Cousin Harold

People always ask creators where do their stories come from. I have been thinking about doing a series of blog posts about where my Harold stories come from and how I flesh them out. So here is a quicky about this current storyline – Don’t Ask.

Originally the idea for Don’t Ask came to me while I was downtown one morning to get some official paperwork straighten out with the city. I remember walking from my car to the building and noticed my shadow, which I had not paid any attention to for a while. I waved at my shadow for some reason and then made a couple of shadow puppets and went on my way.

After the paperwork was completed I headed back to my car and was looking forward to seeing my shadow again on my walk. Not sure why it had brought me joy earlier that morning, but I was looking forward to it again. On this walk though the sun was almost directly over head and so there was no shadow on the walls to look at, just below my feet.

On the car ride home I thought that that would made a fun little Harold story where he ran into his shadow, but I needed something more. I couldn’t just have him make shadow puppets and then end the story. Then the idea hit me that his shadow would assualt him and beat him senseless on his walk into work. The rest was just filling the 8 pages that my Free Comic Book Day edition is usually with so story, 5 being comic pages and 3 activities pages. (The shadow matching activity really did not play a part in the story so it was not posted here.)

So comic ideas can come from anywhere you just have to pay attention the the world around you and the ideas that it is sending you.

-denny