Here's where we left off before I high-tailed it to the Big Windy:
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
Seriously, fuck that guy.
And that dragon looks like a gay turd.
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
This was a pretty big disappointment for me. I mean, when you pull in the numbers we do, you figure not a lot of people are going to do something like this. But, no one? And, c'mon, this is easy and fun, right?
ugh we gotta start making sure people other than our friends read phil
Monday, Ocrober 26th, 2009
In trying to keep with a regular update schedule, I realized much too late that it was Sunday night, and there was no way I could get a new strip up, I had no means to scan, no way to get in touch with Ben, and I needed SOMETHING before Monday morning. I exhausted all of my MSPaint skills, and, here we are!
Ugh this one is awful. What a pathetic reminder of our own shortcomings.
Okay. That concludes the big downer post. I'll post soon with some positive thoughts.
...yeeahhhh right.
-steve
screw you, tom haggerty.
This puts a premature end to our month of guest artists.
What happened? Why did this venture not get seen to the very end?
Well, certainly not because of the lack of talent from our guest artists. Blogger and rising star Sean Rose, animator and gentleman Matt Czap, and animator and comedy-man Mike Antonucci all brought something wonderful to the table. Let us never forget their unique contributions to our modest strip.
No, the fault lays with Ben and I. We thought we could get away with a silly, month-long story, week-to-week, with a different guest at each dramatic turn. The results were a bit jarring, and certainly incomprehensible, and even as a writer, I couldn't truly follow it the way it appeared in our heads and in our scripts. From words to comics, it just didn't flow. We tried an experiment, and it didn't work out. OH WELL.
The alternative was a month of no updates all-together, while I rest rest rested. So, I'd rather a colorful, well-constructed mess than the black void of NOTHING.
PHIL will return to a MWF update schedule. A new story begins in a week! Until then, enjoy World Famous Phil Games!
-steve
Things I have been doing in my two weeks off from Phil work:
-Not doing comics
-Feeling guilty about not doing comics
-Started reading Jack Staff comic books
-Continued reading Tintin comic books
-Felt inspired to draw some comics
-Worked on some Tom Petty Comics
-Worked on some Phil's Adventures
-Watched Jeremy Brett play Sherlock Holmes better than Robert Downey Jr. will
Hopefully, by the end of my break, I'll have more to show of it than a little list with silly links.
As for the guest strips, check them out at HaveYourPhil.Com. Perhaps I will say a few words about them all in upcoming posts. But for now, Jeremy Brett awaits.
Have a great day,
Love,
Steve
I don't know why, but I get much pleasure from drawing the Male/Female symbols whenever gender and/or love is discussed.
Remember when Dan Emmons and Lydia were adorable kissing each other on the cheek, whispering secrets, and being kids in young, summer love? Well. Ben and I can only be cute for so long. Dan, too, has made Lydia. A real American.
With a broken heart and a summer at camp behind him, Phil prepares to return to his normal life. So too does Chief. Drawing him as a hybrid bird-man worked surprisingly well for the last panel. Something about Phil-noses make a beak seem...somehow expected. Maybe when Phil returns, everyone will be strange bird-people for a while.
I am hard pressed to find a Phil strip I had more fun drawing than this one.
Our hero returns home, and our story ends, as all good things, with a rhyme. And, well. That's that. We're all caught up now.
Thank God this horrible blog is updated.
Love,
Steve
8:45PM EST
Phil talking to himself with a rotting, dead body in front of him is something I enjoy reading. I hope you do, too.
I was talking to cartoon-man John Keogh about some Phil ideas once; he wanted there to be many hugs all around. While we never had Phil giving any hugs, the idea of long, stringy arms coming out of nowhere was one I hung on to for a while. And when Ben asked me to "have Phil put on Indian War paint," it was the opportunity I always dreamed of to use that horrible, horrible idea.
This next strip, I don't know. I think the art says it all.
I think I watched a whole afternoon of a 'No Reservations' marathon on the Travel Channel putting this one together.
