Rarebits... in the beginning (almost)

Following on from last week's look at some later episodes from my magnus opus comic strip, I thought it might be of interest to show some strips from 1986, the first full year of its run. Notice the different style of drawing compared with the later 90's stuff? In '86 I was still in my 'big nose' period and, not a little influenced by the the style of Bill Rechin and Brant Parker's Crock strip.

In the beginning, I chose to draw the strip at a size allowing two episodes to an A4 sheet of ordinary bond paper, using a common or garden Pentel R50 ball-point pen (or similar) for the line-work. Often, I  added various Mecanorma pattern shades burnished directly onto the art. Finished strips were always photo-copied for delivery to the publishers... because, I had lost far too much original art by trusting it to editorial/production staff in previous years. Remember, this also was long before the days when personal computers became a standard piece of household or, even business furniture. All cartooning projects were still 'hand-made' and distributed either by hand, or by snail-type delivery methods.

Although the circumstances which led to the advent of Rarebits didn't allow for it, I learned in the first few years of the absolute necessity for planning characters, situations and general premise of a continuing strip BEFORE launching into it. Having to do it 'on the fly' is not only annoying for the author... but, also confusing for followers of the feature. Nonetheless, I still love story-telling in the sequential art method!