Niki was one of my first friends that I made when I went over at Dawson College.(2002) I was lonely and cold back then, I needed someone to break me into the loop! I meet Niki and her twin sister Julie (clicky) in one of the many club spaces that the college provides. It was love at first sight. (Platonically, of course)
Niki and Julie toke me under their wing and thought me the basics of not looking like a smelly fucking retard everywhere I went. It was hard at first, but eventually we reached a break through and I’ve never been more social and cool! Yeah- thank you Nicole and Julie!
Now, about the comic. Niki and I were just sitting in the Gay and Lesbian Club space reserved for many of the students in the building. We were talking about my ‘fucked-up’ art. I passed Niki my sketch pad and she drew clown noses on everyone of the characters inside it. Then she started joking about calling one of the characters Clown Man with his retarded dog that spits out bees. He would go up to children and instead of being fun loving and great, he would hold a flower that squirts acid and burns their innocent loving eyes.
I was taken back at first, but then realized her genius! I worked on the comic that week and got it printed later on that month. We were going to collaborate again a few months later but now all she adds to my sketches are giant thick grown-in cocks. …Not that I mind, it just hasn’t stroke a cord with me …yet.
written on: Sunday April 11, 2004
Nicole Beullac, Concept Artist & Writer
I’ll have to get Nicole to write something for the B.T.S. She’s reliable so I don’t think it will take long. e* (10/4/04)
I don’t think she’s ever going to write anything.(15/2/07)
EFRAIM: I started drawing Clown Man in my French class in the Fall of 2002. It was
the first fully inked in comic I made after ‘Magical Adventures of F-RAM!’ which I was also working on at the same time. The process was pretty basic, almost primitive. I would sketch out the panels right away without story boards on a 5.5 x 8.5 canvas. (A folded piece of write-paper) It wasn’t even any special paper, just a hand full of computer sheets. After the initial sketch, I would use my technical drawing pens (.005, .01, .03, 1, 2, 3) to ink them in. I wouldn’t draw any speech bubbles or text- that was left for the computer stage.
As a matter of fact, the last four pages were all drawn in a day on Sunday. The whole comic was tweaked on the computer that same day even! I ran over to my sisters to get it scanned, burned it on a CD and worked on it with Photoshop 5. I made the panels, speech bubbles and text with PS and most importantly used it to even out the black tones. After it was all done I had to wait a few days until I could get them to the printer and have them printed in the Dawson Comic Book Society Anthology (as it’s featured comic!). That sucked, because the last few pages suffered due to the rush. However, all-in-all it was all very exciting, and it made Niki really happy to have some guy make her a comic. …some random guy…
The writing process, as I said, was spontaneous. I did have a rough idea of what will happen on every page and the short story was written before the comic process began with Nicole on that day in the club-space. I always knew there was only going to be 6 pages since I was trying to get it printed for a comic book anthology. I am not overly satisfied with the direction of the panels and page set ups. Though I very much like the symbols I included as an allegorical comic- and impressed by Nicole’s designs!
The following is an analysis by the creators of the comic. These are just the artists perspectives and can be interpreted in anyway.
COVER PAGE
EFRAIM: The cover page has a barcode and butterfly on it. The butterfly symbolizes nature and the barcode symbolizes materialism. The blood spot on the top left shows the death of nature by materialism. The numbers spell out "-7R33D0N1-N01N-" which can be decoded to "FREEDOM NOW". Which is the message of the comic-Freedom from capitalism and materialism!
The comic wasn’t printed with a cover page, but the exclusive prints come with the rare cover page. To bad, it’s the only page with color. I wanted to color in the whole comic before uploading, but nah- maybe in the special edition in 2008.
PAGE 1
EFRAIM: The vicious Clown Man makes his first appearance! The clown symbolizes materialism.
Which he belatedly admits with his first line. "Toys, Video Game and other Gizmos! That’s where happiness lies!" The dog, which is mentioned, is useless.
This page is my favorite page in the comic. I love the composition of Clown Man and his dog on the first panel. Plus- without the back ground, there is more emphasis on Clown Man on the first panel.
The truck wasn’t in Nicole’s first design. I added that in to give more of a sense of materialism and man made technical feel. Which worked out later on. Though my main complaint would be what Clown Man is wearing. It has no symbolism to it at all. Now usually that wouldn’t be a problem but everything but the dog is a symbol since this is an allegorical comic. Though I tried to do something with the mask later on. (which also didn’t work out- to bad.)
PAGE 2
EFRAIM: Now the first panel I really hate. What kind of allegorical story, blatantly admits to what the symbol symbolizes. It was bad with Clown Mans first line but "Home of the Pure and Innocent"?! Common! I didn’t realize it at the time..*grumbles*
The rest of the panels I liked. The children playing with butterflies, with a looming city in the back ground is one of my favorites. The children are today’s youth, the city in the back means that their of middle class or higher, and the playing with the butterfly shows them playing with un materialistic things (nature).
The nets were very controversial. Are they trying to capture and hold onto their innocents? Well I would say, but it’s a lot more fun keeping it up in the air!
On the last panel all the kids like the clown right away is a given. Every child is exposed to materialism before they realize it’s bad. It’s the iron glove of media and capitalism. And about the capitalism, I meant for the flower to represent that.
PAGE 3
EFRAIM: This one is great. The slow motion panel of the child dropping his net. Ha- if I filmed this, the pace would be so awkward! Anyway, the drooping of the net is the leaving of the nature of things. And indulging
I originally intended for Clown Man to be holding them up with strings as a puppeteer. But with the blunder on pages one and two, I reconsidered. This would be the climax of the comic thematically. My over all point was that materialism and following media is an all around bad thing. So there was a lot of things that where included here. The boy with the hat crawls after the boy like a sheep. The hat is an exploration leaders hat. So like in the Amazon the leader would wear something like that. I heard about it in the DVD to ‘The Mummy Returns’ but I digress. So since he is wearing the leaders hat, then he represents the first to take action. Finally, the swirls and crazy things in the bag are SUPPOSE to be like a wool over the kids eyes. Not noticing that their turning against the people they loved a second ago.
PAGE 4
EFRAIM: This page was a lot of fun to make, maybe my favorite. The first three panels are all about fighting the good fight. Protesting. Standing up for what one believes in. Not giving into the masses. And that’s basically what the girl in the comic represents. I used a female because I felt women, over all, have a better grasp of the bigger picture of things than men do. I shouldn’t have added this in without research but I did. Though if I was wrong then she is always used as a minority. Not saying that women are in fact a minority, but that she herself as a person is one vs. two boys.
Now the mask was suppose to play a bigger role. Though I never got around to tying it in. Clown Man was suppose to take off the mask and show his ugly face before doing what he does on the next page. Though I decided to make it that when ‘Protesting’ (the girl) finally gets up close to ‘Materialism’ (Clown Man) she sees it’s horrible face up close. And phew- what an ugly face it is!
Though I think one what makes this page my favorite is the action glare that the girl and Clown Man share. Sort of out of place, but it effectively builds up tension. The girl, stands up for her views. Clown Man slowly analysis the situation and then gives her what she wants. The truth- and does so by getting real close to her and showing off his ugly face. It’s great!
PAGE 5
EFRAIM: The iron fist of capitalism played by a flower and does to the girl what it does to any protester. Squirts acid on their face and burns them to death. Now- this is symbolic of just getting burnt. I get up, I tell my friends let’s read around a tree as apposed to playing with Nerf and they laugh at me up front. I get burnt.
The butterfly which represent innocents and purity is always around the girl even as a corpse. It’s a very sad image, but protesting does not go down in vain. They get the butterfly!
Like I said before, the kids laughing at the dead body is just like my friends laughing at me. They don’t even notice that’s she has been killed, they are to far indulged into materialism. Clown Man laughs with success.
PAGE 6
EFRAIM: To a lot of people this page was anti-climatic and it sort of was. Sort of. When I reached the sixth page I was pressed for space. I wanted more room, just one more page. I don’t know what I would have done with an extra page, but I’m sure it would have appealed to a larger audience if I did. Oh well.
After the kids have lost themselves in materialism and capitalism, Clown Man blows them the bits using one of the toys. The just shows that being materialistic makes you closed minded and will eventually get you burnt in the end. *sigh* if they only worked as a group! In the last panel you see a ghostly image of Clown Man. People confuses this with him looking dead. This is why I wanted more paged- but what I tried to show that is materialism still has a grasp over today’s suburbia.
The paneling in this page is horrible. Someone raise your hand if you figured out what the hell is going on! Mabye SOME experienced comic readers can figure it out, but everyone I know had to take a double take. Clown Man basically walks over to his truck, presses a button on his steering wheel (which represents his goals where always to destroy, which is ridiculous) Then the nose on one of the bears lights up and explodes the kids to tiny bits. (If you see inside the explosion closely, you can in fact see tiny
bits!
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