Return of the Comic Strip Games: A Halloween Bonus

After yesterday's mind-melt on this site, I need a day off to reboot. But I didn't want my regular guests to be left empty-handed for the Countdown to Halloween celebration, especially since I delivered a different sort of goods yesterday far removed from October concerns.

This is a comic strip that my brothers, Mark and Chris, and I concocted a few years ago as we were traveling around Idaho in a motorhome with our dad for his 70th birthday. It was a variation on the surrealist games we like to play when we are together. I would start with a couple of lines of text written in a frame, one of my brothers would draw the artwork in the frame, and then do the art for the next box, where I then had to continue the story text-wise, the artwork would then go to my other brother, and so on. We did eleven of these on our trip that week, having a grand old time playing art games again, and mainly enjoying being all together for the first time in a good while.

As for the comic, we were creating these in early August, so it shows that our minds are never that far from Halloween at any time of year. We were also bumping down the rode most of the time in the RV, and doing multiple pages at once, so some of the pencil lines and text are more than a little erratic. But the best of them have a nice underground comic feel to them, thanks mainly to the artwork of both Mark and Chris.

If you are interested in reading more of these comics or would like to learn more about the game we used to create them, click the link to begin reading Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 1 of 11: Tod's Balls. I hope you enjoy them.  

Gamera Vs. All Mankind - Act III: Requiem

An impromptu storyboard page by my brother for Act III

A little, long-unfinished business here to which I must attend...

Under the Cinema 2 tab that now adorns the top of the Pylon, alongside the brace of other tabs to which I was recently given the means of installation, I have built a page featuring the initial sketch version of Gamera Vs. All Mankind, a short, operatic, animated film that my brother and I contrived based on somewhat of a dare from my best pal Leif.

I will dispense with the full story here, as I will be adding it to the Cinema 2 screen in the near future, where I have also placed the libretto for Acts I and II for those interested in what the wholly synthesized voices in the cartoon are singing. However, as all of this business was initially published on the website that I had built as the ultimate destination for those who visited the Pylon, it seems that I neglected to published Act III of Gamera vs. All Mankind here as a regular post.

If you are at all interested, click here to watch the very rough sketch version of our would-be kaijû opera cartoon and read the first two acts. We never got around to doing the sketch version of the third act, and the music for it was never completed either, but you can read the lyrics to get the general idea of how it was to be concluded. At some point in the future, I would love to finally get around to fully producing the short to completion, but there are a lot of obstacles to work out first.

Gamera Vs. All Mankind

A kaijû opera in three tiny acts

Music by Mark Otis Johnson
Libretto by Rik Tod Johnson

ACT III: Requiem

[As the two ships head furiously for the island’s shore, the pirates/scientists have turned their theme “Bigger and Better Things” into a near-sea shanty, which they indulge themselves in as they prepare their weaponry for landfall... ]

Pirates/Scientists
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!

We’ll add Gamera to the extinction list
And put wads of money in our fist!
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!

[The ships reach the island at positions far down the beach from each other. Hasigawa, now seemingly mad in love with a girl he has never really met, lifts his eyepatch to search down the beach for Rainbow. As it turns out, each of the major players is searching for something at this time…]

Hasigawa
Where?
Where did she go to?
Once I thought my heart would fill
Now I fear it’s empty still…

[Rainbow is searching her cabin desperately so she can doll up for Hasigawa; Mr. Aoyagi, the translator, stands behind her trying the missing object out on himself, smacking his lips and dabbing them on a tissue in a mirror.]

Rainbow
Where?
Where is my lip gloss?
I want to plant one on that hottie!
What the hell! I want his body!

Morimoto
[Peering through a telescope]
There!
Far down the shore!
In that quay there lies our quarry!
Men, we must hurry
Or poor Gamera may die
And we’ll all be--!!

Takada
[Peering back through his own telescope, reading Morimoto’s lips…]
Sorry??!!
Why must he worry?
He doesn’t realize
That everything I do
Is for our country’s greater glory!
I will lead us…

Pirates/Scientists
[Wheeling cannons, howitzers and all manner of arms across the beach…]
Yo Ho! Ho Yo!
To bigger and better things!

[All of the parties start rushing across the sands towards each other, each one singing their part of the quartet…]

Hasigawa
Where?
Where is she now?
Rainbow
Here!
I'm ready for him!

