If you’ve been reading TicTocTom for a while, you’ve come to realize the creative process of Mr. Yeo and Mr. Patel (aka Glorious Leader). Basically, they like to free-form their stories. By that I mean they are too lazy to plan ahead. Ok, it actually means they like to keep things flexible and let their stories develop organically.*
They achieve this by loosely outlining a plot and one of them doing a page, then passing it off to the other to continue. In this way, they can not only steer the story where they believe it should go but, riff off one another creatively and perhaps see potentials that they were unaware of.
It’s not a dissimilar process to how the original Tick Tock Tom started decades ago. Back in the day (do the kids still use that phrase? Am I showing my age? I “feel” that I’m 21.) it was an anthology of many artists taking the character where they felt he should go.
Fast forward to Dec. 2017. Chetan proposed to the regular TicTocTom contributors an idea. We all contribute to a new story with the same page by page approach that he and Mr. Yeo uses.
Chetan, Mr. Yeo, Paul, Megan and Peter all agreed to the project. It was a go!
Of course, it wouldn’t be TicTocTom if we didn’t butt heads about how to embark on this endeavor. † Some felt that the page by page, free-form approach would result in a mashed up, mess of a story. ‡
We decided that the best approach to prevent the story becoming incomprehensible; by having multiple creators, was to change it to each person writing four pages and each person drawing four pages at a time when the script was done. And not necessarily illustrating their own writing.
We felt that this creative approach would yield some unique results, allow us to spot plot holes and give artists the direction they need when sitting down to illustrate. And boy howdy (I’ve been waiting my entire dang life to use that phrase), did it ever. Yahoo!
The final story is unlike anything TicTocTom has ever produced and the first 12 drawn pages that I’ve seen are stellar (For the record I’ve done four of those pages. But they are still stellar and I apologize for nothing).
So I would like to present a few teaser drawings for you.
When is it going to be completed? We’re not sure but I can guarantee you all § that it’s going to be amazing!
By Paul Marhue
* They are lazy.
† For the record, Chetan has a particularly tough noggin’. He must train like Rocky but without the muscles, talent, technique and stamina.
‡ Fine. It was me. I mostly felt this way. But in my defense, I’m usually right.
§ The phrase “guarantee you all” should not be construed as a guarantee.
Art: Tom Yeo & Paul Marhue