Also to note: when Phil first went to camp, he said to the Nurse, "I'll become a Big, Burly Man at Camp Indian." Well, compared to what Phil looked like BEFORE camp started, it seems like that promise has been kept.
Okay. I'm getting something to eat. I'll try to finish this massive, annoying update when I get back.
Love!
Steve!
8:00 PM
Anyway, with only a few weeks left to wrap up our story, Bruce became something we had needed since the beginning of our Camp tale: bait for the legendary BLOODSLURPER.
I think I got a little ambitious with the mosquito's trail, there.
Phil has had it's share of monsters, and they usually come from some kind of horrible transformation. Most of the time they are giant, disgusting things. So, for the Bloodslurper, the legendary monster at Camp Indian, we wanted to change it up. Instead of popping from someones' split head, it would grow, from bug sized, to monster sized, as it slurped blood.
Working at camp all those years introduced me to some truly spooky characters. Monsters leapt from treetop to treetop, burrowed under campers' feet, hid in the pond, waiting to grab unsuspecting boaters. They were sanitized for younger campers, but the idea of horrible monsters always had that weird, dark edge to it. Ben and I took it to the obvious, logical end.
My intention with the Slurper was to draw something that didn't fit at all with the Phil style. I've also been reading a lot of Mike Mignola's HELLBOY paperbacks, which always feature some selections from his sketchbook. The slurper is a sort of patchwork re-imagining of some of Mignola's demons and monsters, mixed with the necessary slurping beak.
And, of course, Springsteen goes out smilin'.
MOORE COMING YOUR WAY!
love,
steve
7:52 PM
CUTE CUTE CUTE
CUTEST THING EVER. It's also fun to play with expressions on characters who otherwise just stare at each other with their mouth's agape.
Again, I was really happy to not have Dan simply mount Lydia from behind and do her raw. Having him kiss her nervously on the cheek, I think, is much funnier. At least, for now. As for the 2025 date on the signature. Well. When has Phil ever been about continuity?
MORE SMOOCHES COMIN!
Steve
7:22 PM EST
If you're wondering, yes, I named this whole thing 'Catch Up Madness' just so I could call this update, 'Catch Up Madness: Ketchup Madness.'
This to me, like last week, is classic Phil. Silly words, silly phrases. Lydia, at this point, is tough as nails. Is she a good role model for women? Maybe, with some distance, we will know the answer.
WELL LOOK AT THIS , if it isn't a setup for some exciting and hilarious action, comin up.
Ben's script for this one was something like, "Okay and there's a gross ketchup eating contest, okay i gotta go, seeya." The 7th Panel Phil has one of my favorite expressions I've seen yet in the strip, and the rest of it was just an exercise in making disgusting faces. And, Phil's last face was inspired very directly from
Batman's tragic villain CLAYFACE from the animated series. To me, he is the epitome of disgusting faces. I also may have watched an episode of Batman where he was featured right before this strip.
Well! We're almost ketchuped! Only a few more to go!
See you soon,
Love,
Steve
7:12 PM EST
"I'm gonna get fucked, and then I'm gonna fuck" should be tattooed somewhere on my body.
Ben relished the opportunity to write the counselor's dialogue for this strip. I don't blame him. It is quite lovely.
Zip zip zip, we're gettin' it dunn
More on the way,
Love,
Steve
6:34 PM EST
You see, in England, there is no Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts: there is only Scouts. So when an English troop spent a week at the Boy Scouts of America's Camp Yawgoog, the few girls they brought with them were constantly harassed by a whole camp's worth of 13-17 year old boys who hadn't seen a girl in weeks. I personally was neither excited, like Dan Emmons, or insulted, like Phil; I think I felt sorry for the poor British girls, and their gentleman counterparts, who spent the better part of the week defending their honor.
Yes I won't lie this is one of my favorites ever.
This strip is a direct response to Ben and I's realization that Phil, as a strip, seems to despise women. It also features the British spelling of 'Biscuits', and is not a misspelling of mine, AT ALL.
