Recurring characters

The further I get into the process of drawing QlownTown, the harder it gets to change anything. I like never having to draw the same clown twice, and after almost a year, I hesitate to change that. But I've heard from a number of people that I should have recurring characters so people can identify with them. Now, I don't know that identifying with a clown is necessarily a good idea, but I see their point. It's funny to see Garfield or Monty or Snoopy in part because their reactions to a situation are recognizable as their own. So I'm going to try to pick some characters from the last ten months and see who I might want to learn how to draw more than once.

The idea to start on this project now was inspired by today's cartoon. When I drew the woman on the right, I thought, "She's a keeper". If I were a single clown, I'd probably want to go out with her. There's a freedom in the pencil sketch that can be hard to maintain in the inking process, but she looks silly enough to maintain her appeal no matter how stiffly I hold the pen. And, since I don't always put the characters in purely circus-style clothes, they have to maintain their "clown-ness" through their features.

There's another character I'd like to recycle, and I have used him several times, but I never seem to get the look the same as the first time I drew him. He even has a name---Mr. Binkles---and is on the most popular image in the QlownTown store. People have ordered him on T shirts, aprons, and even a clock. I also drew him in one of my favorite cartoons, one which never seems to amuse anyone else as much as it amuses me: the ducks in a row strip. I have it on a couple of shirts, but whenever someone sees it, they read it, smile wanly, and say "cool" or something else equally noncommittal--so those are becoming my new painting shirts. Anyway, I see that he looks the same in those two cartoons, so maybe I'll stick with him. I like the hat, the tie, the tux, and the fact that his nose is about the same size as his hat. And the wingtips he wears are a nice homage to the band I used to play in, The Wingtips. (Actually, his nose might be an homage to mine.)

But I now have about 300 cartoons with new clowns in almost every one. I have to look through months of them to see who grabs my eye as a possible regular. So if you, gentle reader, have any favorites, please let me know. You can reply below this post, or email me at dsmith-weiss@qlowntown.com. I, in the meantime, will look over old cartoons and see who looks promising.

Once the characters are picked, I may run a contest to name them. Of course, if no one suggests a good name, I'll retain the right to come up with my own...but my hope is that my readers are more creative than I, or at least have knowledge of more interesting names...although something simple like Bob the Clown or Dave the Clown appeals to me too. But I'm getting ahead of myself--I need to find out who these clowns are. In the words of the man/insect at the end of The Fly: help me!