Musical notes for the FurBabies

And a few in jokes based on animated backgrounds

Writing and Drawing a comic strip is like having a little animated film premiere every day. You never know what the audience will like; gags that you consider ‘sure fire’, even those approved by a test audience, can fall flat. A strip that I might consider second rate might get a huge number of likes and responses. With online publication it is possible to revise the comics up to the last minute (the July 1 strip was originally in September and was exchanged for another one late in the day on June 30). Comic strips don’t have the financial risk of animation, for obvious reasons.

One artefact of my animation career is the use of in-jokes or comical names on backgrounds and brands. Tex Avery, in particular, loved to put gags on backgrounds or even have the background be the gag.

Tex Avery “The Shooting of Dan McGoo” MGM, 1945.

‘Coldernell’ reads differently if said with a Texas accent. The 1945 censors were apparently not from Texas.

The tradition continues into the modern age: WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT had a “Suck-U-Lux” vacuum cleaner and SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE has many clever gags and references on the backgrounds. There are far too many to catch on one viewing, which was probably intentional. Some people object to one poster that Gwen has in her bedroom. I see nothing to get upset about. Posters are posters. Teens espouse causes. And Gwen is a cartoon.

I thought of using Tex’s “Coldernell” for a refrigerator in an upcoming series of strips set in the Buffet family kitchen. Tex used the name for a fridge in one of his later cartoons (a rare repetition of a background gag he obviously loved). After some consideration I decided to use a joke name in the spirit of Tex Avery while adding an artistic reference to the considerable number of musical jokes already in the comic. I’ll get to those in a minute.

The Buffet family’s refrigerator is called a Calder.

Alexander Calder invented the mobile and also created Calder’s Circus, one of my favorite exhibits at the Whitney Museum. My parents took me there when I was Kate’s age (9) and I will never forget the charming and deceptively simple animating designs.

Alexander Calder, Mobile (1932). Tate Gallery, London

Calder’s Circus. Mechanically sophisticated design by Alexander Calder.

So, the Buffet family refrigerator is named after Alexander Calder, which makes a nice pun and will pleasantly educate anyone who looks up the name. (They will.) It first appears in the July 2-10 storyline. The Calder fridge is a combination of Sixties and Eighties designs. All of the appliances in the Buffet home are a bit dated. Their apartment building is old, with prewar interiors and a midcentury exterior. The bathroom was updated in the 1960s. Kate’s cellphone and laptop are modern, with all that this implies. She is a 21st century child and uses modern technology that frequently does not work as intended. Those story lines will appear in the comic, beginning in July.

And the GoGo apartment building exterior is based on the building I actually lived in in New York City. I took photographs when I visited in April, explaining to the doorman that I was a cartoonist and not some random creep. The interiors are a combination of several apartments I lived in in various parts of the world.

Backgrounds and settings can contribute to a story and provide some backstory for the characters. The absolute masterpiece of background storytelling is Disney’s original 1961 animated film, One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Cruella’s entrance is a perfect encapsulation of this technique: she lives in an 1880s Victorian house in a bad state of repair, dresses in a caricature of 1959 fashion, and drives a 1928 car. Roger and Anita’s house is from the 1840s, there are only pictures of dogs on the walls, and the musical instruments are mid- 20th century. The many clever period references in this film still influence today’s animation art directors.

I’ll explain the musical jokes in FurBabies now. My Dad was a professional symphonic musician. He played a Loree oboe and English horn and rarely considered other brands. He also played Selmer saxophones. Kate’s parents are named Loray (so that English speakers can pronounce it correctly) and Selmer.

Their last name is Buffet. (boo-FAY). This is also the name of a famous maker of clarinets.

Music will appear in some storylines, but since Charles M. Schulz got most of the mileage out of Beethoven, the FurBabies characters will have different musical tastes. I’ll leave that for a surprise.