I know it’s been a long time since the last Red’s Planet post, but so much has happened this year. I am now living in California and, after eight weeks of crazy work, SoCal bureaucracy, lingering maladies, and a wee bit of unpacking (who has the time?), we are finally starting to feel settled into our new life. I’ll admit there have been times of mover’s remorse and bouts of homesickness; but over all, it has been a good experience and I’m sure it can only get better. Besides, there’s no Pie ‘n Burger or Trader Joe’s back in Orlando.

The new job on Phineas and Ferb has been fun and challenging. As I’ve said before, I am working with some of the most talented people I’ve ever known and that alone is very intimidating. Still, they haven’t discovered that I don’t know what I’m doing yet, and, so, I’m good for now.

One of the casualties of the move was my home studio. In Florida I was lucky enough to have an entire bedroom of our townhouse designated for my work. As everyone knows, here in California space is at a premium. Not only did we lose an entire bedroom in the move, but we are also paying 50% more for it.

Originally, I was going to set up my drawing table in the corner of the dining room. But, with a nearly-two-year-old running rampant around the apartment, my wife and I decided that having bottles of ink sitting around wasn’t such a good idea. The only other option I had was the garage (having one is a luxury itself here).

The corner of the garage ...

So, amongst the boxes of books and supplies that were once my Florida studio, sits a small drawing table with my Cintiq, a plastic taboret, and a desk for my Scanner. It doesn’t look like much (and it isn’t climate controlled) but I’m thankful to have a place to work. But, some of the best films in the history of animation were made in warehouses. Why shouldn’t I take up residence in a cave?

...becomes the Cave at night!

Now, back to Red’s Planet — I was originally hoping to finish Chapter Three before I began to post, but at this stage, I think everyone has waited long enough.

The new plan is the old plan, and I’ll be posting a page a week starting Monday, April 30. The chapter is roughly 35 pages (though that may expand or shrink as I go along) and should wrap up by the end of the year. There are also a couple of weeks between now and then that the animation studio is scheduled to be closed and that may allow me to get ahead. I have also toyed with the idea of posting in black and white and adding color when I have enough pages for printed volumes. I’m still trying to decide on this; the color seems to be a such a big part of the comic.

As I’ve said before, Red’s Planet is very labor-intensive — finding time to work on it after a long day of storyboarding isn’t always easy, but man, I love doing it!

Chapter Three is a very important chapter and I can’t wait to share it with you — this is the heart of the story! I want to just spill the beans right now, but I’ll contain my enthusiasm and wait. Thanks again for sticking around!

…or at least that’s what Gary Owens and Johnny Carson always said. But, I’m actually not in Burbank right now and probably getting a bit ahead of myself.

First, I need to take you back to last summer. It was around July or August that my friend Susan suggested that I should connect with her long time friend Dan Povenmire on on Facebook. I had met Dan a short lifetime ago when he and Susan both attended the University of Southern California and I remember him as an enviously talented cartoonist with a very fun and clever comic strip called Life is a Fish that ran in the USC Trojan. Over the years, Dan’s cartooning led him into animation where he worked on shows like Hey Arnold!, The Simpsons, Rocko’s Modern Life and SpongeBob SquarePants. As a matter of fact, the last time I saw Dan was in 1999, when I visited him while he was directing on Family Guy.

Soon after becoming Facebook friends, Dan messaged me and asked if I would be interested in coming out to write and storyboard on his show. Now before I continue, there’s something unusually un-American about my life that I should explain. About five years ago, for several mostly good reasons, my wife and I made the decision to drop our cable television service. That, combined with the poor broadcast reception in our area, resulted in my family no longer watching television. So, when Dan said “his show”, I just assumed he was referring to someone else’s show that he was directing. As it I turns out, Phineas and Ferb is not only a one of Disney’s hottest properties, it was actually created by Dan and his friend Jeff “Swampy” Marsh. So, it turns out, it really is his show.

“Congratulations!” I said over the phone, “I had no idea Phineas and Ferb was your show.”

“Well, my name’s really big in the credits,” Dan replied.

He was right. It is.

I was still very surprised that he wanted me to come out and work on his show.

“Aren’t there any artists or writers in L.A.?”

“Yes, there are,” he said. “Just not that many who do both.”

It seems that Dan’s invitation was based on his memory of a series of comic strips I had done to send to syndicates back in 1985 called “Mugg’s Place”. His recollection was that it was funny. It wasn’t. But, it’s highly improbable that he’ll ever see it again, so we’ll just keep that secret to our selves.

So, speeding this rambling story along, by the end of October, I was in Los Angeles, not only to see if I was a good fit for the show but, more importantly, if the show was a good fit for me. I spent six weeks partnered with the very talented Josh Pruett, writing and rewriting, boarding and re-bording an 11 minute episode of Phineas and Ferb. It might be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but in the end it was very worth it. The crew are some of the most talented people I’ve ever met and just being there was very humbling. And, I guess it was a good fit — they asked me to stay on and I said “yes.”

Now, I’m back in Florida looking forward to the big adventure ahead of me. Over the next 6 weeks I’ll be busy sorting, selling, trashing and packing for the big move to Southern California. It promises not to be easy (or cheap), but I’ve learned the hard way not to walk away when a door like this opens.

To be honest, at this point, I’m not completely sure of all the ways this new job will effect Red’s Planet. In the long-term-big-picture-whole-enchilada thing, I’m hoping for an amazing time of artistic growth that will strengthen my writing and storytelling.  But, the short term? I can only say for certain that Chapter Three won’t be posting any time soon. It’s close, but there’s still much to do. My hope is to continue once my family and I are settled in California, but that really depends on my contract with Disney. Entertainment contracts can be very scary things, sometimes restricting your own creative works and even giving rights to the company with legal language like “throughout the universe in perpetuity” — which, evidently, means that you can’t just go to Alpha Centauri or Zeta Reticuli and claim Mickey Mouse is your creation.

Hopefully, I should know more about the legal aspects in the next month or two. But, please don’t worry, Red’s Planet is a long term project and I will not be abandoning it. I do need to make sure that it is protected and not jeopardized by my new gig. As many of my readers know, my dream is to write and draw my own stories and eventually make a living doing so. But until that day comes, I can’t pass up jobs like this one when they smack me right in the Facebook.

I’ll keep everyone posted on the progress of our adventure from time to time here in the blog, but for more spontaneous updates, make sure you follow Red’s Planet on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news on what’s going on.

See you soon!

Check out this great fan art by father and daughter team Tim and Grace (who’s eight-years-old!) from 5 Minute Marvels! Tim and Grace have a bedtime tradition of picking one character and spend five to 15 minutes drawing together. What an awesome idea! Thanks you guys for the fun drawing!

If you have fan art, be sure to email it to me or send me a link so I can share it with everyone!

Get a sneak peek at tomorrow’s page when you vote for Red’s Planet at topwebcomics.com

Get a sneak peek at tomorrow’s page when you vote for Red’s Planet at topwebcomics.com