Severin's Sketch Blog

Wotta Dump

2011-08-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

Huge load of life drawing. You know, because jobs.

These are all from Karl Gnass' life drawing class, which he holds through the Animation Art Institute in Burbank. He is an incredible instructor and a funny guy. For the first time I feel like I am able to get appealing drawings from live models, after years of struggling (though the struggling still hasn't stopped).

Update

2011-04-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the better drawings I've done in the past few months:

Self Portrait

2010-11-19T02:55:00.000-08:00

This is why I draw so slow. For every two minutes I spend drawing I waste ten minutes sitting and thinking. It's ridiculous because I don't even draw moody comics. Am I wasting a valuable asset? Should I harness my brooding for better art? My next comic will have some emotional depth to it, but it will be upbeat overall. Some time down the road I must test my mighty emo powers.

Cassandra broods a lot, too, but she can draw and brood at the same time.

Cloud Construction

2010-11-03T18:14:00.000-07:00

The latest strip I did over at Little Reading featured a huge swath of clouds that cut through the whole comic. While drawing the clouds, I tried to follow the construction hierarchy method that John Kricfalusi often discusses on his blog.

First I laid out the space on the page I wanted to be taken up by the clouds. Here my goal was to use the clouds to lead the eye across the strip, while being dynamic and pleasing. On the right side I'd already begun the next phase, when I decided it might be nice to scan and post my progress on this comic.

The next step was to lay down the lines that would give the clouds shape and construction. I tried to keep the look and flow looking natural. My thoughts were of a "vortex of clouds," and so i made the clouds swirl around like a funnel.

The final step was to draw in the minor details that would give the clouds character, make them read as clouds. I also experimented with some stylistic swirls. While drawing, I worked from the left side of the strip to the right, and I feel that towards the right side I was drawing the clouds a little more confidently. The left side would have benefited from being reworked, but, well... with comics I try to keep moving forward, get it done, move onto the next.

This final drawing is the comic as it looked just before I inked. I tried to work some monsters into the background. The whole comic at this point has been fairly abstract in the background details: Holly is boxing with a vampire, Tenenbaum, and gradually the environment has become more and more monster-themed. In this comic the action has been brought up to a climax, and the monsters have come out in full force to add to the excitement.

And that's how I do it! You can find the final product here. I've learned a lot while drawing this story, which you can see by comparing today's comic to the first strip. Certain elements of cartooning can only be learned if you strap yourself to a single project for a length of time. Working on a project, limiting yourself in scope, is a good way to pick up those skills that can only be gained through rigorous practice. I hope you found this post useful!

Mustache

2010-08-31T01:23:00.001-07:00

Either I don't know the tricks for exporting video from Flash or Flash is just awful at it. How do other people handle this program?

Tezuka Practice Number One

2010-08-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

This is my copy of page 59 from the Astro Boy story "Robot Land." I tried to mimic everything as best I could, though I was a little slipshod on the lettering. The scene here is Astro punching a dragon robot to pieces, then facing off against Lord Satan and his Supernipples (which sometimes shoot lightning and sometimes shoot laser beams). The point of this exercise was to see not only how Tezuka drew but to maybe come to understand how he drew so fast. As anyone familiar with his work knows, he was incredibly prolific over his lifetime, producing 150,000 pages of comics while also juggling the needs of his animation studio.

Manga artists from the 40's, 50's, and 60's survived by drawing fast and printing cheap, a philosophy that seems lost in most mainstream American comics today. Just because a comic is drawn quickly does not mean it can't be lively and entertaining, which I tried to preserve in the copy above. Actually, that copy took me all day to draw, but that's because I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the inking techniques Tezuka used. A lot of tinkering was needed for me to finish the page.

I don't feel comfortable scanning and posting a page from a licensed comic without permission, but I highly advise anyone interested in fun, funny, and adventurous comics to go hunt down the original. (I got my copy from Amazon for less than $2) The print that I have is Dark Horses' collected Astro Boy volume #4.