Morimoto
Now,
I fear the worst, men!
Hasigawa
Where?

Rainbow
Here!

Morimoto
[pointing at the pirate/scientists]
There!

Takada
[pointing at the Greenpeace team]
There!

All
NOW!!

[There is a beat as Hasigawa and Rainbow come face to face in front of the two warring factions. Rainbow jumps at Hasigawa, throws her arms around him and knocks him into some nearby bushes. Clothes come flying out into the air. Another beat, as the translator looks at the warriors, and then he, too, jumps into the bushes. The battle commences, with much bloodshed and death and general gnashing of teeth. After several moments, the noise and din of the battle is broken up by something even louder… the terrifying cry of Gamera, the giant flying turtle.

All of the survivors stop to stare at the creature, who is standing there holding a giant cup of tea, and wearing fuzzy bunny slippers on his feet, looking as if his solace has been disturbed. In the palm of one giant turtle hand sits little Toshio, who has at last found his protector. The pirate/scientists raise their weapons and charge Gamera, putting up siege towers and blasting cannons at him; the Greenpeace warriors raise their weapons at the pirate/scientists and charge them at the same time.

Gamera, however, having no need for either side, shoots flames out of his mouth, incinerating the whole lot of them. Soon, every human on the island is a charred pile of ashes except for Toshio, Rainbow, and Hasigawa, who have come up for air from behind the rock where they were making out, and Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator, who pops up with them. Gamera growls at the Translator.]

Toshio
I beg you, Mister Man,
What did Gamera say?

Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator
He, uh, asks what brings you here today?

Toshio
Oh, you see…
My daddy told me,
Because he works in the Diet…

[Gamera raises an annoyed eyebrow, and then burns Toshio to a crisp, either because he hates politicians or the kid’s annoying sing-song voice or both.]

Toshio

AAAAHHH!!!

[Gamera then starts to spin about, jets blasting from the four limb-holes in his shell and jets off into the sky.

[As he and an ever-smiling Rainbow get dressed behind the bushes, Hasigawa lights up a cigarette from the flaming skull of a nearby burnt body, puts his eyepatch back on (but over the opposite eye), grimly looks at Rainbow, and walks away without saying a word. He climbs aboard the IKR ship and sails off.]

Rainbow
Wait! Tadashi!
Where are you going?
Why must love bring such stings?

[The translator walks up behind her, also smoking a cigarette that he lit from the charred remains of Toshio. He stares at the boat sailing off and looks unblinkingly at the sad, skimpily dressed girl.]

Rainbow
I don’t understand.
How could he ever go?

Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator
It’s… it’s…

Rainbow
Complicated.
Yes, I know.

Mr. Aoyagi, the Translator
[winking at Rainbow]
To bigger and better things?

[Rainbow grabs him and throws him behind the bushes. Clothes go flying into the air.]

FINE 

Gamera Vs. All Mankind, Copyright © 2006-2011 Silly N' Serious Productions.
Libretto, Copyright © 2006-2011 Rik Tod Johnson.
Music, Copyright © 2006-2011 Mark Otis Johnson.
All Rights Reserved.

Son o' the Return o' the Comic o' the Jack-O'-Lantern Undead...

My beloved and I attended the Disney Halloween Party (with awesome fireworks) last night, but a massive headache and a serious lack of sleep the last couple of days have eaten away at my time to put up a decent post about it this evening.

In lieu of such a post, I am cheating a bit for the second night in a row in this Countdown to Halloween (last night was a mere picture of a slice of my dining table full of monster toy sets, with only text in the title, so it was a real cheat). This is a comic page that was drawn on a camping trip last August by my brothers Mark and Chris, for which I provided the dialogue.

The twist here is that the comic page is absolutely improvisational, a massive derivation of the surrealist drawing game called Exquisite Corpse, where artists draw unconnected and unseen images on their own half (or quarters if there are more than two artists participating) of a folded piece of paper, and when it is revealed, the two separate images forge what is hoped to be a rather remarkable single image. We adapted it to where either I would write the dialogue (being currently uncomfortable with my art skills, unlike the olden days) in the first panel, and then one of the brothers would draw the first and then the next panel, and then I would fill in the dialogue for the art in the second panel and then start the third, and so on... or it could start with art in the first panel, dialogue in the first and second, and so it goes forward until completion. Get it? Got it. Good.

