Making of "Worlds Collide"

Get comfortable, because this is a long one!  

Pet_Foolery has done collabs with Stuffed and Vixiearts before, where they took turns doing panels.  I really wanted to make this part of the joke; like our 2 comics are in parallel dimensions and we're shifting between them.  Above was my first attempt, where they'd keep switching between anthro and animal.  Honestly I mainly just wanted to see my characters as pets in his world! 😁

Attempt number 2, trying to get more interactions and jokes:

I liked aspects of this, but something still wasn't sitting right, so I asked J to have a go.  He wrote me a script and I paneled it out:

I sent this one over to Ben, but he wasn't that keen.  I didn't help that the panels ended up out of order when he read it... plus it was 2 comics long!

Getting a bit frustrated by my failed attempts, I took a break and designed how P&B might look in the Litterverse:

I thought that maybe I was biting off more than I could chew by having ALL the characters in one comic.  Maybe it would be better if I just made a Pixie & Brutus comic with the anthro/animal switching joke?

It was perhaps a bit "much", but Ben had made a similar joke before and it made me laugh, so I thought it might be OK!  It was at this point though that I posted the character designs and everyone started clamoring for the characters to meet, so this wasn't really going to cut it anymore -which is probably for the best! 😅

Luckily for me, Ben came to the rescue with his own script!

I'd lost my beloved dimension shifting angle, but it was MUCH easier punching up his script than writing my own!  This is what I sent back to him:

BONUS:

He made a couple of little changes, but we had it!

I find designing clothes a struggle, so I hadn't thought beyond just extending Pixie's little bandana down to be a dress.  Some people had pointed out she seemed more of a dungarees type of gal and I was inclined to agree!  I let Ben know and he sent me these updated designs:

From there it was pretty easy.  I took the odd numbers so I'd fall naturally on the bonus panel.  It also seemed right that he should take the 1st proper look at Brutus, because his was bound to look way more scary than mine!  

I usually shy away from collabs because I hate imposing on other people and it can get awkward finding common ground, but after my initial false starts, I really enjoyed working with Ben and I'm proud of how it came out!  I'm happy to see so many other people enjoying it too! 🥰