Comic 231
Back-up Vocal~ This is another Comic Strip inspired by real-life events. It happens now and then and I always jump to those opportunities when they present themselves. They provide me with an extraordinarily broad landscape with a truly beautiful amount of room to move in the directions I can take with them. Most often, I deep-dive interviews or articles for even a breadcrumb or two that I can spin. While I love the moments I can find in such explorations, there are parameters to respect. Ultimately, I still need to establish my entry and exit points for my stories within the concepts that those resources inspire. But when a moment from my own life puts itself on the table, there are no rules to acknowledge. I can take the notion and run it through the “Manny Machine” and wait to see which of my guys is the best candidate to lead the charge, and which of the crew is the best foil to respond to it.
Such was the case here. This Comic came to life because I had purchased a pair of cheap, horn-rimmed, light-reflecting glasses to cut down on computer monitor glare. I was told that I looked “professorial” in them. I took it as a compliment, as I have never been labeled anywhere close to an academic in my life. That one moment set my noggin moving and I knew I could generate a Comic out of it. Thus, I gave a pair to Yoga Boy and let the story lead me forward. What would our favorite longhaired goofball do with anything that made him feel smarter?! Why he would get just nostalgic enough to convince himself that it was time to brush the dust off his Culinary Studies degree from Dear Ole Splendorland University, and start up a cooking show on the DBS 3© Internet TV channel. His thoroughly misguided ego did the rest for me and I wrote to that. Somehow, Soxx felt like the perfect counterpoint for the discussion that followed in the four Panels you’ve just read and he was more than happy to join in the fun. Especially since it let him act as the voice of reason for a change. Once again, the island of Il Pavo finds a snuggly home in my world. There is no such thing as too many Shout-Outs to the “Wiseguy” series.
Why Saskatchewan, you may ask? While creating this Comic, I was watching “Stargate Universe” again. A truly fantastic and underrated program. The cast features an actress named Elyse Levesque. She is extremely talented and quite lovely, too. I really enjoyed her work on the show. She also passed through “Orphan Black” and was great there, too. When I looked her up on IMDB, I learned that she is from Saskatchewan, and a-let’s be honest warped-nod to the place that gave her to us felt like a warm and gentlemanly thing to do. Here at “Mannyacs”©, we love to extend our salutes!
If anyone among my readers has ever tried even a variation of a duck milkshake, drop me a line and tell me what you thought of it. My curiosity is now piqued.