The reason I am rerunning this particular comic page is that it is entirely Halloween-based, being all pumpkin riddled and whatnot. Murderous Jack-O'-Lanterns make for delicious fun as far as I am concerned. If you want to see what I originally wrote about this comic, visit my post about it at http://cinema4pylon.blogspot.com/2009/08/comics-on-road-to-nowhere-pt-4-of-11.html. 

Enjoy!

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 11 of 11: "Exquisite Corpse" Drawings 3 & 4

Here's the final post of this series, featuring the other pair of "Exquisite Corpse" drawings done by my brothers Mark and Chris:


I remember my brother Chris was quite amused by the fact that with the Monster Dance Party he had drawn his image going off the page rather than into it. As a result, the drawings are going in opposite directions. Usually the practice is to carry the action towards the next possible drawing.

You will note that this final picture is different from the rest in that, instead of the paper being halved and then drawn on each opposite side, this time it was folded twice, so that there are four separate drawings, two each by my brothers:


Again, I will leave it to Br'er Mark to add his notes in the comment section. All I know is that I love these.

Thanks for the very few comments we have received on these. I hope that while most of you were not reading these posts you were out having a shitty time. We had a ball playing these games, and we were only hoping to share in the experience, and perhaps even get a couple of people to pass the game on or play with us. At least a couple of you got it.

The Cinema 4 Pylon now returns to its regularly scheduled programming...

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 10 of 11: "Exquisite Corpse" Drawings 1 & 2

For the last two posts of this series, I am going to say very little, and let these combined drawings by my brothers Mark and Chris do most of the talking:

Pretty sweet. I love the randomness of their imagery, and how the two separate pieces play off each other in unexpected ways. I am uncertain of the order in which my brothers created all four of these pieces, so please check the comments below. I am fairly certain Mark will provide some notes on their process, and his continued memories of the experience.

Also, if you want to do your own experimenting, please see my first post in this series for instructions on how to do it, or look up "Exquisite Corpse" on Wikipedia. (You can even learn why the game is called by that name, or even how there is a reference to the game in Hedwig and the Angry Inch...)

[The final post will appear in a couple of days, and then the Cinema 4 Pylon will close the art gallery and begin its regularly scheduled movie griping again...]

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 9 of 11: "Bugs" Gone Awry, or References Only Brandon Lawrence Would Appreciate...

I suppose that having eight out of the nine comic pages we created in our road trip drawing experiment come out even halfway readable/enjoyable should be enough. That's a pretty good batting average (for the record, .889 rounded up, baseball card-style). This one, which I shall not even finish giving a complete (or even pun-filled) title out of my exhaustion and frustration with the page, just simply did not work.

Here's the strip, and then we shall discuss:


See? It's sad it didn't work out, because this was the other strip in which we involved my nephew Aerin at the beginning (see the last post). His drawings adorn the first couple of panels, and it starts off with a decent enough premise. But, things went awry with "Bugs" quickly. It just never gets any of that "oomph" going... and then I made the fatal mistake.

I slipped in one of my left-field references -- not so much arcane, but merely aged in variety -- this time to an old vaudeville routine that was popularized in different incarnations by The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello and many others, often called "Niagara Falls" or "Slowly I Turned, Inch by Inch" or other titles. Personally, I know it as "The Susquehanna Hat Company," being more up on one Bud & Lou movie version than Larry, Moe and Curly's famous one. (Bud and Lou did it several times, including a "Niagara Falls" version on TV.)

So, I worked the reference in, but there were no takers. My brother didn't pick up on it, and I couldn't help him with it, or really elaborate on it until he was done with the panels. Thus, the doom of the strip had been spelled out. I closed it desperately with another reference to the skit, and this was after about an hour or so of staring blankly at the final drawing in the last panel, longing for inspiration. But, none ever came. I resorted to a fall-back plan of little distinction, and so we had the first abject failure of our experiment.

And, since I cannot stop with the references sometimes, somewhere Chico Marx is saying "I abject!" Or, at least I wish he would...

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 8 of 11: Puppet Snarkiness

There was a certain inevitability to my nephew Aerin getting involved with our surrealist comic experiments. The kid may only be eight, but he draws up a storm. There are even times when it seems like he never stops drawing. Well, when he's not reading or playing with toys or building with Legos or all the other things that kids do. (These are also all things that, admittedly, his dad and uncles also continue to do despite, or because of, their ever-increasing dotage.)

