Prophet Buddy

Icy the Future

2009-03-01T14:22:00.001-08:00

Wow, February sure did fly by! I would like to thank Dumm Comics for having us all month. Here's the original drawing of my last strip for Dumm, which was actually the first one I made. I really wanted to draw a mammoth because I've never drawn one before. Boy, is that a horrible drawing, I'm awesome!

I spelled "Asteroid" wrong, thankfully the folks at Dumm aren't dumb and caught this mistake. Season 3 is in the works, at least in my head it is. As soon as work slows down, production on Season 3 will begin. Unfortunatley, Mouse doesn't see unemployment anywhere in my future.

Douche

2009-02-21T17:19:00.000-08:00

This weekend's strip of Prophet Buddy over at Dumm Comics, is a follow up to last weekend's strip. There's one more strip to go for Prophet Buddy month over at Dumm. Here are the super roughs of the 8-ball strips I submitted to Dumm for their approval.

New Buddy!

2009-02-14T01:39:00.000-08:00

Have you checked out Dumm Comics recently? Well, you should because another Prophet Buddy comic was posted today! And just for the fans on Valentine's day, here is my original drawing for it. If you're not a fan please don't look...

Since this Prophet Buddy month on Dumm Comics, the buddies and I became inspired to finally reunite and we got together at the wall and wrote an outline for season 3. So expect a Prophet Buddy season 3 in the next year or so. Cat, Mouse, and I are really swamped with other duties but will start "entertaining" again when we aren't so busy. Season 3 will be a bit different than the others. We're so excited!

We love you.

Prophet Buddy is sooooo Dumm!

2009-02-07T18:38:00.000-08:00

Today is the start of Prophet Buddy month over at Dumm Comics. The wonderful Dumm folks invited the buddies over to be their weekend guests this month. This will be the buddies first series of animated-comics not animated.
Here is my original drawing of 'Les Propheties.' I removed a lot of the text because I don't like to read.

Prophet Buddy Wrap Party!

2008-08-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, Danner and Bauza threw a wild Prophet Buddy wrap party! Everyone who attended the party was required to get their picture taken with the buddies. Gourmet Corndogs and deep fried sweets were provided by master chef, Chris Staples, while Eric Bauza barbequed burgers and hotdogs. There were two projectors playing nonstop Prophet Buddy episodes and random obscure cartoons the entire night! The shindig started at 5pm and went into 4am. Afterwards a few of us went to the beach. Thanks everyone who came, and Danner and Bauza for throwing it, I love you guys!

034 The Greatest Idea!

2008-08-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

So here we are, the end of the second season. In hindsight it seems like it just flew by, but while I was working on it I couldn't wait for this day. Now I can return to having a life away from a computer. I can re-establish a relationship with my girlfriend, video games, the sun, television, the gym, booze, you name it! The world is my oyster! I'm not sure when I'll begin Prophet Buddy season three, I'm pretty burnt out on writing and animating at the moment and need some time away. Once I regain the energy I'll jump right back on. In the meantime, check out all of the other comics and cartoons that are over in the links section of this blog. All of these links are way funnier than Prophet Buddy. Thanks everyone for watching!

This strip was written by my Dad, who likes cartoons more than I do! He wrote:

"Cat is sitting under a tree and gets the greatest idea. He runs to tell Mouse, before he can tell him, Mouse says 'No'. Just like work, just like life."

It wasn't long after he wrote it when I rewatched Real Genius, another one of my favorite movies, for a hundreth time. There is a sequence in the movie where Val Kilmer gets the greatest idea while sitting under a refrigerator. So I used/stole that sequence for this last strip of Prophet Buddy. In the storyboard, I matched pretty much every shot from that sequence and tinkered with the dialogue so it would work with Dad's idea. While recording the dialogue, Eric Bauza and I watched that sequence over and over getting the voices to match the movie exactly. Here is my rough cut of the strip so you can see what I'm talking about:

Coincedentally, it's my Dad's birthday tomorrow, Happy Birthday Dad!

