A while back, I mentioned that we are working on a new live show based on a comic strip we did several years ago. I thought I’d take a minute to talk a little bit about that strip. It’s called “BULL” and I worked on it with my good friend Alex Lucas. In Alex’s words, this is the concept in a nutshell:

“Imagine a Bull whose one goal in life is to leave the farm and live among the ‘intellectuals’ of the city. Imagine a Pig who is an obsessive neat-freak. Imagine a Rooster who wears a power suit and drinks Starbucks. In this selection of the comic strip entitled BULL, the reader is given a glimpse into a world where the characters don’t belong. It’s a strange view of life on a farm, which consists mainly of a desire to live life OFF the farm. BULL parallels modern life and the way we all wish we were somewhere else. Just like the animals in this comic strip, we all look toward someone or something else and wish we were THAT, when in truth THAT isn’t any better than THIS. In short, these aren’t just farm animals … they’re us.”

Alex did the writing and I did the drawing. We worked for several months to develop about seven or eight weeks worth of material and sent them to all of the major syndicates. It was a leap, but hey, nothing ventured nothing gained. I think we heard back from all but one of them… they declined. Oh well. I still am in love the characters. When you work on something for that long, you really get attached to it. We both felt that there was so much potential for further development, and it seemed like the time was right to bring the characters to three-dimensional life. 

The script is nearly finished and I’ve begun building the puppets.   I’ll post some images once I get the visuals worked out a bit more.  In the meantime, here are the characters in their two-dimensional states:

And just in case anyone is interested, Alex and I published all of the comics into a book called A Bunch of Bull that you can buy here.

Tags: Bull: Roanoke, Projects, Thistledown Stuff // Add Comment »