The Art of James Rice, Keith Quinn, and Tailsteak
June 20, 2010 ~ 6 Comments
Man, this is a great set of artwork. James Rice, of course, appears frequently in these Sunday installments as the owner of Speedy, the world’s most-traveled gerbil. About this strip, he writes:
Shaenon was the one who told me about Do Peterson. We had been talking about science-based music, and his is pretty good. I started thinking that Artie might like his music, and the song An Example Show is pretty catchy. I’m so bad a drawing, I laid out the entire strip on my computer using reference photos and drawings. Once I had the layout I wanted, I traced over everything, then scanned the drawings and added the color and text in the computer. It was a lot of work but lots of fun.
At one point I wanted to do a strip about Artie’s weird tastes in music, but I never found a way to work it into the plot, so I had the characters mention it here.
Keith Quinn’s pinup is adorable. I really like his cuddly renditions of everyone. The character on Dave’s shirt is Oliver Pikk, an early Derek Kirk Kim character.
I was and am a great admirer of Tailsteak’s comic 1/0, so I was bowled over when he sent me artwork. And with nudity, even!
I have no idea why these representations of Dave are smoking, though. That’s really weird.
For some not-in-the-least-bit-scrutiable reason, the skintone of these characters becomes decidedly redder as we progress through this episode.
It’s the combined heat from the spotlights they’re under and the formal clothes they’re wearing, Leon.
(TUNE: “I’m Walking”, Fats Domino)
Dave’s smoking! We don’t know why
He’s smoking! They drew this guy
As smoking … in all our Sunday art!
Dave’s smoking! Stinks up the shop!
Dave’s smoking! If he won’t stop,
He’s croaking! It’s not good for your heart!
Dave’s got a view of Helen as she
Rises like Venus from the sea!
It’s a Botticelli pa-ro-dy!
Mell covers up her nu-di-ty!
Dave’s smoking! He claims that he
Ain’t smoking … since ’93!
He’s joking … let’s hope he’ll never start!
Dave’s smoking because he’s /smoking/. 😛
The smoking is easily explicable. One fanartist choosing to depict Dave as, for whatever reason, smoking, is a little odd, but not really any stranger than a lot of other things that have turned up in fanart… e.g., depicting Shaenon as a Care Bear. Two fanartists – in the same batch of art! – choosing to depict Dave as a smoker, despite the fact that he never smoked, is just downright weird. And, of course, Narbonics Labs attracts weirdness, the more downright, the better.
Dave’s smoking because he commissioned the fan art himself as part of a sinister plan.