We didn't even really need to persuade him much. All you have to do, in most cases, is draw anything, and Aerin will want to draw along with you. He was more than a little distracted, though, on our road trip with his own drawings to really get involved until we had already started over a half-dozen strips. But, soon enough, there was a lull in the overall activity, and so he and I were soon starting a strip. I took what he was probably thinking as a couple of mice atop a fence to be a pair of puppets and leaped off from there. However, the dear boy lost interest in the process soon enough, and the rest of the drawings past the first three panels were completed by his dad Mark and his Uncle Chris.

I think this one actually worked out rather well, and didn't go too far astride of what was set up in the beginning. This is not necessarily a good thing when the original point is for things to get as wacky as possible. But, sometimes I like it when things work out logically despite the scenario or the looming possibility of a complete trainwreck. (You will see an example of this form of failure when I post, in a couple of days, the final strip we completed on our trip.)

Personally, I love the stances of the mice in the fourth panel, but I truly adore the way the second mouse flashes the chocolate starfish at the puppeteer in Panel #7. I wasn't expecting it at all, and I laughed like mad. And I have, as a notoriously evil puppeteer myself, always enjoyed the notion of puppets rising up to critique their own "master." This might even reflect my overall views towards authority in general, perhaps even the way that I also have to keep myself riled, even just a bit, at whatever management holds the keys to my own employ, even if I actually like most of them and have respect for their overall practices.

While I don't wish to always be the puppet that I fully recognize that I am, I at least, while filling that role, wish to be the puppet that has just enough rebellion in him to poke his oppressors in the eye when they don't expect it, and to be able to summon up just enough voice of my own to tell them they suck. And they stink. And it is very likely that I will always remain just that...

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 7 of 11: The Legion of Something-Heroes

[Edited 8/28/09, 10:00 pm]

Here we have yet another comic where things just went gonzo from panel one onward... what else will happen when you are confronted with a supposed superhero (or villain) wearing what appear to be oven mitts on his hands?

From brother Mark's opening panel, I went with the idea that this Hungryman guy (notice the trademarks on each hero name throughout) was sort of the spiritual counterpart to the real Legion of Super-Heroes' ridiculous but lovable Matter-Eater Lad. The idea is that he cooks constantly for the Legion rather eats everything in sight. I'm glad we didn't go with any true Legion members here, creating what could be another chapter of their Substitute Heroes wing (also a ridiculous concept -- why segregate potential, helpful heroes into a lesser subdivision? Seems like a breeding ground for villainy). We never learn the names of a couple of them... the crab guy -- who seems like a stand-in for Chameleon Boy -- and the weasel thing that constantly drools over Twin Zeppelins' breasts. I told my brothers that the weasel thing reminded me of the one that hounded Foghorn Leghorn ("Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah...!" SLURP!) My favorite memory of doing this one was hearing brother Chris bust up over the names "Pail Rider" and "Twin Zeppelins." That truly warmed my heart.

Yes, you can perhaps parse from the above paragraph that I did some time as a Legion of Super-Heroes fan in the past. In fact, I still consider myself a fan, though I haven't read them since the mid-Keith Giffen days. My main experience, as it is with my brothers, is from the early, early Legion stories from Superboy, reprints of which we had around the house as kids. The Dave Cockrum run was where I learned to love them (I was chiefly in love with Shadow Lass and Princess Projectra, or rather, their lack of costumes). The cleavage that ran rampant in the more revealing costumes in Cockrum's run was perhaps why I took to naming our Twin Zeppelins heroine as if she were a new version of Duo Damsel, who also became hotter in the '70s than she had been previously (even as Triplicate Girl, a male fantasy run amok right there). However, how we got her boobs to talk, I don't know...

Here is comic #7, titled "Legion of Something-Heroes." Sequel?

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 6 of 11: Thrift Store Wheelchair

I am going somewhat out of the order of creation by this point, but I have my reasons. Chiefly, I just wanted to get this comic up before the others, because we almost forgot about it when these were being scanned, and we found this one especially amusing while it was being drawn. The twist on this one is two-fold: it related to a story of which I was not aware when the comic was set up (and which I will not fully relate pending the approval of my brothers), but the boys were laughing quite a lot when it reached my hands. Obviously there was a joke that was beyond my ken at the moment, but I went with it, asking them not to tell me the whole story until my participation in the comic was concluded. The second twist is that the first panel was totally completed when I first saw it. I began writing from the second panel forward.