033 Not Funny

2008-07-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

This series and this particular strip is inspired by Stephan Pastis' comic Pearls Before Swine. In his comics, he often includes himself in the strips with his characters telling him how lame his jokes are. I think that's funny, so I copied him. You might also notice that the Prophet Mouse and Rat even look alike. In my defense, I had no intentions of copying the design of Rat, there aren't too many ways to draw a mouse; it's either gonna look like Mickey or Rat whichever way you draw it.

It is nice having a hobby where people can leave you a comment on how much they hate what you do in your free time. With its dumb yet somewhat "smart" approach to the comedic arts, I suppose Prophet Buddy isn't for everyone. I have a very strange sense of humor and I am very thankful to those who get and appreciate it and I am very sorry for those who don't. At the end of the day, I'm very proud of Prophet Buddy. It doesn't matter to me what anyone thinks about it, as long as I'm happy with it, which I am. To show this, I wear my Prophet Buddy supershirt everyday, you should too! You should probably also throw on some clean underwear while you're at it! The Buddies have expressed to me how much the viewers on the internets don't find the series funny and think it is stupid, so here is my attempt on making it funny and intelligent, enjoy!

NEXT WEEK IS THE SEASON FINALE!!!!!!!

032 Bon Voyage

2008-07-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

This is another strip written by Chris Staples. Around the end of the first season, he stormed into my office and shouted "I got it! The mouse says 'Bon voyage' and then the Cat gets recruited into the British Navy!" I didn't ask any questions, I'm still not sure why it was the British Navy. I suppose there is something charming about the British Navy, or maybe Chris finds them comedic. One thing's for sure, their flag is easier to animate than the U.S. one. I kinda wish he pitched it as the Japanese Navy, their flag would have been really easy to make!
When I was referencing the old British Navy photos on the internets, I noticed that a lot of the sailors looked just like Popeye. I would post the pictures but I can't seem to find the exact ones I referenced.
Bauza seemed to have a good time recording this one, 100% of his lines are improv.
The second season only has two more strips, are you excited!?!

031 Birthday Boy

2008-07-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

A year ago this week, I began animating the Prophet Buddy series. Happy Birthday boys, you guys are the best! Cats really do love yarn!

030 Prophet Test

2008-07-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Here's another strip written by my buddy, Matt Danner. It was an idea I had been tinkering with, with the Cat also wanting prophetic powers. I couldn't quite get a solid strip with this idea so Matt took a shot at it and here it is. In Matt's version of the story he included a duck, coincedentally there is a duck character who exists in the Prophet Buddy world, Mr. Duncan, so I included him in this strip. We will probably be seeing more of him later on.

In this strip, I set out a goal to animate all of the Cat's lipsync with all new unique mouth poses drawn to the dialogue track. I made it most of the way through, but I did give up at the end. I almost missed my deadline because of it. People ask me why I bother making Prophet Buddy, I don't really know why I do, it's not like I make any money from it. I guess it's all for practice. To keep my skills growing, I have to constantly work on them. I use Prophet Buddy to teach me new theories and techniques in animation I have not tried before and then I apply these new processes at my dayjob, since there is no time to test things out there. So I set different goals and try new things for each strip and I think progressively I get a bit better at what I do. You guys should try it, afterall practice makes perfect.

029 Big Bang!

2008-06-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday America!

I think I spent more time drawing the Eiffle Tower than I did animating the whole strip!

028 (Reserved For Bauza)

2008-06-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Before I began production of Season 2 and was writing the strips, Matt came over to help. We went through a list of the strip ideas I had not yet written. One of the strips on the list was reserved for Eric Bauza to write, because I wanted both Matt and Eric to at least have one writing credit for the season. Matt warned me that Bauza would probably not get around to writing one because of his busy schedule, so Matt boarded (Reserved for Bauza) as a joke. We both thought that at the record, Bauza would read the board and get motivated to write a strip. Instead Bauza thought the strip was funny as is, so we recorded it to have as a placeholder. Unfortunately or fortunately, Bauza never wrote a replacement.

