Making of "Alpha"

Putting a live-in grandparent in the dog family opened the door to some new dynamics.  My kids were into Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends at the time and it made me think Bunny's mom could be a cute lil old lady like Madame Foster.  J suggested I could get more content if she was difficult, like Louis' mom from Malcom in the Middle.  Meeting somewhere in the middle produced Baba -a tough old broad from the old country, but with a cheeky sense of humor!

J had me rolling with the idea that Baba could be invested in teaching the grandkids the "proper" dog traditions.  I've had her like this in my mind from the start, but realized I hadn't actually shared it with you guys yet!  This was the motivation for this months comic.

The back and forth of their conversation was long, but it didn't really matter because it was close up reaction shots which are pretty fast (and fun!) to do.  Baba is from an unspecified "old country", so she has a bit of an eastern European type accent.  Long story short, I read The Witches to my kid and the way he wrote the Head Witch's lines amused me.

To gradually increase the drama, I had the "camera" slowly zoom in:

Doing the special effects on the 2nd page was fun!  I used increasingly heavy, uplit shadows and added an anime-esk shine to her glasses for good measure.  The more dramatic this page could be, the funnier the reveal that it was all over some ridiculous pink slippers.

With the final panel I sketched out a very silly face for the boy pug.  I worried I'd gone too off model, but J gave it a thumbs up:

Although the boy pug has been in quite a few comics, he'd never needed a name until now.  I thought "Kurt" suited him for some reason, but wasn't sure if it would suit his dad better.  I asked J for his opinion and he went quiet, thinking ...then said "Beans."  I laughed a lot and said that I couldn't call him BEANS!  Then I laughed some more.  J smiled and said "Well it made you laugh!"  I kept laughing and I'm chuckling a bit writing this!  -And that is how he was officially named Beans! :)