22 Feb
2012

Posted in: Blog, Comics, Pictures, Words
By Fanton    3 Comments

Hip Replacement

THIS WEEK’S Dandy sees the introduction of the latest strip I’ve been working on, Bad Grandad, replacing George vs Dragon after their lengthy run ended last week.

Bad Grandad sees me entering new territory, as this strip was created and written in-house at Dandy HQ, whereas I’ve normally written all my strips myself so far. It’s proving to be a great experience, however, and the scripts (by Dandy deputy ed Michelle O’Donnell) have been brilliant, and forced me to draw stuff I might not otherwise have done, which is excellent.

Above you’ll see the first sketches of Bad Grandad I drew after I was approached by The Dandy to work on the strip. For Grandad himself, they wanted something along the lines of the old fellah from Pixar’s movie ‘Up‘ (i.e a dumpy old man) so I used that as the starting point, gave him a big, comedy nose (I like big noses, you’ll have noticed) a funky quiff and dressed him up in the sort of clothes I remembered my own grandad wearing a lot – blue jacket and trousers, waistcoat, tie etc…my own way of paying a bit of a tribute to my grandad, who himself rather loves cartoons and counts Tom and Jerry among his favourites!

I also added a smattering of Ronnie Barker to the mix for good measure.

They were delighted with the look of Bad Grandad, so we pressed ahead, and now the results of our collaboration can be seen in the all-new strip debuting in this week’s issue. HOORAY!

Hope you all welcome this geriatric japester into the comic, there’s plenty more life in the old rogue yet!

Don’t forget to bring biscuits though.

- Fanton.