Next week's episode will actually be written, I promise.

027 Cousin Stu

2008-06-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

This is a strip that Matt wrote, he boarded it too. I like how he draws, so I tried to keep the animation true to his "vision".

026 Bless You

2008-06-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

This strip is not really about the Mouse being a prophet, it's more about him being a smartypants. Saying "I know" after someone tells you "you're welcome" is kinda messed up. I do it all the time, it's fun!

As for the Cat eating the corndog, it's not suppose to be gross or adult themed. I don't know what you were thinking, actually I think I do, get your mind out of the gutter! Have you ever seen a kid eat something with a sauce or some kind of seasoning? They don't eat it. They just lick the seasoning, slobbering all over their food. I've seen kids at amusement parks lick churros clean, and actually it is a bit gross! The Cat puts pepper on his corndog for story purposes, how else would the Mouse sneeze? In old cartoons, pepper causes sneezing, and is used all the time. I haven't seen any pepper sneezing gags in any recent cartoon, maybe pepper from the 1940's was different from the pepper used today and once caused chronic sniffles. That's probably why I've never ever seen anyone sneeze from pepper in real life.

025 Laocoön

2008-06-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Read about Laocoön here

024 Knitting Know-It-All

2008-05-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

I had heard somewhere that prophets weave the tapestry of the future, or something like that. So I made this strip based off of that concept. Kind of stupid, right? Well, I think my mom will like it!

At the beginning of the strip the Cat is curious to what the Mouse is doing. Because he likes to think he can figure things out on his own, he hops off the wall for a closer inspection. The Cat has a bit of trouble getting back on the wall, because he is very unfit. I know it doesn't really register, but you have to admit, it is pretty amusing to watch him struggle! Also it eats up some time, so the strip fills out the minute nicely.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Monday off! See you next week!

023 Math Homework

2008-05-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

This strip was written by the young and talented Josh Lieberman. He's a pretty big fan of the show and a good friend of mine. I met up with Josh a few months back and he had brought me a storyboard he had drawn up for an episode of Prophet Buddy. The board was very detailed, well-drawn, and very funny, therefore I couldn't use it as an episode. Prophet Buddy episodes are not suppose to be detailed, well drawn, and funny, it's part of the series's charm. Josh had also pitched me the math homework story which he had not boarded or thoughtout all the way through, which was perfect. I instantly visualized it in my head as something that could be told under a minute with my mediocre drawings. So go to the Prophet Buddy site now and watch it in all of its glory! Thanks Josh, I hope you and everyone else likes it, if not... YOU'RE FIRED!

Here's Josh's storyboard:

022 Don't Look Down

2008-05-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! Here it is, Prophet Buddy season 2! In the next several months you will be seeing the Cat and Mouse in 13 brand new forseeing funnies. Hopefully you will notice a slight increase in quality, the powers-that-be have extended my schedule and have allowed me to spend two days extra for each strip! To commemorate the coming of the 2nd season, I've busted out my brushes and painted a little something for the iTunes album art.

For the first strip of the 2nd season, I allowed Bob Harper to write again due to the success of the Hairballs episode. "Don't Look Down" is the result. Unfortunately the length of the episode went over the allotted airtime the series is allowed, so I had to cut over 13 seconds from the strip (which is a lot for a 1 minute cartoon). However, I had saved some of the omitted animation for you loyal readers to enjoy...

I think the strip is actually funnier without this extra bit, though it was very painful for me to cut.

021 You Called It

2008-04-01T00:08:00.001-07:00

I don't know why the Mouse didn't predict this prank. The Cat sure got him good! I hope everyone has a terrible April Fools Day... APRIL FOOLS!!!! Have a good one!

No more episodes until May... I'm serious about that.