Nosferatu Sketches

2010-08-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

Nosferatu looked pretty harmless at first, with his silly hat and his weak old man demeanor.

That didn't last long, though. After spending some time on the gorgeous veranda below, Jonathon (sic) went back to the castle to see the terrifying Nosferatu below. He just stood there, still as a corpse, and then walked forward with a stiff, shuffling gate. It's a walk mimicked so often in pop culture, but this first Monster Walk was by far the best.

Sorry for the small size of the drawings below. They're larger if you click on the image. This is the middle part of the movie, where Jonathon is confronting the vampire and Nina, through some mystic psychic connection, tries to go to Jonathon in her sleep. Every shot looked like a painting. Unfortunately, the youtube copy of Nosferatu I was watching had a kind of farty-sounding oboe providing the soundtrack for this part, which damaged the intense emotional pitch the visuals were creating.

Renfield's keeper had the best handlebar mustache. The best! My drawing does not approach its majesty.

Below is the first mate from the doomed ship that carried Nosferatu, and below that are some drawings of Renfield. The drawings of the first mate are a good before-and-after of when he tried to confront the vampire. This part of the film has the famous shot of Nosferatu rising through some unseen magic from his coffin. After that, we get to see Renfield behaving like a lunatic, which is always the best part of any Dracula film.

Below are the captain and first mate of the doomed ship. The captain had some crazy captain whiskers, and looked like he could sail a ship through solid rock if he needed to.

Nina (normally called Mina) had very manly features, but was nonetheless alluring. I'm not sure why this beach was covered in crosses. Could they be graves? Wouldn't the graves be uncovered by wind and water? Anyone have a good explanation? Anyways, it looked amazing.

More Nosferatu, as well as Tenenbaum. The purpose behind watching the film was to provide inspiration for the next leg of the Tenenbaum storyline, which I will try to continue tomorrow.

TMH

2010-06-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

Drew a caricature of Kris Straub during last night's live cast of Tweet Me Harder.

I started working on a Malki, but the show ended before I finished. If I remember to, I'll draw David when the video is posted later. For now the drawing of Straub can just feel very important in a blog post all by himself!

Theory Sketches

2010-06-05T00:47:00.000-07:00

Did a couple caricatures of Vladimir Nabokov and critic Lionel Trilling, recently featured in Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner.

Trilling's face (above) was drastically different depending on what angle he was facing the camera. His eyes were always kind of sunken and desperate, which I wish I had exaggerated a little more.

Nabokov's bean was round and squishy regardless of the angle, and his thick glasses often obscured his eyes from the camera, making him seem very withdrawn and mysterious. His manner of speech was also very reserved. I felt that there was a big sheet of glass preventing us from seeing Nabokov's entire personality too clearly, not just his eyes. If I were to draw him again I would choose a facial expression that better described that idea. It seems I figure out the best parts of a person after I've already finished my refined caricature of them.

Deep Creek

2010-06-03T17:13:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple sketches inspired by a trip Cassandra and I took to the Mojave Desert during Memorial Day.

The area was called Deep Creek near the Bowen Ranch. The creek itself is accessible through a 2-3 mile trek through steep sandy mountainsides. All over the place were small, scraggly shrubs and piles of rocks like the one below.

The creek is famous for its hot springs, which were as hot as a jacuzzi but filled with algae. My brand-new swim trunks (I didn't bring any from South Carolina) became covered in green slime. There were a few nude bathers around, but they tended to be middle-aged, overweight men with sunburns on unfortunate places. -_-

Cassandra and I had plenty of fun exploring the area, and it's feasible we may return eventually, but there are lots of other cool hiking spots to visit in the meantime.

Oh! Here's a general list of the critters we saw on the trip:

1. Crows

2. Mini-bears (prairie dogs)

3. Small, scaly lizards

4. Rattle Snake eating a mouse

5. Mouse (being eaten by a snake)

6. Bobcat!!!!!!

7. Frog eggs

8. Either a hawk or a really big crow.

9. Quails

Egyptian Girl and Naked Man

2010-05-30T15:37:00.000-07:00

These were done several weeks apart. The naked man came first, and I feel I improved by the time I was drawing the Egyptian girl. I'm not sure if I should draw a comparison, though, because the top drawings look like they were maybe 2-minute sketches whereas the Egyptian girl drawings were probably done in 5.

