An Unofficial Guide - Part Two
(Use at Your Own Risk!)

IDEAS: A question that I've been asked often is, "Where do you get your ideas from?" The answer to that, my friend, is blowin' in the wind... I usually sit around and stare at the blank paper hoping to think of something, striving to catch the elusive (and all too rare, in my case) good idea and snap it out of thin air. So for me, ideas come from spending alot of time sitting and thinking. Just sitting and thinking. Not very romantic, I'm afraid, but true nonetheless. Thinking can be hard work, or in the very least, frustrasting work. Imagine that...

Thankfully with the Turtles, their personalities and past exploits have been defined so well that I get to do any whacky thing that strikes me as interesting. Thanks to Don's inventions, the entire universe, past, present and future, are available to me with... ahem... plausibility.

If I'm having trouble writing, I play computer games. Games allow my mind to sink into the ether of thoughtlessness (which doesn't take too long, believe me.) Sometimes little unconscious thoughts will materialize and then I can build them into ideas. If that doesn't work, I watch CNN. While I don't do many political gags, sometimes I can't resist, and CNN is a good source for political news. News programs, in general, are useful to watch for events that might spur some thoughts.

I write the Turtle strip as a long storyline, and try to derive humor from the situations that the lads find themselves in. I think this makes for a more interesting strip (and quite honestly, I don't think that I'm capable of writing unrelated jokes day in and day out for years on end. I admire those who can, but I sure can't! The comic strip syndicates would rather see unrelated jokes, I reckon, so keep that in mind when creating your own daily! While stories won't necessarily hurt you, if you do them, syndicates like you to wrap them up inside of 13 weeks. I don't do that either... small wonder you've never seen the TMNT strip in your paper, is it?)

Where the ideas come from differs from person to person, but ideas are the crux of the process. Without any ideas, there's nothing to draw. So wherever you may find your Muse is where ideas come from. Some people read, some dream, some listen to music, some hike and so on and so forth. Being a Moderate, I recommend them all.

I work 2 different ways while writing. I switch back and forth to make the process more enjoyable and less rigid. Thinking (for me at least) is hard work, and anything that I can do to make it more enjoyable I do. The typical way that I work is by writing on the actual sheet that the strip will be drawn on, in the bottom border of the paper. I find this approach spontaneous and enjoyable, as I never know what's going to happen from day to day (or panel to panel for that matter!) I usually start off writing panel one to continue the story from the previous strip with no gag in mind whatsoever. From there I try to come up with something that moves the story along and has a joke in the final panel. If I simply can't find a decent gag for the day, I'll sometimes settle for moving the story along (MOST of the time I do this, as my editor would tell you... but honestly, I try to end every strip with a joke, even if it usually doesn't seem that way.)

The other approach that I have is illustrated below. I'll grab some scrap paper and sit outside, on the couch, in bed or wherever feels the most comfortable and sketch out the week. I work day to day this way, and sometimes will shift one day to another as I clarify the week's events. This makes the story move along more cohesively, but I think the humor suffers when I start to plan things out with this much structure. When I write this way, I rarely think of visual gags, and I love doing visual gags. Another good reason for me to approach writing from two different arenas of thought.

Above is an example of how I sketch out a strip. This one is a bit unusual in that it doesn't have nine scratched out punchlines. I tend to write several punchlines for each strip and try to pick the "best" one. I liked how this one flowed, so I didn't try to come up with something funnier. Go figure.