I think it is pretty inspiring that an artist of his caliber is doing a webcomic. That is the great thing about comics, that they are unfiltered. I hope it runs for years.

Kiskaloo’s pose in the 4th panel reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes

…or could it just be his drawing style?

For all the harumph over Sanders ouster, it’s pretty clear he only knows how to draw one “cute-type” and one “hot-girl-with-enormous-legs” type.

I always did love that cat with the eye patch design. Disney have really lost out on a hugely marketable character there! I know I would buy a cuddly toy of him! Oh well, their loss.

I’m getting a Calvin & Hobbles vibe from this comic so far. That’s a good thing, of course.

It is a simple fact that Sanders was not “fired.” He left the Disney Studio and the project he originated on his own accord. Whatever anyone thinks of the situation, this is a simple fact. Sites like this ought to stop spreading erroneous rumours–especially ones like this that have been publicly debunked.

Good on ya’ Chris!!!

Re-using a character design for a new project=”F.U.”?

Huh. Or maybe he just liked the design?

Calvin and Hobbes influence for sure. It is hard to overestimate the impact of that strip. Webcomic We the Robots (www.wetherobots.com) is also incredibly indebted to Watterson.

Could the creation of a weekly strip mean that there was a lack of a creative outlet; i.e. Is creativity being stymied on the Dreamworks project?

animators who have gotten the shaft should do their own comics :P Would be funny if Holly-turd was suddenly lacking creative talent because potential employees were all off making comics for *gasp* themselves!

I’d do a comic, but my personal gripe is there’s very little money in comics, and even LESS money in webcomics, which tend to be poorly drawn and lacking in….everything. Chris has major talent though. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes with this.

Calvin and Hobbes is one of the greatest comic strips ever drawn. If you are drawing comics, how can you NOT be influenced by it? I love the strip, I love the characters.

Congrats Chris!!!

Sanders QUIT Disney. Even he said this. DreamWorks snapped him up.

“Could the creation of a weekly strip mean that there was a lack of a creative outlet; i.e. Is creativity being stymied on the Dreamworks project?”

That doesn’t make any sense. There are people doing comic strips from EVERY studio for loads of reasons.

These drawings are beautiful. Glad Chris is sharing them with everyone. Love how they have numbers on their foreheads. Awesome.

Where’s the love texas? At least Chris HAS a style and isn’t copying manga, like every up-and-coming artist seems to be doing.

If anything, I see a big Walt Kelly influence in the inking style. It’s awesome.

“I’d do a comic, but my personal gripe is there’s very little money in comics, and even LESS money in webcomics, which tend to be poorly drawn and lacking in….everything.”

I have to disagree, there are quite a few webcomics that don’t lack in anything. Webcomics are probably the only “Real” artistic expression available these days, they are mostly made by one person and no networks, executives, publishers, distributors, galleries, etc to put their 2 (thousand) cents in. Here’s a few that I know of off the top of my head, I’m sure I could hunt down some more but I have to get to work…

devon roth’s http://scatterbraincomix.blogspot.com/
overbite on mukpuddy’s blog http://mukpuddy.blogspot.com/
and mines http://www.prophetbuddy.com

The art style to his comic looks a lot like, if not identical to, Bill Watterson’s style of drawing. It be a homage to Calvin and Hobbes?

Adding on to what Prophet Buddy started…

http://sheldoncomics.com/

I’ve agreed for years with Dan Goodsell, why stop now? Web Comics may be the saviour of the industry, but it certainly is a good call for independence from the megacorps, and the looting of imaginations as intellectual property. It starts somewhere, putting those on notice that they don’t own a creative mind’s contents 24/7 during employment. Texas- I’m ashamed of your bad manners, you wear the name of the great Lone Star State- you represent it- with honor, not rude criticism.

For those complaining that he quit and wasn’t fired- Mike and Joris, were you his direct supervisor- or worked in his unit?

The kitty’s last pose is SO Calvin. To say nothing of the design bearing a strong resemblance to Schulz ’s Sally Brown during her “eyepatch” storyline in the mid 60’s. But so what? All of us are the sum of our influences. Take a look at John K.