Oh we're just cookin' tonight. More to come.
Love,
Steve
6:27 PM EST
Something about old video games is funny to me. This is something I probably gained an appreciation for because of Tim and Eric. And, we had the good sense to throw in 'Bloodslurper', just so you wouldn't forget the monster existed.
I have been messing around with my lettering lately. Sometimes this works for comedic effect. Sometimes it doesn't. I think it didn't in this one, but I will certainly be thrilled if you think otherwise.
More to come! Soon, too!
Love,
Steve
6:15 PM
Ben and I realized that, until this point in the strip, every woman who has been portrayed in Phil has been a horrible, horrible stereotype. Someday, I'd like to see a Feminist reading of Phil; Mindy alone is worthy of a graduate thesis. But when we decided to base our characters on people we had met and worked with at camp, the possibility of a tough, real woman became a reality. The nurse here is very closely based (albeit exaggerated, obviously) on the nurse Ben and I often would visit. In a sea of bright-faced 16 year old camp staff, a tell-it-like-it-is nurse made a big impression on us.
(this does not get us off the hook for the whole horrible portrayal of women)
And, at this point, Livejournal is being very silly and not allowing me to post pictures. Let's see if I can fix that in another post!
Love,
Steve
5:53 PM
As noted elsewhere in the blog, both Ben and I spent several summers working at a summer camp. I also went to a Boy Scout camp for a few summers as a young man. The experiences and memories Ben and I have from our years at camp largely populated this story.
All of the people in this strip, and in the coming week, are based on real people we have encountered. It was very important to us to have these be real campers and real staff; not the campers and staff you see on TV, in the movies, or in erotic films.
Bruce Springsteen is in this strip, because I love Bruce Springsteen. How could you not? Ben and I hadn't really planned much with Bruce, and it didn't really matter to me whether or not we actually used him. But, oh, it turned out we had such plans for him.
I thought it'd be really funny to reveal, after a week of people seemingly just standing around, that they were actually on a bus. The comedic effect of this reveal has yet to be examined. Also: the bus driver is not an unfamiliar face to Phil fans. His last two appearances were not in the best of circumstances, and by adding him into this storyline, we wanted to leave the door open for even more deep-soul judgments.
Love,
Steve
5:40 PM
I haven't updated this in 14 weeks.
Well, that changes now.
Here is where we left off: On June 19th, 2009, this comic was posted on HaveYourPhil.Com:
While the idea of Phil's Mom doing horribly disgusting things to men was my idea, I believe it was Ben's idea to have her "go all the way" with a young boy of Phil's age. And when we scoured our cast of characters to find a suitable Scout to have sex with Phil's Mom, the obvious answer to both Ben and myself was none other than contest winner and Phil superphan Dan Emmons.
As for the Happy Days music, the theme had been stuck in my head for a few days, thanks in part to Conan O'Brien going to a bizzare warehouse of wax figures of celebrities and picking up a creepy Fonzie. I think this was a wonderful instance where something buzzing around in my head fit right where there was a missing piece in our script.
This is also not the first, or the last time we'll see sweet body lovin' in Phil.
Love,
Steve
5:15 PM
Nothing screams promiscuous like making out with a sailor. And, fortunately, we just added a sailor to our cast only a few short weeks ago!
This week was primarily my idea; I felt that we needed to see the extent of the depravity of Phil's Mom. And considering that Phil's about to ship off for a two month, Mom-free summer at Camp Indian, why not go out with some sexual fireworks?
I also want to note, it's been 12 Weeks, three whole months, since we've last seen Franklin Pierce. That must be some kind of record? I wonder how Phil's dad is doing, locked away with such angry men.
Have a good Wednesday!
STEVE IS BACK BABY.
If you're curious as to where I was, I found myself this past weekend venturing forth from my home state of Friendly Connecticut, and into the heart of our neighbor to the north, Scenic New Hampshire. I stayed in a lovely little place called The Whitman Cabin:
Pictured, actually, are regular Phriend Sean Rose, myself pointing in the distance, and FAMOUS BEN VIGEANT with his back towards the camera (this picture is a year old so it explains why Ben continued to post in this blog while I was gone). I miss it very much and if you're not jealous you should be, even just a bit.