The girl drawings have much more exaggeration, which is why I like them. My teacher for that class, Joel Fajnor, really stressed exaggeration and I think some of it stuck.

These are probably the last life drawings I'll post for a while. For my next blog post I'd like to do something a little different.

Viking Lady

2010-05-28T21:45:00.001-07:00

I must admit that I have an easier time drawing heavy-set more than skinny models. When I draw a model with weight I have an easier time picking out major forms and shapes.

Her belt neatly divided her body into two parts that were easy to draw.

Later on we did some long poses and those weren't nearly as good. I had an easier time taking a gestural approach to this figure.

The long robe and cape were fun and created interesting design elements that I could exaggerate. Like I said before, I find costumed models far more fun to draw than nudes.

More Life Drawings

2010-05-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

All of the life drawings here were of the same gentleman, whose name was John. He dressed as both the dapper industrialist and also the pirate, and later on he dressed as a cowboy but I missed that session.

Not much to say about these, really. Some of them are going into my storyboard revisionist portfolio. I have a few more of these to post, then I'll try to put up something more interesting.

Ballerina Sketches

2010-05-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

I've got a bunch of life sketches that I'll be unrolling over the next few days. Why dump them all at once?

Personally, I prefer costumed models over nude. Nude models tend to give the same sorts of poses over and over, but costumed models will roleplay their poses.

Place that head right damnit! I should fix that above drawing, but I have so much other, more important drawing to do right now.

That's it for now! I have much better life drawings coming, and I'm going to another session this sunday.

I haven't done a journal post for a while, so I'll just mention really quickly what I've been up to.

My internship at Nickelodeon just wrapped up last Friday, but not everything finished then. Today I came back to the studio for an intern lunch with Butch Hartman, and this Friday I'll be attending a class on how to pitch a show to Nickelodeon. Nick is special in that anyone within the studio is capable of pitching a show, but that doesn't mean that all of the pitches will be picked up. About 2 or 3 pitches are accepted per year to be made into pilots, and they are usually done by folks who have enough connections and experience to be able to put a show together.

Since leaving Nick, I've been wrapping up some projects that have been put on hold for the past few weeks. I am working on a small book illustration project for a friend from when I was in high school, I'm still revising a script for a different friend, and my girlfriend and I have been collaborating on a comic. The comic is still in early stages and it has yet to be seen just how far it will go, but I'm optimistic that this will be a good project to grow on.

I still need to put my storyboard revisionist portfolio together, and once that's done I'll try my luck at a couple different Nick shows. If I don't catch some of the jobs open right now, there will be another chance in fall when some more pilots are picked up for their first seasons. During the internship I got along well with one of the creators, Doug Lawrence, and from what I've seen his pilot is just the kind of project I'd want to work on: silly, cartoony, and hand-drawn.

I'm signed on to a lease here in CA until January, so I'll be trying my damndest to survive until then. If nothing's happened by January, then I'll consider looking for employment in other states, probably closer to friends and family. It gets so lonely out here sometimes!

Even More Gifts

2010-05-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Drawing for Mark Taylor, GM of Nickelodeon. He was kind enough to give a chat to all us interns, and even saw me in person a couple times. Mark's a good boss for everyone in the studio.

Andy Goodman's been a good guy to work with. He's a Production Assistant on Spongebob, and so I worked very closely with him throughout the semester.

Clint Bond has been very gracious to lend me his time and teach me the finer points of storyboard drawing. Actually, I still need to give him this drawing, so I'll go do that now!

More Gift Drawings!

2010-05-18T17:04:00.001-07:00

Armay Roque was my co-intern on Spongebob, and along with Christian Snyder we were a formidable interning trio. Ashley and Josilin are the lovely ladies who put together the intern program, and so I am greatly indebted to the both of them. Thanks!