For my money, you don’t need to look further than Ape Lad’s Laugh Out Loud Cats for the definitive web comic and heir apparent to the Watterson throne. He’s only been drawing it since June and he’s already got 600+ (quality) comics posted.

Webcomics can be a good idea for people who want to appeal to a certain small niche market. Just ask the guys at Penny Arcade!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic

And they seem to make a nice revenue too, according to a recent Wired article, is in the low 7 figures, so that’s pretty neat in my book :-)

There is actually a surprisingly large number of webcartoonists who are making a solid living entirely off their online work. But even among those ranks Penny Arcade is exceptional… it’s successful enough to support not only Mike and Jerry, but also their business manager and a staff of (as I recall) more than ten people.

“In what appears to be an “F.U.â€? to Disney, the title character of Sanders’s comic strip bears a striking resemblance to some of the development art he created for American Dog”

That IS the character from American Dog. Apparently Chris actually got to keep the rights to that particular character.

…According to what Mr. Sanders said to me when I briefly chatted with him at Comic-Con. You should maybe e-mail him yourself to confirm.

What the hell are people complaining about ? So it looks like it was influenced by Calvin & Hobbes ? So ? Like John Sanford says , if you’re drawing for comics/animation today how could you not be influenced by Watterson ? (like that’s a bad thing ? And I can see the influence of Walt Kelly and others , and that’s a good thing in my view, but it’s all filtered through the unique Sander’s style .)

The guy above who said Chris only has one “cute” design and one “hot girl with big legs design” doesn’t know what he’s talking about. If you’ve been privileged (as I have) to see dozens of Chris’s wonderful storyboard panels on different films you know that he draws a wide range of characters beautifully. I personally love the Sanders style and I’m pleased as punch that he’s doing this web comic. I can’t wait to see how it develops .

haha good for him! Stick it to the man !!

Well, at least he got to keep the kitty! More than makes up for the years of wait!

Chris Sanders knows clearly knows the two main objectives to cartooning: to draw well AND FUNNY!

I can see why everyone is pointing out the Calvin influence because of the wide mouth, but overall the cat looks like Stitch to me.

One other thing, there might be a lot of webcomics out there, but they don’t seem to be attracting much of an audience aside from a few loyal readers ( I exclude things like Penny arcade, ( which is only legible if you’ve played every videogame known to man ) Look at the “comment” section of any webcomic or their rankings( hits ) and you’ll see that they cater only to a small audience. ( At least, that’s the impression I get, I could be very wrong )

“I’d do a comic, but my personal gripe is there’s very little money in comics, and even LESS money in webcomics, which tend to be poorly drawn and lacking in….everything.”

I think people do webcomics to get their work out into the world in an unfiltered personal way. Its costs nothing , other then your time. I don’t think every artists immediate goal is to get paid. Some artists are just driven to create…..

“there might be a lot of webcomics out there, but they don’t seem to be attracting much of an audience aside from a few loyal readers ”

I am three years into my own webcomic and I get thousands of views. If you put out something good into the world, it will find it audience.

I don’t think people are so much griping about the Calvin and Hobbes influence, just pointing it out because it is significantly there. It speaks to the power of Watterson on nearly everything that came after him, perhaps like Schulz before him. Both seem to have tapped into something of subconscious resonance, not simply in storytelling or characterization, but also in character design and pose.

More power to anyone who can further those invaluable contributions.

This is wonderful news, I love Chris’ stuff.

There’s definitely a Walt Kelly influence (on which people are grafting a Bill Watterson influence) but Chris is an outstanding artist in his own right and I’m thrilled at the idea of getting to see a regular output from him.

We webcartoonists are proud to have Chris in our little neck of the art world! A few of us banded together to welcome him with a little art meme:
http://ryanestrada.livejournal.com/96729.html

There are many great webcomics out there, and many MANY bad ones. It takes a lot of work to turn it into a full time job, but after 4 years of work, I finally did it last year. More and more webcartoonists are going full time every year, while there are very few new newspaper comics who have been able to do the same thing in many a year.

Kiskaloo looks like a replication of the Lilo & Stitch relationship. I like how it’s starting off.

Oh, and allow me to mention the greatest webcomic of them all:

http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn

“I think people do webcomics to get their work out into the world in an unfiltered personal way. Its costs nothing , other then your time. I don’t think every artists immediate goal is to get paid”

Paper, ink, pencils, dozens of DVD-R back-up discs, hosting fees for
sites like Comics Sherpa–the cost of doing a webcomic definitely adds up.

