My Parenting Experience In 30 Comics With A Feline Twist (New Pics)

I was always "the cartoonist" at school. I went to university for animation, but dropped out after a year, bummed around doing freelance work and playing too much World of Warcraft. I eventually came up with the website Cartoonize My Pet and built that into a successful business. But drawing pets over and over and OVER again got boring, and by then I had kids and wanted to do something with my newfound parenting knowledge.

One day I was watching Daniel Tiger with the kids, rolling my eyes at their perfect lives. I wished I could watch a show that was a little more "real". Then it hit me, I couldn't make a show, but I could make a comic!

Having Fowl Language and Hedger Humor comics popping up in my mom groups definitely played into my Daniel Tiger eureka moment. I'm also real life friends with Zach Cranor from Last Place Comics. He used to have a popular comic series back in the day, so I knew it was possible to make it big. The funny thing is we ended up motivating each other. His past success inspired me and then my success helped get him back into making comics again!

Here's my advice for all of the young grasshoppers. Draw from what you know, then put a unique spin on it. For me it's my family, but making them animals gives me more tools to play with and an instantly recognizable brand.

I make copious notes. Sometimes what happens can be turned directly into a comic (my husband and I joke that our 7-year-old is the best writer in the house!) but other times it's just a kernel of an idea. I'll go back through my notes and see how I can expand them. Once I have a script, I'll sketch it out VERY roughly into comic panels to check the flow, usually running it by J (hubby) to see if he can punch it up. Once we're satisfied that it's reading well, I'll progress to neat pencils, inks and color. I document the process for every comic on my Patreon, so that's a great resource if you want to see more—and laugh at my terrible rough drawings!

My favorite bit? Hmm... maybe adding the shadows? They are completely not necessary and honestly, I should probably skip it and post, but they are my fun little reward at the end. Least favorite is when I have a bunch of idea seeds, but I'm in a bad place mentally to expand them. Hormones have a lot to answer for there! Some days I just can't think.

I mean, you always hope they will be, but it's still so bizarre! I was pretty confident they'd resonate with parents, but seeing how many non-parents enjoy them has been a wonderful surprise! I met my first fan out in the wild the other day and that really brought home to me the fact that Litterbox is getting out there!

As for my future, I've got a couple of things cooking that I can't talk about yet, but one I'm working on is a book. The trouble with books is they require exclusive content and I'm so slow! I'll get there though!