It’s that time of the year again – Halloween night, when The Great Pumpkin rises from the pumpkin patch on Halloween evening, and flies around bringing toys to sincere and believing children.
Consistent with how things seem to be in 2020, Halloween also occurs on the same night as a full moon, a blue moon and on the night we roll back the clocks an hour to standard time (where I live). Bring it on, I say!
What is your favourite thing about Charles Schulz’ animated fall classic? Is it Charlie Brown’s classic line “I got a rock?” Maybe it’s Snoopy’s showdown with the Red Baron and his journey through the French countryside? Is it Linus and Sally waiting in the pumpkin patch for The Great Pumpkin to arrive? Personally, mine is the touching moment where Linus’ big sister Lucy carries her shivering, sleeping brother from the disappointment and cold of the pumpkin patch, back to his warm bed. Honourable mention goes to the painted backgrounds in this animated production – check out those dark, autumn night time watercolour skies!
Happy Halloween, y’all! Have fun, be safe and here’s hoping you find what you’re looking for in your pumpkin patch!
Watching your pet cat and stuffed bear in a heated argument over how they are going to decorate and rearrange your bedroom proved to be the final straw for Joey. I’m sure he’ll come around, because, well… he’d better lay claim to some real estate soon or he’ll be doing homework in his closet.
No Joey, you didn’t dream all of this. And it turns out Herb is a bit of a – bear – in the morning if he hasn’t had his premium caffeine fix. On a positive note, it looks like the Joey’s bed got put together somehow, so there’s that.
If you’ve ever moved you’ve been there. It’s a stressful, exhausting, overwhelming experience – even if you aren’t moving to northern Manitoba or your stuffed bear didn’t just start talking to you. A smart person once gave me this tip: put the bed together first. On moving day, when you run out of steam, that’s it – you’re done. You collapse on the spot. Been there, got that t-shirt, Joey.
New town, new plan: Joey’s not aiming for straight A’s — he’s gunning for dodgeball stardom. Instant fame, delivered via gym class glory. Meanwhile, out in the sticks, Herb discovers his nemesis: a buzzing horde of winged vampires.
This just keeps getting better for Joey – not only is he about to start grade six 3000 km away from his former home, but he’s just learned that his new town has a turkey processing plant placed smack-dab in the middle of it. Fun fact: this is a shameless shout-out to my hometown of Thamesford, Ontario, whose local economy was also anchored by a turkey plant in the centre of the village – Cold Springs Farm. I spent a summer working there (fortunately, only one) and yes, on warm, humid summer nights the smell was unmistakable.
Given his strange predicament, Herb wonders if the comic strip he’s now a part of might have some parallels to the mysterious TV show LOST (and its misunderstood finale)…
Wishing a happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend to my fellow Canadians! Today is the official day but we sat down to our feast on Sunday as a family without seeing my parents, sister or nephews during these strange Covid-19 times… Unlike Snoopy, we won’t be making…. toast and popcorn?
Okay, so… let’s recap. It appears as if Herb suffered an awful fate — which he thankfully has no recollection of — while patiently waiting in line for a latté (after cribbing a credit card). That’s when he… “materialized” next to Joey in the back seat of his car as it hurtled along the highway toward the remote outpost of Cold Springs, Manitoba. All things considered, Joey and Herb are handling the situation pretty optimistically — if not morbidly so — looking creatively at the possibilities here.
Over a fresh cup of chocolate milk and a mediocre coffee, new back seat buddies Joey and Herb start to connect the dots. Despite the troubling conclusion, Herb seems to be taking it in stride.
For those non-Canadians out there, a Double-Double™ is the standard way to order a coffee with two creams and two sugars at any Tim Hortons location. A Regular™ is one cream/one sugar and the other option on the table is the Triple-Triple™ if you like your coffee… decadent. Anyway, Herb now has a better appreciation for Joey’s plight.
On the long drive to Cold Springs, Joey suddenly finds himself sitting in the back seat of a car with a… bear. A bear who is quite polite, actually. And a rule-follower.
There’s still an excruciatingly long way to go to get to Cold Springs. Joey is ready for a snack stop, but that has been delayed by a strange bear-related incident. Oh well, onto the next town (hours away). Sigh.
Admittedly, this is kind of a cheap shot at places like northern Manitoba, which everyone assumes are freezing all year round. Let’s just imagine it was a particularly “fresh” summer day en route to Cold Springs and Joey isn’t trying very hard to look for positives at the moment.
Joey’s family is moving from the bustling, cosmopolitan city of Toronto to… the remote town of Cold Springs, Manitoba. He’s pretty sure his life is over, but he may have some more immediate concerns with his new home.
We’re very excited to release the first ever Planet Joey “Sunday format” comic strip, a regular feature we’re calling Joey Weekends. This week, we’re catching up with Joey and his family en route to his new home: the remote northern outpost of Cold Springs, Manitoba. If you recognize Joey’s hockey uniform, you’ll know what city he’s moving from and yes, he’s sporting the classic Gretzky Jofa 235 helmet.