I cannot speak for other web cartoonists, only on my own views on the subject of webcomics–doing a webcomic is like how The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny or Burns & Allen started in Vaudeville. The web gives the strip a forum to be seen, reader’s responses offer a chance to fine-tune the act, all while setting sights on playing ‘The Palace’, which in this case is syndication.

And like old Vaudeville, there’s no storage of bad ‘acts’ out there, which is why when a cartoonist of Chris Sanders’ caliber does a webcomic his talent stands out.

As with all things, you can spend a fortune if you so please on tools and amenities. I have one friend who does his webcomic on copy paper with a ball point pen and uses a school computer and server. It costs him next to nothing and it suffers not at all.

And I agree that we are all looking for a wider audience and acceptance but hopefully not at the expense of the integrity of the artistic vision.

I agree with Larry. I’ve done my webcomic for 2 years, publishing it through my blog. Doing my comic this way has given my absolute freedom to do whatever I want with no censorship, and allowed me to develop a style and a cast of characters. The comment section has allowed me to have instant feedback from my readers so that I know what works and what doesn’t. I can fine tune the strip in front of a small audience so that when I try to take it to the big leagues, I’ll be confident in the material.

Oh, and my webcomic is :
http://chippyandloopus.typepad.com/

That’s actually the reason i never felt compelled to start a webcomic. People would always refer me to “a really cool webcomic” and all were lousy. I know there are cool ones out there…just…don’t know where to find them.

“To say nothing of the design bearing a strong resemblance to Schulz’ Sally Brown during her ‘eyepatch’ storyline in the mid 60’s.”

Wasn’t it Linus with the eyepatch?

“Wasn’t it Linus with the eyepatch?”

It was definitely Sally who wore the eyepatch, she noted feeling like a pirate. Linus wore glasses for a brief period in the 60s.

“The comment section has allowed me to have instant feedback from my readers so that I know what works and what doesn’t. I can fine tune the strip in front of a small audience so that when I try to take it to the big leagues, I’ll be confident in the material.”

Exactly! When I my strip began running online two years ago, it was mainly about Dewey vs his sister’s cat. Li’l Lynne was a minor character who appeared once or twice a week. One week I made her the focus of this Sunday page:

http://awprunes.blogspot.com/2007/02/raw-deal.html

After posting this, I received very positive reader response & requests to use her more often. Two syndicated cartoonists told me the heart of the strip is Dewey & Li’l Lynne’s friendship and to focus more on them & less on the cat. The internet connects the strip with an incredible audience whose feedback really helps us web cartoonists.

No, it was Sally. She said she felt like an advertisement for mens shirts:

http://boingboing.net/images/securityisaneyepatch.gif

http://www.ciadvertising.org/SA/fall_02/adv382j/dnathan/Project2/sitehtml_files/image021.jpg

http://www.iconocast.com/img/Hathaway3.jpg

As a struggling cartoonist, I must say, no visual storytelling medium is more personal than comics. When one person both writes and draws, they are creating something creatively personal, moreso than movies or TV, where you get so much compromise. (Since I’m also an aspiring filmmaker, I should know this, also!) The reader has total imagination when reading a comic, picturing his own voices, sounds and music in his head.

Matt Sullivan makes a good point, though. There are tons of personal creative works out there, but *how many are any good?* Like comics in general, even webcomics cannot escape from Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is crud.

And furthermore, how many artists, besides Chris Sanders, have their own vision, their own universes, and their own characters they wanted to express? In many free art forums, we see more adolescent “anime/manga” ripoffs (usually from the “Hot Topic” crowd), as well as “mature” versions of popular cartoon characters. (Kind of like why FAMILY GUY is so successful.) And many good original works fall on deaf ears. (I’ve been largely ignored as well, but my case is understandable, because my own labor of love is still a WIP. So I may have my chance in the spotlight later.)

As for KISKALOO, there definitely IS a Watterson vibe! But Chris Sanders is inspired by the best, and it’s a very beautiful strip. As Jack Kirby, IIRC, once said, “one artist is another artist’s school.”