THE BUMBLE BEE CHRONICLES

Ghost Roper and Friend

donnyroy — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 03:06:14 +0000

I am drawing a Ghost Roper.

He will save America from the Scary Scarecrows.

He will hang them high

in the sky on the dirigible,

on a hanging tree on the deck of the dirigible.

Here he is. I have yet to color him and give him a name.

Here is his unnamed friend.

He is colored in, somewhat.

He will track the Scarecrows, and the Ghost Roper shall lasso them.

But we’re going to need a time machine first…

Bumble Bee Novel: Moon Day

donnyroy — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 02:53:06 +0000

I’m working on a Bumble Bee novel: Moon Day.

A day in the life of Bumble Bee. It is the day Tinkerin’ Tom, Robot, and Emmet went to the Moon.

Mr. Lazybones

donnyroy — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 03:05:35 +0000

Mr. Lazybones looks a lot like me.

I see him in the mirror when I put things off.

I did not know I had a twin.

Time Machine In Progress

donnyroy — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 02:38:26 +0000

Slowly. The wheels grind slowly. The Crows. Where have you been, Lee Roy? The gazette languishes. Well, I’ve been thinking about a time machine that needs to be built. And a great dirigible with a hanging tree.

It’s all so clear. It must go this way. I’m speaking of the Scarecrows. How they will menace! It’s going to take a ghost roper.

Mama J’s Hoo-Doo Room

donnyroy — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 04:06:31 +0000

Here’s an interior of mama juju’s house. this is her hoo-doo conjuring room…yes I am really lagging behind….

Scarecrows: Slow Going

donnyroy — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 06:39:44 +0000

Here are some images I am working on for the Dust Bowl/Scary Scarecrow story.

Mama Juju’s house.

A clue… a note on her door!

Here are the scarecrows that the crows will conjure up at mama juju’s.

If you have been following this blog you know that I am sharing with you my newest volume of the gazette one step at a time.

The story is developing like this….

The crows are going to fly over to Mama Juju’s house only to find that she has gone to Louisiana to visit her relatives. This will allow free reign for the Crows as they rummage through MJ’s spell books to find an incantation that they can use to conjure up the world’s scariest scarecrows.

They will find the spell and conjure up some scarecrows but it will go wrong.

The scarecrows, taking on a life of their own, will paralyze the farmers in the grip of fear.

Taking the first step…

donnyroy — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 04:21:40 +0000

Well, here we go, I have just posted the first two strips of my new Great Scarecrow Adventure…

I’m doing something different with ISSUE #27. I’m going to be developing the story by publishing the strips as I do them.

So here are the first two strips with the corresponding headlines

What next? We’ll have to see what develops…

The Great Scarecrow Adventure: A Foggiest Of Notions

donnyroy — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:03:33 +0000

In my last post I briefly talked about the impromptu nature of my cartooning. Here’s my new undercooked idea.

The Depression is soooo bad that even the Crows Are Broke!

They need capital.

What are they to do?

Answer: Make and sell the scariest scarecrows ever.

Problem: How do crows make scarecrows?

It would take time and money and discipline to make scary scarecrows and the Crows lack the patience, the money, and are not “crafty”. So what to do, what to do?

Answer: They won’t make them, they’ll conjure them! They’ll sneak into Mama Juju’s home and conjure up some scary scarecrows!

And then: Things go horribly wrong!

Mama Juju’s spells only spell disaster.

That’s as far as I’ve gone with the plot and nothing more will come of it until I actually publish the first installment in the 27th ISSUE of the Gazette.

Here is my first scarecrow yet to be finished.

I have a scarecrow and an idea….let’s see where it takes us….

Walking Up A Gangplank With Only A Foggy Notion…

donnyroy — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:49:36 +0000

This sums up my sequential art:

I start up the gangplank of a ghostlike ship in a thick fog with only a sliver of an idea for luggage. Once on-board I cannot testify that this wisp of a ship will even make it out of the harbor, but there’s no turning back, I am committed, I have published the first few strips of my storyline in the Bumble Bee Gazette. This just has to work!

In all of my story lines, thus far, I am clueless as to where I’m headed. But the only way I seem to be able to get there is to start doodling the thing anyway. Is this bravura, folie de grandeur, or just plain stupidity, I cannot say–I set sail. Whatever it is (stupidity is my guess) this behavior runs contrary to my nature. Starting a journey with such bravado bespeaks an optimist. And an optimist, I am not. I see the glass half empty, and I possess no hope of it ever coming even close to being full on my watch.

That aside, as I have said, I begin in the fog and with no regard for the fog, I set sail.

For instance, my latest story, The Great Hollywood Murder Mystery began only with the notion of Tahloot the Coyote going to Hollywood. That was it. It had no inkling of being a murder mystery. Which is where it ended up. It began with Tahloot brooding under Lonesome Tree and Cousin Pick Slimmins with a friendly intervention.

Getting brooding Tahloot to Hollywood, I knew, would take powerful persuading, much more than friendly Pick’s prodding, so this came to mind…

In Hollywood the famous film star Rip Tip Tip has been laying box office bombs all across the country. This is his latest stinker…Murder Mayhem In Manhattan. Movie Mogul Mangus Morgan has a solution…

So, that was my plot point to get Tahloot to Hollywod: Mangus Morgan wanted a Coyote to replace Plumpy as Rip Tip Tip’s sidekick.

To this point I had only in mind some sort of a Road Picture…teaming Tahloot and Cousin Pick on an epic journey to Hollywood…with, er, something happening along the way. The image below tells you of direction I was heading.

In ISSUE #23 I had a hunch that it might make things more interesting to have Canwall Holtz and Syndey Smythe-Smith come to Bumble Bee. While I was working on that I had an idea that came from my Movie Poster for Rip Tip Tip and Plumpy…the fog was slowly lifting…

Maybe this story would be a lot more fun if I killed somebody and turned it into a Murder Mystery! And so for ISSUE #24 I bumped off Mangus Morgan!

At this point I had no clue whatsoever whodunnit! I just had him stabbed to death. But I had published the thing so I had to solve the crime. Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main…

Sometime between 24 and 25 I thought that Rip Tip Tip would make the most interesting killer so in 25…

Well, okay…now what? How would Tahloot and Cousin Pick fit in to this scenario…then it came out of the fog…I would have Rip Tip Tip confess! And Tahloot would have to be his interpreter. After all a Coyote ought to know a little bit of Dog Talk, wouldn’t he? I got jazzed by that idea.

So I had a killer ready to confess, but what about a motive?

Rip Tip’s Motive? Hmmmm…let’s see. Let’s see…Mangus Morgan was going to replace Plumpy and Plumpy was Rip’s best friend in all the world. So Rip killed Mangus to keep Plumpy as his sidekick…

But I could not have Rip Tip Tip stand trial so I needed a fall guy and so…

This all began with a glimmer of a notion to send Tahloot and Pick to Hollywood with Pick some kind of an epic adventure. I walked up the gangplank with this in mind…

and I arrived here…

Bravura, folie de grandeur, or just plain stupidity…I defer to your judgement.

Impromptu Sometimes Means Not Knowing Any Better.

donnyroy — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:50:28 +0000

I began the whole Bumble Bee Gazette thing with this simple pen and ink strip. This was done straight pen and ink–no pencil. I didn’t know any better. A key to impromptu cartooning is to be either naive enough not to know any better or pretend to be naive enough not to know any better.

I started my strips this way because I read somewhere that Charles Schulz did not pencil–he went straight to ink.