020 Prophet Bunny

2008-03-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

I was going to post this one on Monday, but it's my birthday, so here's my bday gift to you!

I tried extra hard on making the backgrounds look nice in this strip, I don't know why, I have issues, I suppose. Here's some of the backgrounds:

Reference: A Boy Named Charlie Brown

Reference: The Flintstones

Reference: Yogi Bear Show

This one I stole directly from "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" In the board I drew Woodstock inside the nest when the Mouse rises up with the egg. I omitted him because I got scared, so instead I made the nest Woodstock's nest and gave the easter egg in this scene a Charlie Brown stripe.

Reference: None. MUSTARD FREE INSIDE!!!

While making this episode I was experimenting with "cheating" the cuts between scenes. Here's one I'm still questioning whether it worked or not...

This shot and the shot below, together make a 'jump cut,' which is often avoided when planning shots. I didn't want to animate the Mouse actually grabbing the egg while lifting the rock, to do that I would have to make some sense out of super long mouse arms. So instead I decided to make this jump cut, and threw in a 'THUD' sound effect to hide it. Did it work??

I enjoy this scene in the new strip. When I boarded it I had drawn a tooth next to the egg, but it wasn't until I was animating the scene that I thought of having the Cat missing a tooth in his take. I was very proud of myself at the time, I was also buzzing off Red Bulls.

The return of the Harpies at the end was Matt's idea when we were recording the strip. I don't know what else I can add to this statement. I thought it was a funny idea.

019 A Valentine's Treat

2008-02-14T10:01:00.000-08:00

Don't you hate it when you pick the one that tastes like caca? Happy Valentine's Day everyone! This episode was made very very last minute, I actually wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not. For the past month I've been trying to get Bauza and Danner together to record the voices for the next season, but Bauza's computer has been giving him problems when recording. So finally, last week, Bauza got his computer working, except I got sick where I couldn't leave my bed. So Saturday when I was feeling a little better, we got together and recorded the voices. Then again, Bauza's computer gave him trouble and he wasn't able to get me the tracks until Tuesday night. So basically, I animated the entire Valentine's strip last night. Once I finished, I uploaded it to the internet. Hot off the press! I hope you guys like it. I love you.

Season 2 is underway, half of the strips are written and recorded. The 2nd season will be premiering in May.

018 Season Finale and a Rant

2008-01-07T19:57:00.000-08:00

This is it, the last strip of the season. The total running time of all 18 strips comes out to about 20 minutes. I'm very happy with how Season 1 turned out. I began Prophet Buddy in June with the concept, the animation production began in July and I finished the last strip the first week of December, so it took me about 6 months to complete. I would like to thank everyone for watching! Also I would like to thank Jasminsaurus for her stories and myspace management (also for putting up with my sleep-deprived tirades), Aaron and CHF for all of the posts and making the online store, Logan and Born Upon the Tide for the shirt hook ups, Greg Araya for making the screen, Shawn for putting together the site, Chris Staples, Bob Harper, and Leo Riley for their strips, Jeaux and ChannelFrederator, the myspace buddies, and most importantly Matt Danner and Eric Bauza for giving up their free nights to make the characters real.

I have more plans for Prophet Buddy. I'm going to begin production on Season 2 within the month. My month-long hiatus was nice, but my nights have become a bit boring without the buddies.

In this strip I wanted to make it anti-climatic since it was the Season Finale, which most television series' season finales have become... anti-climatic. This was my moment to put a little commentary in the strip expressing that there IS nothing good on TV anymore. In my opinion, TV is in a really bad state, I can't even watch it anymore. Mostly I watch dvds, and internet content because I can't stand the regurgitated reality shows, horrible sit-coms, and neverending marathons of poop. This is what prompted me to start Prophet Buddy in the first place.

