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Fogtown has now been reviewed in Monkeysee, an NPR pop culture blog.

The San Francisco Chronicle reviewed Fogtown! This is particularly cool as Fogtown is set in San Francisco! Read it here.

One of my favorite aspects of cartooning is casting; i.e., designing the cast of characters. Over the years I’ve saved old model packs from TV series I’ve worked on with the idea of repurposing characters in my own work. In these two pages, two characters are lifted from King of the Hill, which I was working on at the time. Frank Grissel’s lawyer on pages 56 and 57 is based on the model of Peggy Hill’s real estate agent boss, Chris Sizemore. The uniformed SFPD office on page 56 is Enrique, one of Hank Hill’s co-workers at Strickland Propane.

Page 57 is also the first appearance of Madam Tse, part of the criminal conspiracy afflicting the city by the bay. She went through several design permutations before we (Bob, Andersen and I) arrived at the current version. Andersen insisted that she sport the hairstyle worn by Jean Simmons in Angel Face.

This page is part of a sequence that is heavily influenced by 50’s film noir. I watched various DVDs and freeze framed, sketching several scenes to swipe their compositions, lighting, costuming, casting, etc. Movies I found especially helpful were The Dark Corner, Vicki, and House on Telegraph Hill.

Toth was a key Caniff acolyte as a young man in the late 40’s, but branched off into his own style in the early 50’s. He took the “Caniff” approach to an even more extreme level of simplicity and graphic innovation. His calculated simplicity served him well when he transitioned to TV Animation in the 60’s, working primarily as a designer and storyboard artist on The Herculoids, Space Ghost, Sea Lab, Superfriends and a host of other Hanna-Barbera series.

This is one of my favorite sequences in the novel. I was emulating two of my favorite cartoonists, Milton Caniff and Alex Toth.

Caniff was the auteur of “Terry and the Pirates” and “Steve Canyon,” and one of the most influential American cartoonists from the mid 30’s to the late 70’s. His inking style was almost macho in its sloppy expressiveness, creating high contrast, dramatic, muscular drawing.

Toth was a key Caniff acolyte as a young man in the late 40’s, but branched off into his own style in the early 50’s. He took the “Caniff” approach to an even more extreme level of simplicity and graphic innovation. His calculated simplicity served him well when he transitioned to TV animation in the 60’s, working primarily as a designer and storyboard artist on “The Herculoids,” “Space Ghost,” “Sea Lab,” “Superfriends” and a host of other Hanna-Barbera series.

After reading the script, I felt the character called for a beefcake shot. Frank Grissel, the main character, is a closeted, gay-leaning bi-sexual, but his straight side dominates the book.  Based on this character, I asked the editor if I could show Frank’s genitalia. Bob gave the okay, but later recanted. I had to conceal the offending flesh without appearing contrived and prudish.

The gay aspect is much more oblique and left up to the reader’s imagination. This is somewhat frustrating, but appropriate to the time period in the novel.

This is the second appearance of Greg and the first appearance of Jack Kerouac Alley (though one can’t tell from these pages). I had the same problem keeping Greg looking teenaged that I did with the nameless teen whore on pages 6/7. It’s extremely difficult to achieve a consistent likeness of a young, pretty character and avoid having them appear to age when they emote or I use dramatic angles or lighting.