Remembering a pet

A comic in memory of a pet.The good years, kept the way they were.

The sock thefts, the long war with the vacuum cleaner, the one walk they never got tired of — those are the stories worth keeping, and a comic keeps them warm. Add a photo and the studio draws them in a soft look, the same coat and the same ears in every panel, for as many issues as you have stories.

A black labrador with a white chin trots up a riverside path carrying a stick, a smiling woman in a parka walking behind under willow trees — Drawn in the Woodland Fable look

How it goes

Four steps to issue #1.

The premise
Write who they were: the lab who thought every walk was the best one yet, the cat who ran the house from a sunny window. Choose Everyone as the rating on the first step and it stays gentle.
The look
A soft look suits it: Woodland Fable's pen and watercolour, Storybook Gouache's picture-book paint, Minimal-Line Memoir for something quieter.
The photo
On Cast & World add the photo that looks most like them to their model sheet, and the studio describes them from it and draws them in the look. Swap the photo or draw the sheet again until it's them.
The issues
Give the writer the stories you want to keep, one at a time or in a pile. Read each script before a panel is drawn, and download every finished issue to keep or to send to the people who knew them.

Start from one of these

Make one of these yours.

Press start and the premise lands in the box of a new comic with its look already picked. Change every word, or the look, before anything is drawn.

No. 1
Pepper, a black lab with a white chin, spent fourteen years sure that every walk was the best one yet, and every issue is one of those walks — the river, the snow, the day she met the goat.
In the Woodland Fable look
Start with this idea
No. 2
An old grey cat who slept in the same sunny window for nineteen years turns out to have been keeping a diary, and each issue reads one more year of what she really thought of us.
In the Storybook Gouache look
Start with this idea

More premises to start from

Looks that suit it

Draw it in one of these.

Or in any of the twenty-eight. A comic picks one look on its second step, and every panel of every issue keeps it.

See all twenty-eight looks

The letters page

Questions, answered.

Is it going to be sad?

Only if you write it that way. The writer works from the stories you give it, so give it the walks and the thefts, and you read each script before a panel is drawn.

I only have a few photos — is that enough?

One is enough, if it's clear and shows their face and coat. The model sheet is drawn from it, and every panel of them is drawn from the sheet, so one good photo carries the whole comic.

Can I keep adding to it?

Yes. A comic keeps going as long as you give it ideas, so when another story comes back to you, drop it in the comic desk's ideas box and it becomes the next issue.

More to make

Something else in mind?

Got your own idea already?

Start from a blank page

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