Working at a major animation studio/network, it is really disheartning watching my talented collegues, with amazing television show ideas, pitch only to get shot down one after the other. Nobody knows what they want, so they'll tell you that they love your idea. A few months later, they'll say that even though they love it, they have to develop it into something completely different to compete with Spongebob or whatever. So you rework it for a few years till you get it to what they think they want. By that time Spongebob isn't popular anymore, so they'll scrap your show or they will make you rework it again (this usually will take another year). Then if you are lucky you will get to make a pilot. After the pilot is complete, with numerous revisions, they will start testing the pilot with audiences. They will tell you that it tested better than anything they've ever tested before, so you think the series is a go. A few months later your friend will send you an instant message telling you that he is sorry to hear that your show isn't going to be picked up. You are usually the last to hear the bad news. 2-4 years has been wasted, your property is shelved and you return to your cubicle with your tail between your legs. And during all this time you are dealing with a lawyer or an agent trying to get a somewhat decent paycheck out of the deal. In the end, they'll pick up a show about some popular band from 20 years ago, like Duran Duran. And the public never sees your pilot.

So yeah... I thought I'd be better off going ahead and making Prophet Buddy without a studio's involvement, and what takes a studio development department 4 years to do, I did in 6 months with no hassels. Though, Prophet Buddy really wouldn't work for TV and isn't developed at all, someone is still watching it, and that's all I want. If we have the ability to make something and get it out there for everyone to see, what's the point of going through a network?

That's all for my rant, sorry about that. Thanks everyone for watching, now it's your turn to give me something to watch!

017 New Year Special

2008-01-03T19:19:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I hope everyone had a good one, the buddies and I sure did! That's why we're so late with this post and didn't follow up to the Happy Holiday post like I said we do. With the New Year Special, I let Eric and Matt ad lib most of their lines. I told Matt to say 'No' every way he could, and told Eric to make up a bunch of resolutions. Technically I should have given them writing credits too, but I dunno, I guess I'm an attention hog.

I dunno if anyone has noticed, but I'm very influenced by comedians of the early years of film. Especially The Marx Bros. and Charlie Chaplin; Harpo and Chaplin, I find are great references for expressions and movement. By the way, the line, "I want excitement, I wanna Ah cha cha cha" that the Cat says in the 'Told You So' strip was taken from Groucho Marx in the movie 'Monkey Business'.

In the New Year Special, I referenced W.C. Fields and the hat take that he often does. The Cat doesn't normally wear a hat, so I took this opportunity to throw it in there for good measure.

Be sure to watch next week, it's the SEASON FINALE!!!

016 Happy Holidays?

2007-12-23T22:22:00.000-08:00

This holiday strip was actually one of the first ones I wrote. It was originally suppose to end with the Mouse saying "I hope you kept the receipt" and the Cat getting sad. After I started writing more strips, I realized that this strip was way too short so I added the Cat throwing a trantrum and deciding to celebrate Hanukkah. That was the best I could come up with. I have to go wrap presents but maybe later in the week I'll post some more on this strip, because I like how I animated this one. Happy Holidays!

1 Star for PB!

2007-12-18T11:06:00.000-08:00

I've never seen anything on youtube with a 1 star rating. I'm blown away! I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of my wonderful fans, friends, and family for all of the support!

In 'The Future' the Cat has some pretty high goals, a 'public bus driver' and a 'fancy business tycoon'. My word of advice is to always aim low, it will turn that one star into a million! Also, some of you might think it's strange that the Cat and Mouse are old men with long beards in a year's time. My explanation is that animals age faster than humans, I don't even think mice live over a year.

014 Hypnotized

2007-12-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

Here's some behind the scenes from the 'Hypnotized' strip.

We record all of the dialogue in Matt's garage. Eric and Matt go through the storyboard and recite the lines and add a few of their own. There's only one microphone so the voices are recorded separate from each other. Eric and Matt make several takes for each line. I usually pick the ones that make us laugh. As you can see it's a good time recording the dialogue. I'm very lucky to have my buddies, Eric and Matt lend their voices and insight to this series. It wouldn't be half as good without them!

