Paws

Ollie and Jacomo

I keep going back and forth in my head about starting up my “Paws” comic panel again.

Some of you may remember it, I first started posting it in 2013 – 10 years ago! I’m not quite sure why I stopped.

It stars a Rabbit and a Mole – Ollie the Rabbit and Jacomo the Mole. Ollie was called Tombo at one time, but he’s back to being Ollie, his original name.

Back 10 years, ago, in 2013, I saw a cute black and white cartoon daily on Instagram. A 19-year-old guy from Norway or that area of the world would post this great cartoon about a 5-year-old boy and a snowman. Each day it was sort of a full adventure in one comic panel and without any words! It was that good. It was quite amazing. And that’s what gave me the idea to start up “Paws” which I’m sure was called something else back then.

I was enthralled by the artwork and concept from the guy from Norway and I wish I had remembered his name. He started branching out, selling his work as greeting cards and things like that. The reason I may have stopped following him was that at the end of winter and these charming cartoons, he had the snowman melt! Yes, the snowman melted and that was the end of the adventures of him and the boy and he probably stopped posting things so his account just went dormant.

Anyway, I’ve played around with the characters and really like them. I now have things set up, I changed the whole thing from “Paws” to Ollie And Jacomo and got a new URL and set it all up, I reworked the characters and premise, renamed some and am ready to start publishing.

I don’t want to do two things at once – Ollie and Jacomo along with my Tomversation daily cartoon panel, so my Tomversation comic panel is going on hiatus for the summer, maybe shorter, maybe longer, I’ll see how I feel. I may publish Tomversation toons intermittently all summer, we’ll see.

I have this idea about cartoons having seasons, like tv shows, you know, one cartoon will run for a bit, then take a break, then another will run in its place and so on. And then the other will come back with new episodes and so on .

So now, starting Monday, June 12, Ollie And Jacomo will publish daily, you can see them online at these locations:
Website: OllieAndJacamo.com
Facebook: facebook.com/OllieAndJacomo
Instagram: instagram.com/ollieandjacomo

Hope to see you there!

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It’s all about the coffee

The last two comics published yesterday and today are coffee related. I guess I have coffee on my mind. Maybe it’s because I gave up drinking coffee a couple of months ago. I’ve been drinking green tea instead of my usual two or more cups of coffee a day!

The rough. Yes, this is a comic idea from a few years back.
That’s Jacomo diving into the coffee and Tombo asking, “How does he do that?”

The above comic was originally planned for Jacomo and Tombo, remember them? The mole and the rabbit comic I used to have called “Paws?” Jacomo was swimming in the coffee and Tombo was reacting. In theory anyway, I had this old scribble on my desk and I drew it as the comic above rather than having Jacomo doing the swimming.

This other one which is running today was also a scribble I had on my desk. I actually have hundreds of scribbles on scraps of paper. People ask me where I get my ideas from, I don’t really know, but I do scribble them down when they cross my mind. Sometimes they marinate for years until I use them.

Paws

So I’m back on my “Paws” kick again, you know, my comic strip/panel with Tombo and Jacomo. When I used to publish, I had quite a large following on Instagram and I’ve noticed that similar panels and strips have quite a large following there.

I am considering publishing daily on Instagram, Facebook and hopefully GoComics. I want to see how the GoComics thing goes before I start. I was thinking of maybe the fall, you know, maybe on Labor Day.

I had hoped to publish my Tomversation comic panel starting in January, but a few newspapers contacted me and they were interested in daily publication, but they gave me the run-around for so long that I put off publishing online. It amazes me how selfish newspaper editors can be. I had a few very large dailies interested in the feature and they had me on a string, practically sending me contracts to sign, but then things just stopped in mid-negotiation. I don’t know why. I felt all of a sudden ostracized like Kathy Griffin. I just fell off their radar. It put me back months since I was waiting to start publishing in the newspapers and online at the same time.

Anyway, “Paws” is sort of a mix between Mutts and Krazy Kat. Tombo the Rabbit and Jacomo the Mole are the stars. There are other characters, too, who live in their little village of Coconut Cove.

I’ll keep you posted as things move along.

Dusting off ‘Paws’

I am focusing on my Paws comic now. People seem to like Tombo the Rabbit and Jacomo the Mole and they are constantly asking for them. So I will put a bunch of comics together and submit them to the syndicates.

I am using the Surface Pro 3 now, rather than the Wacom Cintiq, which I used in the past. While I like the Cintiq better, I like the all-in-one aspect of the Surface Pro, being able to use it as a computer and a drawing tablet and also, it’s portable and easier to manage.

I transported all my files and I use Manga Studio 4 EX and Photoshop to create on the Surface Pro, just like I did with the Cintiq. I have Manga Studio 5 EX, but I don’t like it for some reason, I think there is just too much on the screen and the brushes confuse me. I’m more comfortable with the 4 EX.

So that’s where I stand on the comics front now. Getting Paws ready for some sort of revival. I had done something or not done something regarding the trademark, so I had to resubmit some files this week. They were accepted and Paws is fully trademarked as a comic strip.