Fashion Lady

2010-05-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

I was going to clean this photo up more, but I liked the way the drawing was looking at this stage:

This is a gift to Joel Fajnor, who taught a life drawing class for us Nickterns the past semester. Joel has a background in fashion, and that knowledge really came through in the way he taught. Only two teachers ever pushed on me the non-usage of erasers, and they were both trained in the fashion business.

Thanks, Joel!

Poo Slip

2010-05-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

I decided that I'll just use youtube for the time being. Blogger's video sharing is far too annoying for me.

Enjoy!

The Gams

2010-05-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

I gave this away as a parting gift to my fellow Nicktern on Spongebob, Christian Snyder. We had a really good semester together with never a sour moment. He wrote and drew a book, called I Can Get Ready For School.

Do You Like To Be Frightened?

2010-05-05T23:43:00.000-07:00

This is a life drawing I was working on for my portfolio, and I made this cool image from it by playing with curves. The drawing that was behind this drawing in the paper pad suddenly showed through; it wasn't visible before! That makes it a ghost drawing.

The Meat

2010-05-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

Trying to draw a different body type and emotional effect with each sketch. The last one was kind of retarded/mischievous. This guy is more dumb/cruel/cocky.

The Gunman

2010-04-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

I liked this one a lot, so I decided to give it to Tuck Tucker, who's been helping me out a lot at the studio. Every day I'm pestering him for help, and even though he often has to send me away because of work he always manages to speak with me eventually. This semester we interns were fortunate enough to have had Tuck teach us how to do a rough board, starting from a premise and making a bunch of childish drawings to describe it. Today was our final day for that class. It's an honor that he took time out of his busy schedule to help us interns learn some useful production knowledge.

Anyways, thanks a lot, Tuck!

The Crooked Man

2010-04-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

This one could have benefited from a little more planning. Still, I got the look I was going after.

Funny Time

2010-04-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

I had some free time at the internship today, so I drew myself a Happy. Hope it makes you happy, too.

Quicky Animation

2010-04-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

Goddamn have I been wanting to do animation lately. From now on, I'ma do a little animation every week, ideally every day. It's great practice and stretches the brain.

As usual, it took me more time to figure out a good way to export this video than it did to draw it. Happens every time!

Beautiful Faces

2010-04-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend Cassandra drew a portrait of me while we were sitting to eat at a very nice restaurant called Mucho Mas. She made me look very much like a Magypsie from the game Mother 3.

I drew a picture of her as well.

Life Drawing

2010-03-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

I have literally a pile of life drawings collected from the past couple weeks, but I won't flood my blog with all of them. Only the really good ones.

The drawing above was the original life drawing from the model.

With these drawings I was trying to redesign the pose in cartoon skin.

And here is the final result. I drew my original character design using the pose from the model.

Below are drawings drawn from The Human Figure. They are a little different from how I usually draw.

With the drawing above I was starting to use a cartoon design again. It's a really good exercise.

Another Picture!

2010-03-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

Just one more, trying for something a little more structured.

Harmonix

2010-03-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a little playing around I did using the new Flash program, Harmony.

I like how three-dimensional these look, without any effort on my part. The program just lends itself to that look!

The one above looks like an architectural rendering to me, though a very scary one. It's fun to see art tools that depart completely from traditional media, or rather the ghost of traditional media, since that's what most art programs try to imitate. It's hard to see something like this being more than gimmicky; there's lots of creative possibilities, but getting from point A to point B is far too chaotic at this point for most artists to make use of something like this.

Still, I'd love to see what a more skilled artist than myself might come up with using this program. In particular, I'd like to see someone export some images from Harmony and then make something more coherent with them in Photoshop.

Restaurant Sketch

2010-03-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

Went down to Orochon Ramen in Japantown and had some soy sauce ramen. Cassandra had miso ramen. The restaurant had fair prices (for California), and was speedy and delicious, though very noisy.

