"Childhood Realities" ("The Dukes of Hazzard")
General Lee and The Dukes of Hazzard (c) Warner Brothers
Pencil Marks: Given our breakneck pace during the summer of 2005 it was only a matter of time before we reached our snapping point. And the day I sat down to pencil this monstrosity, I realized I reached mine. No ideas were flowing, all the art being created wasn't worth the price of the paper it was on, and I just didn't have it in me to keep going. It got so bad halfway through this pic I just started laughing hysterically realizing it was horrendous and there was nothing I could do to save it.
Sure, I could've just said "screw it" and put the picture off for another day, but we were already a week late and Jake wasn't exactly able to travel across city more than once a week into those days. So, I bit the bullet and said: "Jake, you've got a crappy picture this year, and now so do I."
You may be able to tell, I am extremely unsatisfied with this one. Instead of soaring through the air like the General Lee off a conveniently well-placed mound of dirt, I crashed my squad car into a ravine like Rosco P. Coltrane. - Tony
Ink Smudges: Given the limited number of things I could do to this picture, I managed to tweak by. Oh, it's still a weak effort on both of our parts but trust me - I thought of every possible thing to save it. Of course, when you're dealing with an illustration where a character's head takes up 3/4th of it, well, there's not much room for improvisation even though your buddy point blank admits he had no idea where he was going with it or what the narrative is supposed to be.
I do think the idea I decided on is perhaps the only idea we could have used. Everyone has fond memories of something important in their childhood. Unfortunately, when you grow older and revisit it as an adult, the 'coolest thing in the world' may have lost its magic to the point where you question what made it so interesting in the first place. For me I can easily think of a time when I thought "Doom" for the Super Nintendo was state of the art and "Buckaroo Bonzai" was a cinematic masterpiece. But now I shudder every time I see them. Some things in life just aren't what you thought they were.
I know, it's an ironic message to use on a picture based on a television show which still kicks ass and then some (cringeworthy use of the Confederate flag notwithstanding.) - Jake