013 Don't Eat That

2007-12-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

This strip is based off of a true story. I should've listened.

Don't ask about the lips in the chew cycle, that's how I drew them in the storyboard. I usually stick really close to the poses I draw in the boards. Even though I already had a reusable chew cycle from the Harpies Outbreak strip, I still animated this new chew cycle, it's always nice to see something new everyonce in awhile. I've been told people appreciate that kind of stuff.

012 Told You So

2007-11-26T01:13:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite strip of the season. I dredded working on it from the start, knowing it would be a lot of work. It took me four nights after work to produce (the average strip takes about a night and a half).

"I want excitement, I wanna Ah cha cha cha!" What movie is this line from?

I'm not really a background artist, so for this strip i did a lot of referencing, well, not that much. I referenced "A Boy Named Charlie Brown." The painterly style and the colors are really awesome in this movie, something I haven't seen in anything recent. Also there are a lot of shots that are flat without any perspective or horizon, I find it very interesting since this movie was made in the early 60's.

011 That Turkey

2007-11-24T00:47:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, that turkey sure was good! Speaking of turkey, this is the second time we see Grandpa Turkey in the season. It was actually this episode that Grandpa Turkey's character was created, even though he had an appearance four episodes prior to this one. In the seventh strip I didn't have a character for the bartender, so I decided to throw Grandpa Turkey in there. But it was this episode he was originally introduced into the Prophet Buddy cast, you can't have Thanksgiving without Native Americans... makes perfect sense right?

Also, Matt Danner, voice of the Prophet Mouse attacked by paparazzi! I have to go hide now.

010 Kitty Cold & Tshirts

2007-11-16T15:32:00.000-08:00

So I've been getting a little lazy with the Prophet Bloggy, I apologize. I've been hard at work finishing up the season and trying to get some sleep. Kitty Cold sounds kinda like a fight I would have with my girlfriend, blaming her for something she couldn't prevent. Coincedentally my girlfriend wrote this episode, possibly she's trying to tell me something... Cover your eyes kiddies, this is the first episode we see the cat naked!

Tshirts are now available in the ColdHardFlash online store! To make sure everyone is aware, I've made a commercial. They'll make great stocking stuffers for the holidays and they'll boost your coolness factor up to level 10! Support FREE independent cartoons by giving us money! (That was a joke)

009 Hairballs!

2007-11-07T23:11:00.000-08:00

So this is what happens when I let someone else write an episode, completely random and nothing to do with prophecies. Actually in Bob's original story, the hairball beats up the cat and mouse. Something about a violent hairball doesn't sit right with me, so I changed it around a bit. Don't know what else to write about this strip, what do you want to know?

In other news, Prophet Buddy is on iTunes! Go to the iTunes Music Store and do a search for "Prophet Buddy" and subscribe to the podcast! Now you won't have to bother coming to the Prophet Buddy website because you can automatically receive the new strip every Monday when you launch your iTunes library.

Also I've made a Prophet Buddy page on Youtube.com, so you can now embed the strips on your myspace pages, blogs, or other peoples comments!

The first season is halfway through, 9 more episodes to go. Thanks for stopping by!

008 Candy-Corn-Dog

2007-10-31T11:22:00.000-07:00

If you were wondering who the cat is suppose to be for Halloween, he's Randy from one of my favorite movies "Loverboy" in his Señor Pizza uniform. If you've never seen Loverboy, I suggest you buy it NOW! Here's a few screen grabs to refresh your memory...

When you're trick or treating tonight, don't forget to ask for extra anchovies!

007 In For A Surprise

2007-10-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

Due to the negative response the Prophet Mouse has created from his wrong doings to the cat, he has released this official statement:

Cat, I'm sorry. But it wasn't my birthday. I now know it was wrong of me to not show up to the party you had made for me. I appreciate everything you have done for me and really feel awful. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. Please. - Prophet Mouse

The Cat has followed up with this statement:
Buddy, I forgive you. When is your birthday? - Randy Cat

Boy, that sure cleared the air!

I'm sure all of you are wondering, who is this fine looking Native American chap? The Native American is Cheif Grandpa Turkey. He's a character I created based off of my grandpa, Grandpa Turkey. Grandpa Turkey was half Cherokee and all man. A man with a big voice and a thick belt. He called me 'Pumpkin'. You will be seeing more of Grandpa Turkey in later episodes.

006 I Hear You Knocking

2007-10-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Knock Knock jokes never get old... neither do fart jokes. I had 2 seconds left over at the end of the strip before the melody ended and wasn't sure what to do with that extra time, so I threw in a fart sound effect and animated a poot. Have you ever been so mad that you squeezed out a pooty?

Thanks to everyone who participated in the myspace Prophet Buddy tshirt giveaway, your shirts are in the mail. The shirts will be available to everyone else in a week or so... stay tuned!

005 Nothing To Do

2007-10-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

I managed to make a strip about nothing. Nothing much to write about it either. Enjoy!

I'm going to record the rest of Season 1's dialogue with Danner and Bauza tonight. I'm also bringing along my video camera to capture some behind-the-scenes hijinks for you guys.

004 Harpies Outbreak

2007-09-30T23:54:00.000-07:00

This strip came from a Greek mythology story. In the story of Jason and the Argonauts, Zeus punished the blind prophet Phineas by putting him on an island with a whole feast as well as a couple of Harpies. Everytime Phineas approached the food, Harpies would attack him, snatching his food forcing poor Phineas to starve. Eventually Jason killed the Harpies and saved the day.

In this strip of Prophet Buddy, the mouse refers to the seagulls as harpies as they steal his half of the sandwich. The cat, bothered while eating his half, swats at those pesky birds and 'accidentally' hits his buddy, scaring the seagulls away. What a hero!

Speaking of something, the cat is wearing a 1984 Olympic watch. These watches were so cool, everyone I knew had one, or two, or three. I never had one, but have always wanted one. I tried finding the actual image of the watch online for reference but had no luck. It's amazing, in 1984 they were all over the place, now it's like they were erased from existance.

Thanks to everyone with the emails, comments, myspace bulletins... for all of the wonderful response. I'm glad you all like Prophet Buddy so far, it really means a lot to me. If you keep watching em, I'll keep making em! Also thanks to Jasminsaurus for maintaining the myspace page and spamming everyone. If you haven't already, add Prophet Buddy to your myspace friends and drop Jasminsaurus & the Prophet Buddies a line. T-Shirts are on the way!

003 Slight Chance Of Showers

2007-09-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

The weather has been really weird this Summer, in Los Angeles anyway. We've gone from 115 degree heat waves to flash floods in the same week. It's crazy! This strip is about that kind of craziness.

Here's the script:

Here's some of my favorite parts from this strip:

I love animating shrink takes!

This is the first strip that needed mouth poses for lipsync, I couldn't decide if I should make full mouth charts or limited anime style mouth charts. I ended up making both. Here's a frame by frame of "The" lipsynced:

It looks more like he's saying "LAAA". I dunno, some cats might actually look like they're saying "laaaa" when really saying "the". If you really wanted to get philosophic, cats can't really talk so it's all wrong.

I animated this strip while watching Limelight, I dunno what this has to do with anything, some people find these things interesting.

002 True Love

2007-09-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone for all of the great response, I was sure there were going to be some haters since the first strip IS pretty retarded. You all made it much easier for me to post the second strip. My test group says the strips get better and better, so if you liked the first one you'll like the rest.

The second strip is kind of about Chinese food and finding love. For me it's mostly about inconsistency. Part of my dayjob is to catch all of the inconsistencies between scenes and pose hook ups which can sometimes get ridiculous. This strip is my outlet where I allowed myself to not care about consistencies (you probably wouldn't have noticed if I didn't point them out).