Anyways, I drew this because Cassandra and I were feeling stressed at how much money one must spend whenever they step out of their apartment in CA:

I've been reading a book called Meditation and Relaxation in Plain English by Bob Sharples. The book recommended repeating the phrase "I don't have to do anything" to help relax yourself. Trying to use that phrase on Cassandra produces mixed results.

Evolution of an Intelligently Designed Concept

2010-03-10T01:16:00.000-08:00

I drew picture sporting a very literal interpretation of the title one of this year's Oscar nominations. It was initially scribbled in the margin of an Oscar party pool sheet.

I kind of liked the concept, so I expanded it in my sketchbook, yielding the sketch below.

After scanning the sketch, I spent about two hours inking it. Normally it wouldn't have taken quite so long, but Law and Order: SVU was running in the background.

The next step will be to color it, but it's late and I just wanted to get this much posted. The final version will be posted on my deviantart page when it's done.

Percy the Turtle

2010-03-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I draw turtles.

This is Percy, along with another drawing of a moomin-type creature.

I think Percy must have been in the navy.

Hell yes! That's how you punch a fish!

I like the look of a turtle's underside being drawn like muscles. Also, the peg head and limbs. The character looks a bit more like Pen Ward's style than how I usually draw.

Speaking of which, I am in heavy anticipation for the new Adventure Time show. I know many animation folks out there are dreading it, but personally I feel that the pilot had good, strong characters, which is more than many other cartoons start with these days. Typically it takes at least one or two seasons for a show to start to lose its flavor. I think this happens because after a couple seasons the original creator has left the project, assuming they were included in the creative process to begin with.

Kung Fu Panda Recording

2010-03-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

I spent part of last Friday attending a record session for Nick's new show, Kung Fu Panda. It was different from the other recordings I visited in that this show is story-based, rather than purely humor based. Different requests were made of the actors, whereas on the other shows the usual request was to "make it funnier!"

There were four voice actors there; three were men and there was one lady, though the lady left before I could get a good picture of her. The actors were:

Max,

Mick,

and Fred.

Mick was interesting because he voices Po, which means that he has to sound like Jack Black while also acting out the character.

Not only did he sound like Jack Black he also kind of looked like him. He made many Jack Black facial expressions, particularly with the eyebrow raises (best representation is the one at the top of this stack). There was one point where he completely blew my mind by doing his impression of Jack Black criticizing Mick's impression of Jack Black.

I didn't get a lot of drawings of Max, unfortunately, because his face was obscured behind a music stand. He did most of the voicing for Mantis, who was the focus of the episode.

Fred made lots of great faces, and was overall very funny. Unfortunately, he didn't have very many lines for his episode, though I cracked up when he voiced a female mantis named Hao.

During the course of the recording there was much discussion about a Migress, which would be a mantis/tigress hybrid. This was my final rendition. It looks like something I would make in Spore (and maybe I will!).

I'd like to revisit one of the other shows and bring my sketchbook along. Nothing makes friends better than drawing someone's picture!

Fashion

2010-02-28T02:05:00.000-08:00

I sketched a couple of the photos from here, which is an incredible blog.

I feel almost bad for drawing these, simply because the original photos were so good! What more could I add to them? I'm a sucker for good fashion photography.

The second one turned out much better, but then again the second girl was more my type. My girlfriend is a brooder, though she usually doesn't look so surly. I'm not entirely pleased with how the mouth turned out in this drawing. It was her most outstanding feature (to me), and I felt I should have given it one more pass.

Frustration

2010-02-26T22:19:00.000-08:00

Just some stressful drawings I did, all featuring the same girl. Not trying to be too on-model or anything, just trying to capture the feeling of being stressed, which I was experiencing at the time.

The one above is my favorite. I'm proud of that pose, though I think it could use some refinement. Of course, these are just off-the cuff, so they could all use some refinement.

The drawing below may not look too special, but I've been tweaking the character's proportions and construction. This is partly the result. Looking at it I feel like I still have trouble with hips and shoulders, even though I've drawn thousands of them: from life, from other drawings, and from imagination. I've drawn this character dozens of times, and each time I get a little better.

