So, I’ve been away from the webcomic world for a couple of years. It’s funny how life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of some endeavors, while paving the way for others. Who knew that what started off as an offshoot of my cartoons would end up more-or-less eclipsing it?

Mayberry and Steve, circa 1994.

The first Melonpool puppets were built in 1994 by my Granny based on my designs for a short student film based on the Melonpool comic that was running in my college newspaper. Crude as they were, I marveled at how my friends and I were able to finally breathe life into the characters that had existed only as two-dimensional drawings. As a result, the way I wrote the characters improved, based in a large part to the personalities that my friends Erik Przytulski, Chris Gleason and Roger Przytulski imbued into Ralph, Sammy and Sam during the filming of the student film.

Flash forward a few more years: I had a comic book out (finally collected in Melonpool Chronicles: Revisited) and started exhibiting at San Diego Comic-Con. The puppets were revisied, and the Melonpool puppets became staples of the con, still puppeteered by Erik, Chris, Roger and myself. Each year, the puppets would be rebuilt as necessary, and we’d add more puppeteers into the fold to complete the cast. The puppets amassed enough of a following that my wife Sarah and I were able to start producing short puppet videos for Kevin Smith’s Quickstop Entertainment. This, in turn lead to an internship at Puppetown Productions, where after 10+ years of building puppets, I finally learned how to professionally build puppets!

This pretty much brings us to present day. After about five years of being lazy, I’ve started writing again, and have managed to cobble together a script for a new Melonpool puppet film. As I undertake this endeavor, I thought it’d be fun to start updating this site again, with designs and behind-the-scenes hijinx. Look for videos and other goodies, too — I might even resurrect the comic from time to time, so be sure to re-subscribe to the RSS feed, if you haven’t already!

Oh yeah, and there’s about 2000 comics in the archives that make an interesting read between posts. The originals make a great gift!

Over the last few years, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a little freelance gig designing puppets for BJ Guyer over at Puppetown Productions. It seems, that as a cartoonist that can build puppets, I’ve fallen into a cottage industry without even realizing it. I guess a lot of artists don’t know how to draw characters that have large enough necks for puppeteer’s to get their hands through.

Last year, I penciled about 50 different puppet concepts for some television commercials. The company that was making the commercials chose three of my designs! If you’re in the Bay area, you may have seen some puppets in commercials for Grocery Outlet Discount Markets last year. Well, guess who designed those puppets? Me!

Recently, I found the first batch of commercials on YouTube. They’re filming a second batch right now, so I’ll keep an eye out for the new ones.  I designed all of the puppets featured in the commercials except for the green guy with thew glasses. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the sketches that lead to the final commercials. Enjoy!

More tomorrow!

Here’s another of the sketches that lead to the following commercial for Grocery Outlet. This drawing was the inspiration for the guy that pops up throughout the commercial yelling “Guaranteed!”

More tomorrow!

Here’s another of the sketches that lead to the following commercial for Grocery Outlet. The puppet had to either have a blue oval head or a purple oval-shaped head and the song dictated that she be a country-western singer. Below is the approved sketch, but when they built the final puppet, they switched it to the other puppet blank.

Last one tomorrow!

Here’s another of the sketches that lead to the following commercial for Grocery Outlet. This is the last concept that was approved for the first batch of commercials. I like how the puppet builders took the basic design and tweaked it, making it an amalgam of our two styles. I know that the clients were happy with the results because this year they ordered up three more designs. I can’t wait to see how they turn out!

Well, the time has finally come to reveal what the “super secret freelance project” that took me away from working on the puppet film was! I was contracted to be the Puppet Designer for the new Nike commercials that are currently running on ESPN and other stations!

More will be coming — I designed something like 20 different puppets for seven different spots which will trickle out over the Basketball season. It was a lot of fun and totally worth using up all my DIRECTV vacation time to take part in it. It really got me thinking about drawing again (I was averaging about 108 sketches a day), so I may start getting my portfolio together.

I guess I’ve finally discovered my niche: a cartoonist that can draw puppets.

In the following commercial, I came up with the look for all of the puppets except Kobe, LeBron and Lil Dez (which were designed for last year’s campaign). As soon as the campaign is over, I should be able to post some of the sketches that lead to the final designs. Enjoy!

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I just checked the Nike site and saw that the second of the spots I designed puppets for seems to be airing! I haven’t actually seen any of these on TV yet — but then again, I don’t watch basketball — but I assume they’ll be airing throughout the season.

Exciting stuff! Enjoy!

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So, I’ve been waiting until I could get direct links to the Nike site but apparently, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Thank goodness for Youtube!

and

There is a third one up on the Nike site itself (as well as cool bios and other goodies). I cannot tell you how cool it is to see things that I designed on paper built and performed as part of a major advertising campaign. I also did some work on the Melonpool film that will be up here shortly.

Stay tuned!

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I made a lot more progress on the set for the new film this weekend and thought I’d share a bit with the rest of you!

After we filmed this little bit, I realized that Sam’s yoke was a little too tall, so I shortened it. It works a lot better now, but we ran out of light before I could take some more video. Those of you in Southern California (or those of you that watch the Weather Channel) will know that we were hit with a lot of rain this weekend, so I wasn’t able to do much more on the set after Saturday. The good news is, that in addition to this console, I also have a wall that’s almost ready to do some tests on, so maybe I can post something of that soon.

Have I mentioned how incredibly cool it is to see this stuff in real life? Enjoy!

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