Sunny loves comic books and strips and graphic novels so much that she’s decided to create her own.
Okay, that and because I challenged her older sister the Math Class Chibi Doodler to draw a weekly comic strip with me this summer, and there’s no way Sunny was going to be left behind.
“Ordinary Rachel” about an eight year old girl whose uncle is a superhero who takes her on adventures, even though she doesn’t have any powers of her own (she thinks). She knows about her uncle’s secret life, but her parents don’t.
Rachel also has a talking ball for a pet. Presumably, her parents DO know about that, but Sunny is a huge Calvin & Hobbes fan, so maybe not.
She–Sunny, not Rachel—drew these freehand with MS paint all by herself. She spent hours on it and I only helped with technical stuff, like panel size, file options, and getting the tails of the speech balloons to point in the right directions.
These panels are black and white, in case you’re wondering, because she plans to color them last, “like they do with REAL comic books, Mommy.” She further states that it has nothing to do (Mommy) with the difficulties in using the “Color Fill” tool when your lines don’t touch much. Really.
I can tell you that the pet ball will be purple. Or pink.
I’m campaigning to call him “Plinkle”, but I don’t get a vote.
I love how you know exactly what this character is doing,
even if you might be a little worried
that she’s taking a nap after laying a ginormous egg.
This confusion will clear up once the egg ball starts talking in panel eight.
Or no, actually it won’t. Never mind.
The item to the left is a dresser, which is recognized
because Sunny never closes her drawers, either.
I like Rachel’s nightgown, here. Very post-modern.
Sunny is always a little miffed that her swimsuit isn’t where she wants to find it,
so she’s just writing what she knows at this point.
This includes the parental nagging, I’m afraid . . .
Notice the reaction lines? I’m so proud!
I love the way she drew this character,
and also that she’s wearing her swimsuit to go hang with superheroes.
Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
And see how spiffy that right hand word balloon looks (ahem)?
Her style probably owes a bit to Patrick McDonnell at this point (especially his Doozie), but that’s not a bad thing at all—in fact, I think it’s pretty good for a not-quite third grader.
Seriously, how cool is this?
That’s right: pretty darned cool.
Earful of Cider 