The major kick was how much we were all laughing over Chris beating the snot out of Mark in the comic, and of Chris bulking up to more and more Hulkian proportions with each succeeding panel. It is probably a case of "you had to be there" when I tell you how much fun this was, but you could probably say that about all of these comics, whether you find them amusing or not. We are mainly feeling a residual sense of the joy we found in creating as a team, and of being together again, much older but, as usual, still playing like the kids we have always been and always will be. Nothing better than that...

Here is comic #6, which I shall title "Thrift Store Wheelchair." Have fun...

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 5 of 11: Guppy Hunter

So, this strip was the point where we actually started to do our best to try and mess with the other guys. I still don't how or why the trio of pine trees showed up, but there they are. And I kind of love them, just like a coniferous Huey, Dewey and Louie. I also love the croc and I sorely wish the Rare Monster-Jawed Guppy hadn't, presumably, bitten it at the end, because I really wanted the character to talk. Somehow this silly strip actually worked out, and while I can't speak for my brothers, this was a huge surprise to me.

Here is comic #5, titled "Guppy Hunter" by Mark "Otis", Chris "The Eel" and Rik Tod Johnson. Enjoy...

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 4 of 11: Trick or Treat?

My brothers continued to try and goad me into drawing, but I wasn't having it. I was already having too much fun writing these comics to even entertain the thought of drawing them too. Just not ready yet.

Besides, they served me up a softball of an opening panel. How can I resist a Halloween theme? And this is the only one of the series which came out to a conclusion which more or less represented what popped into my head upon initially seeing the first picture. I suppose that this really isn't supposed to happen when games such as this are played. After all, the point should be to see what lies ahead without considering the possibilities, rather than seek to control or guide the initial story back to where you imagined at first. But I am a control freak in many ways, especially with my own words. So this outcome is not surprising at all.

The question I would pose to my brothers would be: what popped into your head early on in creating this page?

My idea at the beginning was that the guy would be gutted by the jack-o'-lantern, and I wonder how early in the process this thought occurred to either of my brothers. Perhaps we all willed this direction. To me, it was only logical course in a game that should be guided by an utter lack of logic. Did I betray the intentions of the game, or did we all?

Here is comic #4, titled "Trick or Treat?" by Mark "Otis", Chris "The Eel" and Rik Tod Johnson.

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 3 of 11: F'ugly Mermaid

The third of our comics experiment definitely started things going in a direction that I preferred, feeling more like the product of an underground comic than the previous two. This also shows signs of my getting more comfortable with the new game. The truth is that this was being drawn while the first two were still unfinished, so the fact that I consider it more successful derives more from the fact that the experiment simply worked better overall here than in the rougher pair with which we began (though I love how the first two came out).

I asked Mark a couple of days later if his opening panel characters on this page were meant to impart a mermaid and three eels underwater, which is how I interpreted his drawing. He shrugged and said he was just drawing figures and didn't attach anything to it. The "mermaid" could be seen as just a hideous girl in a bikini strolling through a garden while a trio of worms protrude from the top of a flower, and if it is so, I rather like that the drawing actually works both ways. You might note that definite water elements don't actually enter the comic until after I establish that she is a mermaid.

Here is comic #3, titled "F'ugly Mermaid," drawn by Mark "Otis" Johnson and Chris "The Eel" Johnson; dialogue by me.

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 2 of 11: Cranky Weather

[EDITED August 19-20, 2009] - The title of this series -- Comics on the Road to Nowhere? -- can be construed as rather mean, if you live in Idaho and know that I am referring to our road trip there at the end of July.

It's not meant to be mean towards Idaho. It's actually a slap at myself and my preconceived notions about going to places of which I know nothing. The truth is I quite enjoyed my first extended stay in my parents' new home in Idaho, found much to recommend about the place, and look forward to visiting again soon. But on the day on which this artistic adventure began, not knowing the fun and natural beauty that waited ahead of us at Craters of the Moon National Monument as we careened down the highway on a 100-degree-plus day, it seemed like we would never get there, and so the title is appropriate to my feelings. At least I attached a question mark to the end of the title to make my statement indefinite, and to show that our actions on this trip would prove the title a lie.