This next week of Phil was basically my idea. So let's see how it unfolds and comment on it more later, shall we??
-steve
If you're someone who has ever worked or gone to a camp, and when I say a camp, I mean I real camp, I hope this week was pretty good for you. This week was pretty highly informed from Steve and I's experiences in various camps, so I tried to hit all of the big camp thingies. In a way its sort of twisted how actual camps have that whole fake indian thing with the pidgin languages, the goofy headdresses, and so on. In another way, that's just the way that camps are. A day or sleepover camp that doesn't have some sort of fake indian theme, wacky rituals, and then some sort of terrifying camp legend isn't a camp.
A small art note: unlike many of our recent Fridays, this was not art heavy at all. After how long it took to get last Friday's up, it was time for a break.
As I said yesterday, I (Ben) wrote most of this week. Next week is almost entirely a Stephen written effort. Enjoy the subtle shades of difference in our work.
Anyway, so this week is the start of PART TWO of our exciting cub scout adventure. Much like with the election leading into the more strange presidency, this scout stuff is leading into a weirder time at camp.
This comic idea is one of the very first I came up with when we decided to introduce the chief and do this whole camp thing. FUN FAX: This whole cub scout thing (I don't remember if this is elsewhere in the blog but STEVE probably didn't say it) came from an idea we had for a week long theme back when we just wrote week by week. We had a whole list of week ideas for last summer and then Mindy consumed it. For some reason it really stuck with me. The basic week idea was "Phil is a cub scout obsessed with getting merit badges". Instead of doing it over one week, we did it over two months.
If Steve was writing these blog entries he'd probably bitch to you about the headdress being too damn big. Its required though-- look how goofy it is.
Not too much to say about this comic. I think its pretty funny.
TOMMOROW THERE IS A NEW COMIC.
STAY TUNED.
Too often, you'll see me say, "OH NO IT'S BEEN LATE BUT don't worry IT'LL BE ON TRACK TOMORROW I SWEAR", and then. Well. It's been a week since I updated this blog so there you go.
This full color spread is the capstone to a full week of Family Circus parodies. It was drawn on a huge bristol board, 14x17 inches, and it's late because it was an absolute bear to scan in.
WHICH BRINGS ME TO THIS IMPORTANT BLOG BULLETIN
Phil has always been a pretty important collaboration between Ben and I. Ben and I write it together, with Ben acting as an editor to our ideas and our scripts. I draw it, taking cues from both my own imagination and, sometimes Ben's detailed notes. And for a long time, this has been the extent of Phil's reach. Just the two of us had to deal with this monster.
But then I graduated college. I left a lot behind when I walked away from those hallowed halls. All nighters, crappy food, my own apartment. I also left behind access to a nice, new scanner which I used, free of charge. For almost two years, this was the vehicle of choice to get Phil from physical being to digital entity. As a college grad, I only had a crappy scanner and a missing power cord. It seemed like Phil could've hit a huge snag in the recent past.
I want to take this time to acknowledge and thank Sean Rose, a name you've all seen mentioned on this blog a million times. If it wasn't for him stepping in and scanning all of these Phils, there's a good chance the website would've gone stagnant, left unupdated and unread. He is taking the time to scan these things, touch them up in Photoshop, resize 'em, and send them out to us. It's a huge overlooked process of this whole webcomic thing, and he's been doing it, unsung, for almost four months.
Phil used to be a monster between Ben and I. But right now, there's no denying that Sean is part of this whole gremlin of a collaboration.
Sean Rose: Phil thanks you! And so do I.
(Sean Rose on the right, me on the left. We are good phriends)
Sean Rose has a wonderful, wonderful blog here. Visit it. I cannot stress this enough.
New Phil tomorrow! See you then!
-Steve
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