I’M BACK exploring the final frontier; comic strips. Here’s the next panel in the little story that I’m illustrating as part of the Drawing Words & Writing Pictures course.
My first attempt had the astronaut planting the flag but for him to do this with his right hand was awkward, if I wanted to keep the left to right action that runs through a western comic strip (it goes the opposite way in Japanese Manga comics).
Hopefully the implication is that he has just planted it himself, rather than discovered an existing flag on the moon he’s just landed on.
It’s tricky explaining a sequence of events in just one panel, but I can now move on to the end of the story. These last two panels show his return being greeted with much fanfare and his realisation that he’s landed on the wrong planet.
Sat-nav
The next part of the exercise is to add some extra panels and gags. The first thing that occurred to me was to cover the abrupt jump from moon to alien planet so here’s the lunar module heading back on its return journey.
How does the astronaut become lost in space? It’s got to be his sat-nav that’s faulty. Uttoxeter was the first town to mind when I thought of sat-nav, so Utopia sounded like a suitable name for an alien planet. Taunton and Titan might just work or Mars and Marsden . . .
No, it could only be Uttoxeter. That ‘x’ in the middle makes it sound suitably alien. Or wrong.
Just to tie things up I include a frame to show touch-down on the wrong planet.
Here’s the new, extended sequence;
Seeing all eight panels together really gives the impression that this is some kind of a story.
So my truncated new story could start with the sat-nav problem and end with meeting the aliens. Not very funny but at least it has a beginning a middle and an end. I have much to learn.
