

Happy birthday to my Jenny.  We are like Peas and Carrots.

This weeks Casey and Scotty strip features Galactic President Gripp.  Last time we saw The Prez, he looked completely human.  So for those of you who missed my crudely produced animation of the Transformation of President Gripp, here you go.  This should explain it all.

President Gripp in Disguise from Scott Tapp on Vimeo.