Sabine Ganezer
January-February 2021
The Great Unfocused Period
I'd been enjoying the series Dan Vs., created by Dan Mandel and Chris Pearson. I was upset that some people (judging by the reviews I read) didn't seem to "get" Dan the way I felt like I did (the Dan in the cartoon, that is.)
I felt like there was a missing bit to the show: the bit where Dan finally opens up completely, to someone who can understand and be patient with him, who can see inner beauty. He's messed up and he acts like it -- a lot -- in sometimes yucky ways (like threatening to sue his best friend) but all the anger is coming from a deep inner wound: absence of parental love during childhood.
I imagined if I could enter the cartoon world and have a conversation with Dan, how I might show him that kind of patience. This scene is not exactly how my conversation would go, but it is based on it.
In this time period I was gestating the concept of a series starring Prince Charming and the Grim Reaper. You can see from the character designs above, I was recycling/revamping several of the designs from The Princess and the Teakettle, a series I haven't worked on in a long time.
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I'd been watching the Netflix series Disenchantment, created by Matt Groening, as well as the series Dan Vs., created by Dan Mandel and Chris Pearson. I wanted to draw/write a scene with my own characters exploring some of the themes I thought those two series had potential to develop but had not done so to satisfactory degree. These themes being: selfishness, and how it sometimes dissipates under the right circumstances; the meaning of true love. Et cetera.
Right: Kind of a combination of the Grim Reaper thing and the Sharkie character from above.
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Here my goal was especially to simplify the visual world and make it easy to look at. However, this didn't work out how I'd hoped.
Left: More character design work for the Dan Vs. -inspired series.
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Below: some character design work for the shark-superhero series I've been rolling around in my brain for like a year now.
Below: having abandoned the other stuff, I again revamped some of the character designs in a new format, centered around the concept of a character who is a human but kinda thinks he is a cat.
April 2021
My main focus in April 2021 (or one of my main foci) was the Canadian animated kids' show, "FANGBONE!" I believe this show deserves more seasons, and for what it's worth I signed a change dot org petition on it. If you also love this show, sign it here: https://www.change.org/p/dhx-media-release-season-2-of-fangbone-a-theatrical-animated-movie.
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Meanwhile, check out the rest of The Nightlands of Morning here: https://sabineganezer.wixsite.com/cartoons/nightlands-of-morning. Below, some fan art of the series that I've done this month (as you can see I'm not at all obsessed):
Internet fandoms tend to magnetize in a certain direction -- romance and relationships -- because that's what we're all interested in. Naturally, FANGBONE fans are intrigued by the possibility of a romantic relationship between Bill and the title character, Fangbone.
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It's compelling, but some of the artwork out there makes the kids quite a bit older in service of this plot: remember, they're only third graders. It's ok not to know what love is or be interested in it at that age. Admittedly, the characters in the show strike me as being more around age 10 or 11, whilst in the books (yes, there were books first!) they'd be about 8 or 9. Either way, though, adults need to be careful not to sexualize children, even in service of promoting acceptance of LGBTQ+, which is an important thing as well. Just let them kiss if they want or fist bump if they'd rather, don't force it.
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The most compelling aspect of the show, for me, is the relationship between Fangbone and Bill. They're technically battle brothers, which I believe is a construct that actually existed in Viking society (though Fangbone isn't exactly a Viking.) They're best friends, and sometimes it seems like their actions and feelings towards each other imply something more than friendship... maybe romance, or maybe that's what brotherhood or friendship is like and I just don't remember or never experienced it. Also, in visual media, physical contact is an important tool to establish plot points and character thoughts, etc. Whether it's romance or bromance or something else, I just love the warm fuzzy feeling I get watching Bill and Fangbone give each other that unconditional acceptance and wantedness. There's a moment in the episode "The Forehead of Despair" where Bill throws his arms around Fangbone and thanks him, in a tight-knit peanut-butter voice, "for not giving up on me." The drawing at left is based on that moment, with some changes in the facial expressions.