I'm doing lots of drawing studies during my free time. Through my internship, I'm in a position to get feedback from a number of the industry's best cartoonists, and I intend to take advantage of it. Cartoon drawing was something my art school never taught me; drawing was purely optional for their animation program. In fact, I did my best to find professors who would teach me to draw, and the good ones all taught graduate classes. So if only I were willing to spend two more years and 50,000 more dollars, then I might have learned something. But that's beside the point.

Through the Nick internship program, I've received three of their drawing tests: character design, layout, and storyboarding. I'm starting with the character design before moving on to layout, and by the time I've finished both then I should be fully versed and ready to tackle the drawing challenges of the storyboarding test. I'm getting feedback all along the way, so I feel like I'm in a position to make some real progress. Maybe by the time I'm done with the internship I'll have the knowledge I need to get a job somewhere in the industry.

SKETCH D-D-D-D-DUUUUMP!

2010-02-23T15:05:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to do this for a while, so here goes!

This here is Schnooks, who I've drawn in a few comics. He's very much inspired by Tove Jansson, particularly in that his design consists of a circle sitting on top of a triangle, with a couple arms and legs sticking out. Sometimes I cheat his arms in a Jove-like fashion.

Everyone likes General Patton! I didn't draw this from reference and still can't be bothered to look up a picture of his face.

Beautiful German actress by the name of Hilde. I've only ever seen her in one film (Murderers Among Us), but right now I'm reading through her autobiography. She was acting during a time of war, suspicion, and general chaos. I drew a few pictures of her, but this was the best one.

Edward Cullenhands, showing off his horrifying Cullen hands. I don't know.

Peek-a-boo is an adorable roly-poly cat who belongs to my roommate. She's grey with a white stripe down her belly, and she has a short tail. She sometimes drools.

The Story of Jumpity Jesse and his Banker

2010-02-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

Jumpity Jesse Jones never understood how, through what complex machinations, he had been brought onto a pirate ship to begin with. His banker, Mr. Horg Willow, was responsible, he knew, and there was some mention about “reallocating assets” and “upsizing cost differentials,” but these were alien concepts to a simple cowboy man. Jesse only spoke Cowboy, and occasionally just Cow, but never Banker-ese. As a matter of fact, Jesse couldn’t remember why a cowboy needed a banker to begin with. Cowboys were paid in chaw, which they could keep in their pockets or saddle bags.

Sitting up in the crow’s nest, Jesse Jones sipped poke-an-beans from his cactus-styled coffee mug. Then he leaned back and kicked up his feet. At least life was comfortable on the ship, if a little saltier than he was used to. There were sea-birds and sea-fish jumping above the water, and Jesse was always being rocked to sleep by the rhythmic movements of the boat. Jesse was halfway into a nap when he heard an Oklahoma-styled duster brewing on the deck below.

“Get your snake-skinned ass down here before I grind it into horse paste!” bellowed the scrawny, bespectacled banker below. His face was red, either from anger or Caribbean heat, Jesse couldn’t tell which. For some unfathomable reason the banker wore black three-piece suits while out on the ocean. Jesse just didn’t understand of anything where bankers were concerned.

“Pardon?” Jesse tipped his hat off his eyes and spat a wad of tobacco over the deck towards the sea, where a shark lifted out of the water to catch it in its mouth. Only a skilled cowboy can chew tobacco while eating poke-an-beans.

“Get down here! I didn’t bring you aboard this boat so you could tan your face!”

Jesse swung one leg over the side of the crow’s nest, then the next. As he hauled himself down the ropes, he said “I’ve never quite understood just why you brought me along on this here floating cork, pardner. Whyn’t you explain it to me one more time?”

“We’re here for cattle-ranging, you buffoon!”

“Cattle? Here?” Jesse looked around at the expanse of water surrounding the boat on all sides.

“Yes, cattle! Sea-cows, of course!”

“Yore looney.”

“Sea-cows! Manatees! They’re an untapped resource, and they’re supposed to be around here somewhere!”

“I s’pose.” Jesse didn’t know much about marine biology. “How’m I supposed to herd these sea-cows?”