Between the first and third shot the Chinese food goes missing.

Not an inconsistency, just some digital drybrush.

This expression doesn't hook up.

Notice how I didn't bother with lipsync, I'm lazy!

Thanks to Shawn for building the Prophet Buddy site for me, you should go check out his new site, it's pretty silly. Also, thanks to Aaron and Cold Hard Flash for the launch post.

The Origin

2007-08-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hi, welcome to the Prophet Buddy production blog or the Prophet Bloggy. I plan to use this blog to post production pics, tell stories about my processes in making Prophet Buddy, also to explain jokes that I would only find funny.

I thought it would be appropriate to start the blog explaining the origin of Prophet Buddy. A few months ago while sitting in a boring production meeting, I started making doodles as usual. I was thinking of Anna Chamber's stuffed animals at the time and was trying to draw something in a similar style. I drew a cat and a mouse sitting together on a wall. A wall because Charlie Brown and Linus always hang out at a wall, I figure that would be the best place for two good friends to hang out. Above the cat and mouse I drew them thinking about a corndog and a bottle of mustard. I love corndogs, and I love mustard even more.

During the meeting I was making a story up in my head about the cat and mouse communicating to each other telepathically using images, my story was called "You Bring the Corndog, I'll Bring the Mustard." That doodle sat on my desk for months, but I never really had any plans for it.

One day at work, I was giving back retakes to the animators. I had just finished giving back retakes to one guy, before I could call the next animator in to my office, that very animator I was going to call came in and asked for his retakes. I told him he was like a prophet or something, and then I called him my prophet buddy. Right as I said prophet buddy, I had looked down at the doodle sitting on my desk and it all clicked. That day I made a quick storyboard (now the pilot), keeping a similar corndog and mustard joke as in the original doodle. The storyboard was only four panels long so I figured I could animate the whole thing in an hour, so I began designing it in the computer.

When picking the colors of the characters, I wanted to make the cat and mouse an homage to Tom & Jerry, one of my favorite cartoons, so I used the same color scheme; blue cat and brown/orange mouse.

That night I had come up with a few more episodes and decided that I was finally ready to do my own stuff again; the first time since Warner Bros. bought Go! Go! Moba Boy and shelved it forever. I was really excited to just do something that makes me happy without the snags. I didn't want to develop and jump through hundreds of hoops for the next several years, only to get nothing out of it again.

The next day I purchased the domain and storyboarded more episodes. The episodes are all really short, basically one gag, that's why I refer to Prophet Buddy as a comic rather than a cartoon. People will probably expect more if I call it a cartoon, therefore I'll save myself the criticism, Prophet Buddy is an internet comic that happens to be animated.

Several days later I asked Eric Bauza if he could do the voices for the characters and he agreed. I didn't really know what I wanted them to sound like; I sent Bauza an image of the characters and told him to come up with something. Bauza had said that he's always wanted to use the Mike Fontanelli impression that he uses at all of his auditions but always gets rejected. I'm really easy to persuade, so the Fontanelli impression it was for the cat, which made Bauza excited. But who for the mouse would complement the Fontanelli voice? I was racking my brain over it. One night, I started thinking about when I was working at Spumco and seeing Fontanelli around thinking about his voice and his conversations with the people around the office, then I was thinking of who worked there that had a really unique and distinct voice... our boss, Kevin Kolde. The next day I told Bauza via instant messenger, his response was "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL." Thus, I had found the mouse's voice. The next week I got together with Bauza at Matt Danner's house to record the audio. Bauza suggested that Danner should do the voice for the mouse since he does a much better Kolde. Me + easily persuaded = Danner plays the mouse.

The night I began official animation production I heard noises outside of my house. The noises turned out to be a little brown mouse... was this a sign of good luck, or was my exterminator just not doing his job? It's probably neither, I have some dirty neighbors!

main title boards:

That's just a little tid bit of the origin, come back regularly for more behind the scenes of Prophet Buddy.