Chesca Hause

Making of "Boy Fights"

Added 2019-06-13 15:35:13 +0000 UTC

An animated GIF showing each stage in making this comic.

My husband came up with this one when we were pealing the boys off the floor at GameStop. "Worldstar" is apparently a thing people shout when they start recording fights in the street. I'd never heard of it before, but he showed me a bunch of YouTube videos and we asked some friends if it was funny. Those that did get the reference found it VERY funny, and I figured I could visually sell the joke to those that didn't (like me!) :)

Drawing my characters in close quarters is always a challenge due to their big heads. I started out with the kids laughing as they usually do while fighting, but decided having them really angry would be funnier. I'm always a bit nervous about stuff like this because there's a fine line between funny and upsetting. I tried to balance the fight by having it seem like the kid started it by stealing the toy. but the baby has the upper hand in the next panel.

I made the toy a cross between a cat toy and one of those baby Lamaze toys that are so popular.

The dad's final expression was my husband's doing -he wanted him to look more obnoxious. Once he nailed it we both fell about laughing! :)

I messed with the mom's expression and pose quite a bit too. I wanted to make her look exasperated, but not so pissed off that she seemed like a kill-joy -as can often happen with mom characters.

The bonus panel was originally much stronger worded. It was arguably funnier this way, but the swearing made me uncomfortable. I tried censoring it, but that just made it awkward to read, so I softened the language instead. Here's the original: