I’m filling in on Beano, and I’ve been assigned their new strip which is about the Har-Har family, which own the Beanotown joke shop. The main character is the younger daughter named Harsha. Here are the pencils of a panel from this week’s book where an eccentric guy comes into the shop. Things change a bit from this to the final.
For one, he looked too short, and I felt he had to clearly be an adult, and not a kid dressed up. Plus, I wanted to give him something to show he was odd without adding a ton of detail. I admit, I have a visual attraction to spats. Come on, they just add something to the boring part of a man’s suit/tux. I decided if this guy was a true oddball, he’d be wearing spats just to do so, but he’d never give up the comfort of a sneaker. If it isn’t obvious enough, he’s modeled after the actor C. Aubrey Smith, the same one the cartoon character “Commander McBragg” is based on.