“What, and you’re asking me? You’re the cattle expert! Did you, or did you not, put ’10 years ranging experience’ on your resume?” The banker was livid, squinting at Jesse with all the inchoate rage of a hungry badger.

Jesse thought a moment. “Should I, um, maybe bait them to the surface? I need to see ‘em before I can really range ‘em.” Jesse was trying to divert the topic to something familiar.

“Bait? Manatees? Like, with food?” asked Mr. Willow.

“Yeah, they’re sea-cows. They must eat sea-grass.”

“Do we have any sea-grass?”

“Hmm...” The hold was filled with the only two things Cowboy Men need to survive: tobacco and poke-an-beans. “How will we know them when we sea them? Do they look like fish?”

Here was Mr. Willow’s chance to show his knowledge. “Fish? Faugh! Sea-cows are mammals! They will, therefore, have mammaries!”

“Mammaries?”

“Tits. Teats. They’d have some sort of lumpy milk sacks dangling from their bodies,” said Mr. Willow with an air of triumph.

“Fish with tits? I’m not sure, do you really think we could make money from something like that?”

Mr. Willow snapped back with renewed fury, “Yes I do! Whatever these sea-cows look like they must surely taste great, or if they don’t then we’ll hype the market to make manatees seem like the next great American meat!”

“I prefer steak myself,” was Jesse’s uncertain response.

“And now you will eat sea-steak, or so help me God, I’ll find myself another cow-poke!”

That idea sounded just fine to Jesse, who was thinking more and more about how great a sleep under the stars by a roaring fire would be. Could you have a roaring fire on a boat? The idea didn’t seem to hold water. As much as he wanted to return to land, however, Jumpity Jesse felt that he shouldn’t betray the trust of this tiny, quivering banker. Jesse didn’t want to leave the man on this boat in the middle of the sea, so he made a proposal.

“Perhaps we should just take this show back on the land. You and me, ranging the type of cows I know how to handle. I could always use another cattle hand,” offered Jesse.

Mr. Willow shook his head, “Have you forgotten already, Jesse? The reason we came out here, the reason why no cowboy is safe on dry land?”

Jesse had forgotten.

“The clowns.”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

“Clowns.” The word just seemed to hang in the air, moving no more than two inches from where Jesse’s lips had formed it.

“The rodeo clowns. They were going to corner the bull market! No one could rustle bulls better than those rodeo clowns--I know! I saw them with my own eyes!--and with all the bulls under their control, what future would cowboys have with cows? Huh?” The truth was out, and there was no going back. Mr. Horg Willow was thrashing his arms about like a small, looney bird trying to take to the air.

“I think you might be confused, pardner.”

“Don’t you pardner me! I’ve funded this entire operation! I’ve delivered you from the clowns! Or would you rather like to put on floppy shoes and grease paint every morning, despairing in the knowledge that you once had an opportunity to create a whole new market for cowboys everywhere!”

“Ranging sea-cows. Right.” There was only so much Jesse could take. “I think you might be confused as to just what a rodeo clown is.”

But Horg was in a whole different world at this point. “Clowns! Clowns! Freaky, awful, honking clowns! Everywhere I go, anything I try to invest in, the clowns are already there! They beat me to theater! They beat me to fast food! They beat me to real estate! I swear, and now they’ve beaten me to agriculture!”

“Now calm down, there,” said Jesse. The banker’s thrashing and raving was at such a pitch that the cowboy feared for the safety of either himself or his... friend? partner? It didn’t matter, Jumpity Jesse did his best to restrain the small man.

Mr. Willow was strong for his size, however, and wrestled away, cursing and spitting violent oaths against clowns and cowboys alike. Too late, Jesse called out for Horg to hold still, and the banker stomped on a large, slippery wad of cowboy chaw. Mr. Willow slipped and slid and hurtled straight over the side of the boat, directly into the jaws of a waiting shark.

“You know,” Jesse said to eaten friend, “if there really were sea-cows around here, I don’y know how they’d survive with so many sea-bears around to eat them.”