With Tiger Khan making his last appearance for a while, I had to squeeze in one last Punch-Out!! joke.
I seem to have acquired the plague, so that’s all the news post I can muster. To bed!
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Posts Tagged ‘Tiger Khan’
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One thing that I always enjoy in wrestling is when characters have a logically consistent offensive style. For example, Ric Flair’s finisher is the Figure Four, and so the rest of his offence is geared toward building to that move. He could slap it on at any time, but the earlier he goes for it, the easier it is for the opponent to counter it, because they aren’t worn down enough yet. He also uses stuff like the shin breaker to weaken the joint that the Figure Four attacks. Simple, logical, effective. Jack Swagger is a counter example. He uses the Ankle Lock as a finisher, and no part of his offence supports that. His big moves are amateur wrestling throws, the Vader Bomb, and the gut-wrench powerbomb. Now, if the gut-wrench powerbomb was his finisher, great, that works. All of his stuff works the back and wears the guy down enough for the intricate lift involved in the powerbomb. But to follow that with an Ankle Lock, that hasn’t been built to at all, makes no sense. You’ve spent the whole match damaging the guy’s back, and now you’re going to attack his completely uninjured ankle and expect the audience to understand when the guy taps almost immediately.
So what does that have to do with anything? Well when I was designing Dick the Bastard’s offence, I chose moves purposely that would build toward him finishing people with a running headbutt. Having him hit the ropes twice before smashing into his opponent gives a reason as to why he doesn’t just go for it constantly; he needs to be able to get his speed up to hit the knockout shot. Naturally, headbutts play a part in his offence, but I make a point to show them as being damaging but not knockouts. His actual wrestling moves are chosen knowing that his finisher attacks his opponent’s head. His signature move, the exploder, drops the opponent on their head. So does the piledriver. So do his array of suplexes and his primary chain hold, the head lock.
I guess what I’m saying is that an absurd amount of thought goes into this comic about men and/or monsters in their comics hurting each other.
Next Week: Taming tigers at the end of the world.
Actually watching RAW is a good reminder to update the comic. So is inking a page of it while watching RAW. Tiger Khan is probably the first time I’ve successfully drawn a wrestler with a leaner build who is still muscular. The first attempts were with Vinny LaGrazo and Rod Black, which was not overly successful. LaGrazo leaned up towards the end of his run, but he was much too thick early on. Khan being taller helps, as LaGrazo was short and ripped, so it was hard to draw him without adding bulk. If I add some bulk on Khan, his height keeps him looking leaner than Dick, which is good enough. The longer I’ve worked on this comic, the more I’ve discovered that the wrestlers’ sizes are more important in a comparative sense than an absolute one; so it’s important that Khan is taller and leaner than Dick, but I don’t worry too much about what the exact difference between Khan’s 6′ 5″ and Dick’s 6′ 0″ would look like on the page.
Next week: Jewelry and faces get broken. So it’s like a normal page except jewelry also gets broken.
If I could embed sounds into the comic, it would be this:
So I’ve posted 250 of these strips now. TWO. HUNDRED. AND. FIFTY. Holy crap. That’s a lot. I’ll be drawing page 258 after I finish posting this, because I’m super far ahead on my War of 1812 comic and figured I’d build up the HEAT buffer some more.
TIGER UPPERCUT.
Next Week: Flashback!
I don’t know why, but the frog-ish ring announcer with a crazy French moustache amuses me to no end. Also, Tiger Khan is totally not just the wrestling version of Great Tiger from Punch-Out!! That’s crazy talk. You’re crazy. NO MORE QUESTIONS.
Tiger Khan may be the first character to get an overly elaborate entrance robe, but he will absolutely not be the last. Ridiculous entrance robes are a ton of fun to draw, especially when, for the most part, I only need to draw them for a panel or two. You may notice very few wrestlers get ridiculous designs on their tights like many modern wrestlers have: it’s because I don’t want to have to draw it over and over again from many angles. A character like Randy Orton with his random-ass tribal pattern tights and his full-sleeve tattoos would make me want to bash my head against my desk.
In other news, I’m the Artist-in-Residence at Happy Harbor Comics, so on Friday and Saturday afternoons I’ll be there working on War of 1812 pages (or whatever else I end up working on), so stop by if you want to chat about HEAT or comics in general, or want any tips or critique on making your own comics.
Next Week: We go from Punch-Out!! to Street Fighter II. Richard the Lionheart isn’t a big fan of the transition.
Guess who was watching football and thought it was Sunday! Me! The fact that I’m capable of that level of stupidity makes me a sad panda.
Tiger Khan’s inspiration is basically Great Tiger from Punch-Out!! Except a wrestler instead of a boxer. Which is probably pretty clear from his design. Not that his design was especially vital, since he’s pretty much just getting a wrestler dressed like a cop thrown at him like a missile and then going away.
On Wednesday: Richard the Lionheart takes on Mighty Kong. It’s not a fantastic career move.
This was a fun page to work on, even if the big panel of the ring was a pain in the butt. The new crowd-rendering technique looks a lot better, I think, especially since on this page you can see it right next to the black-out technique I was using before. I think the logic was that the farther-away part of the stands would be blacked out to make it seem farther away, but I’m not sure it worked all that well.
I also have no idea how to render a brown skin-tone in black and white. I think it’s pretty clear that Tiger Khan is supposed to be Indian, what with “Tiger” being a really common nickname for Indian wrestlers… and, y’know, he’s wearing a turban. Generalissimo Lizardo might be my favourite design of anybody on this whole page. Who doesn’t love a lizard man wearing 1800s military gear and rocking a tiny and inexplicable moustache? People who hate joy, that’s who.
There was originally some commentary by Art Donaghy and Super Destructo II on this page, but it wasn’t funny and basically just a textual description of what you can already see, so I cut it to make more space for art.
On Saturday: Mighty Kong is mighty good at battle royales. Outweighing everyone else in the ring combined helps.