As the first comic page continued to be created and those of us without the page sat around waiting eagerly for our turn, brother Mark decided to start another page to have something else on which to work. As my turn came, staring at a picture of two clouds of differing attitude, without any thought as to how the story would proceed, I applied two sentences to the opening panel: "Fair amount of weather we're havin'!" and "A-yup!" Just the first things that popped into my head, but what else would clouds say to each other upon meeting? This is part of the fun of the game: sheer improvisation. The other fun in the game is not knowing where it will actually go, even though you can imagine where it might, and then seeing what will worm its way into the other participants' heads leaping off from what you had put down onto paper.

A third comic started very soon after that, and so on. Before long, we had a pile of comics slowly trading hands for the duration of the trip.

Here is comic #2, titled "Cranky Weather."

Comics on the Road to Nowhere? Pt. 1 of 11: Tod's Balls

As a placeholder here on the Pylon until I get myself together long enough to actually go back to writing regularly again, I present the first of several posts which could, were I more inclined to the obvious, be entitled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." Since I do not recall ever having to create such an essay educationally, it will not happen. But this is how I did spent part of my summer vacation, which encompassed a four-day gathering of my brothers, sister-in-law and nephew in Seattle, a boys-only road trip through Oregon to my father's home in Idaho for his 70th birthday party.

Out of a brief camping trip to the Craters of the Moon National Monument (a stop that I highly recommend, and of which I did not know previously), came this: a series of comic pages mostly drawn by my brothers Otis and the Eel (Mark and Chris) and written by yours truly, at first on some very bumpy roads, then gathered around a camp table while being assaulted cutely by chipmunks, pikas and increasingly weird bugs, and finally in a severely sleep-deprived state in the dwindling light around a cramped Winnebago dining table.

The comics arose out of a surrealist game in which my brothers love to engage called Exquisite Corpse, which I have participated in before at parties chiefly in a literary sense, though I have also drawn them before. Assuredly, the game popped up again midway on our journey to Craters of the Moon, as Mark and Chris each took turns finishing halves of a folded page, in which the first artist leaves small lines trailing over onto the remaining half for the second artist to complete. The unfolded page reveals the full work of art, created by divers hands but representing an artistic whole. They played the game with both a single fold into halves and two folds into quarters.

But they wanted me to play. My current discomfort with drawing is a far cry from my old state, where I would gladly scrawl out anything despite all evidence pointing toward my having a decided lack of talent in that area. When I did draw, it came with a torrent of grand insecurity, and every line, redrawn over and over until imperfectly perfect in my mind, was suffused with the torture of my actions. And now, after years of inactivity though with a longing to pursue it once more to provide myself with an additional font of creation, I am at a standstill. I cannot force myself to draw.

And neither could my brothers. Chris especially pleaded with me to join them, but I was happy to read my book on the Air Pirates v. Disney trials and leave them to the pleasures of drawing.

But then, via a massive adaptation to the game, they got me involved. On an empty sheet of paper, with his line given an unwanted but oddly compelling flourish by the steady bump of the RV on the Idaho highway, Chris drew the opening panel to a comic page of a homely looking sad-sack buzzing a doorbell. He offered it to me to fill in a caption to the panel, but I turned him down. The comic page sat on the table for several minutes while I slowly realized what a sourpuss I was being after having an initial six great days to this trip. Finally, playing off a road sign we saw as we wandered around Oregon looking for a reasonably attainable picnic spot (we were a little lost), I filled in the opening panel, and then left a caption in the next wholly empty panel, leaving it to await its own picture to be created.

The game was afoot. Mark then picked up the next two drawings, it came back to me for a flurry of words in panels 3 & 4, back to Chris for drawings in 4 & 5, and so on. It was played without the secrecy element so necessary to true Exquisite Corpse -- no folds here -- but this game evolved, after a while, into trying to subtly influence the following panels with slight changes to your next efforts, or using them to bring a story back to that which you imagined nearer the beginning. There were more developments to come that night and over the next couple of days over how we approached the game, but more on that later.

For now, here is the first comic Mark, Chris and I created as a group, based on the sign we saw that read "TODS BALLS 400"...