I apologize for not having this colored but at this point you should know why. Nothing else new to report.

So I promised that I would give you all a sneak peek at the new material and here it is. The profile sheet for the character redesigns. I guess I could give you a little information to go with those drawings too, huh?

Well, you should be able to recognize most of the characters. The changes that have been made have not been too drastic. A little marking change here, a little color tweak there. A little more detail for the real lifers. In fact only one of the characters is completely new. Who can tell me which one that is and which one is a redesign of a very old b-ville character?

As you can see in the first panel I’m calling this new venture the evolution of Bassetville. Sort of a reimagining. While I very much liked the characters I created I was not happy with how the original strip was going. I felt trapped. After a year (more or less) off I have found my mojo and have decided to start over. A new format, style and episode type. I will not go into details about that yet because I am still developing the Frances & Friends feel. But I can tell you, my editor likes it.

Yes, I said editor. I am no longer in this alone. Readers of this blog should be able to guess pretty easily where Frances & Friends home will be when it launches. All I can say is that I am very excited about this new opportunity and I can not wait until (sometime in the spring) when everything goes live.

The only bad news I have is for those of you anxiously awaiting the return of the caption contest. I cannot promise that it will return with the new cartoon. Although… if enough of you make your case for its return in the comments section I may be able to work something out with my new distributor.

No promises.

Yeah, this probably wouldn’t end well.

Now, just to make sure I don’t confuse anybody this is not the “new style”. I guess this would be considered something of an inbetweener phase. I just have this and a few more drawings that I will be posting that I don’t want to let go to waste.

Also, don’t forget, over at Clickwheel.net you can download a free set of Holiday Cards. Included in that set is one of all three troublemakers you see above.

Yeah, I’m getting bored waiting for him to post something new, too. He swears there is something big coming but he just has to work out the details. He was jumping around yesterday about how “they” liked it. Who is this they and are they bringing me any food?

He sure is in the office a lot, just like he used to be. I’ve seen him working on something oddly familiar but different all at the same time. It is taking him a lot longer to get things done too. I think he is planning on doing a sneak peek of the new work next week. At least the characters and one of them looks a lot like me.

It’s a good thing I have a mommy now, maybe she will feed me.

So I’ll fully admit, this is not my favorite drawing, why am I showing it to you… honestly I’m not really sure. Probably because when I do show you my new cat character I want you to se how bad it could’ve been. Perhaps I will show you later this week.

I love Disney movies so of course if I look at a running basset I think of one of two things: Either Toby from the Great Mouse Detective or any scene of Dumbo flying. This panel is one of the first four I drew when I was trying to figure out if I wanted to wander back into Bassetville or not. It works well enough, not necessarily funny but cute. I like cute. I think I do it well.

I’m not really sure what influenced this panel. Maybe it was purely from the new home my wife convinced me to buy the real Zulli. He had been living in an outfitted under-the-bed storage container. Now he has his own big ol’ terrarium. He is much happier now but Frances can no longer stick her nose in.

Maybe that is why he is happier.