Well, we’ve come to the end of our run of six promotional comics and there you have it: Joey and Herb don’t sound so confident about the longevity of this thing. Don’t take their word for it, however. Next, we go back to the beginning with the storyline ‘Destination: Cold Springs’, where we catch up to Joey and his family en route to Cold Springs, Manitoba…
Gaston has reached the end of his rope here. He really, really, really wants to destroy this comic strip. Thank goodness Mimi is able to talk some sense into him and hey, a Beetle Bailey reference for the old folks out there!
As an homage to the days of comics being printed on good ol’ newsprint, our villains have now run the gamut of ways to sabotage this thing: fire, India ink and now it’s been revealed that Gaston had asked the artist – me – for whiteout. Remember that stuff? Also known as ‘correction fluid’ and by the brand name Liquid Paper, it was pretty darn toxic so I opted to go with the other kind of whiteout we have here in Canada…
If this strip was indeed printed in a newspaper, dumping a large bottle of India ink on it would be a surefire way to destroy it. As it turns out, a closed comic panel will allow a gas to pass through it, but not a liquid. Who knew?
In yet another homage to the comic strips of yesteryear, Gaston has moved on to Plan B: India ink. Mimi seems to have her doubts about this strategy, but the bigger question is: where did Gaston get such a large bottle of ink? And where did Joey and Herb find a fire extinguisher that quickly?
Now that Planet Joey has gone live, you might be wondering when you can look forward to the next exciting instalment going forward. Here’s what we’re starting with in terms of a schedule:
New Planet Joey comic strips will be posted twice weekly on Monday and Thursday mornings. Every third Sunday morning (ie. every seventh strip), a larger format comic – in the vein of the weekend colour comics – will be posted.
New comic strips will also appear at the same time on the various social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Ko-fi and always one day earlier for Patreon subscribers.
To kick things off, we’re running a series of six ‘promotional’ strips featuring our heroes and villains already locked in conflict and afterwards, we’ll go back to the beginning and catch up to Joey and his family en route to Cold Springs, Manitoba.
Today – after almost two decades of sketching, designing, writing, drawing, re-drawing and dreaming about creating my very own comic strip – I’m thrilled and proud to announce that Planet Joey is being officially released out into the public domain.
As a child growing up in a small town in southwestern Ontario in the 1970s and 1980s, I couldn’t wait for Saturday mornings. I’d hop out of bed and fly down the stairs into our living room where my parents would be consuming their morning coffee/tea and reading the London Free Press. I would hurriedly dig through the remaining sections lying on the floor, searching for the colour comics and proceed to stain my fingers with newsprint ink diving into the classic strips like Peanuts, Shoe, BC, Broom Hilda, Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Hägar the Horrible, Robotman, Dennis the Menace, For Better or for Worse and yes, there was even a serialized Star Wars comic during some of those years! At the time, I was also influenced by comic books like Pink Panther and Bullwinkle and Rocky, not to mention my growing collection of Tintin books. As an artistic kid, I dreamed of one day creating a comic strip that might appear in a printed collection or a newspaper. It would take many years to see that dream come to fruition, but here we are – even if newsprint isn’t involved (yet).
Planet Joey started as an idea in my head sometime in the late 1990s while I was working as a graphic designer and also teaching at Sheridan College in the Art Fundamentals & Illustration programs. Some character designs and ideas for storylines and gags made it into sketchbooks and the basic comic strip emerged in 2003 shortly after my son was born. Since then, I’ve worked on it in fits and starts, filling sketchbooks with drawings and notes, but never having the sustained focus to see it through. Until now.
Charles Schulz said “The only way a comic strip distinguishes itself from all other media is to intrinsically combine words and pictures into a wholly new and elevated sum. Without the intertwining pictures, it’s just radio. Without the words, it’s just pantomime.” Schulz redefined the comic strip in the 1950s and 1960s. Many since have imitated it, some have emulated it. In a way, we’re all drawing Peanuts. Michael Jantze – creator of The Norm – said “The modern comic strip is like a poem: short, repetitive and, yeah, no one reads it.” He wasn’t wrong, but in some ways, comic strips have a certain new relevance in the year 2020. In a time when there is so much content out there for consumption and attention spans are short, a comic strip has the ability to connect – to tell a story, make you smile or just to make you stop and think – for a few seconds. My hope for Planet Joey is that it settles into its own comfort zone somewhere between the classic gag-a-day strips and a graphic novel. Something like… an ‘epic’ poem, perhaps?
What I’m getting at here is that being finally able to share this comic strip with you is a pretty special thing for me. I hope you enjoy the characters and the stories they have to tell. I hope you appreciate the art. I hope the comics put a smile on your face or at the very least, transport you away from your busy world, to Joey’s home of Cold Springs at least for a minute or two every day and back again.
Here it is, officially the first Planet Joey comic released into the public domain! Gaston is hell bent on sabotaging the new strip with fire (forgetting that he’s in it), which… seems like an ineffective way to ruin a webcomic. Imagine that you’ve travelled back in time and you’re reading this in a newspaper and it makes more sense. This is the first of six promotional strips featuring our heroes + villains we’re running to launch Planet Joey. Please feel free to share and/or engage in the comments section below! Trivia: This exact strip was originally drawn in the spring of 2003 almost exactly as you see it here. Over the years, it’s been re-drawn a few times as character designs and my inking styles and methods changed, but it has essentially existed for 17+ years waiting for this day.
