Gonogo.

Cue the Dramatic Music

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Welcome to the blog post about the penultimate episode in season I of GONOGO. It has been a wild ride, and I am really excited about posting “The Hatch Part II” next week, as it will be the capstone on two years of hard work. When I started this comic in the early days of the pandemic I had high hopes that I would be able to dash off episodes in a manner of minutes and spend my days drinking DC Brau beer in a hammock. The reality is that because I decided to “buck convention” in webcomics and “kick it old school” I set myself up for around 20 hours of labor for each episode, start to finish. That, my friends, is a part time job. I am not complaining, but as this season comes to a close, it has given me reason to reflect on how I might make the process go faster for season II.

I do hope that my musical friends appreciated the insertion of the “dramatic chipmunk” music into the last episode. I don’t read music, so I don’t know if it actually says what I wanted it to, but I haven’t had any complaints either, so the internet must get things right occasionally…

This week’s comic is dedicated to George C Parker.

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This week’s comic is highly indebted to my armchair philosophy about capitalism. My idea goes like this: Capitalism is largely getting somebody else to pay more than you did for the thing you own. This works out well for things like oil companies because they simply pump black stuff out of the ground, which is about as close to free as it gets, and sell it for huge profit. Similarly, there are real-estate predators (flippers) that are simply trying to do this same thing. I don’t feel bad for them when the deal turns south. The boys are exploiting a loophole in the philosophy that actually goes back to the Magna Carta: One cannot sell what one does not own. The whole “wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn” con was created by George C Parker around the turn of the twentieth century, sometimes referred to as “the Gilded Age” (which I don’t have to tell you, looks frighteningly like the present day.)

There are only two more episodes to go in this first season of GONOGO, so, once again, I am hoping to solicit feedback about the future of GONOGO. Would a monthly comic slake your thirst for below the bridge humor? Would you actually pay money to receive the comic? Would you prefer I beg for tips on a platform like Patreon? Know anyone who would be interested in mass producing plush dolls of Foggy and Smithson? I am interested in your thoughts. Thanks for reading!

A Very DC Problem

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I have tried to make GONOGO a universal comic strip. That is, it does not need special knowledge of a particular place or people in order to be understood. This week’s comic is still universal, but is very specific to DC. I have, (and lots of people I know) been outbid on houses by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The housing market is just nuts in the DMV. It is actually only borderline crazy that someone would try to buy a spot under a bridge. As for “historic designation status”, it is about as bad in DC as this cartoon makes it out to be. I find it interesting that the people who want to reexamine the past to find its horrors, are not as interested in maintaining a historic home because of the costs associated with it.

This is episode 23 of 26. Which means we are closing in on the end of season one. I am interested in soliciting your feedback about his season and looking forward to the future of GONOGO. I presume that most of you loyal fans follow us on Facebook. Drop a line in the comments if you follow us anywhere else (webtoon, Twitter, Instagram, Tick Toc, Parler, Walmart customer reviews, wherever) Thanks for reading!

MK ULTRA EXTRAVAGANZA

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Eagle eyed readers of GONOGO will be able to spot many references to earlier plot points featured this season in this weeks comic. Diving into the psychedelic horror that would exist in the minds of Foggy and Smithson, I wanted to highlight the paranoid and conspiracy theory driven world we are living in at the moment. I also added in a healthy dose of sixties era psychedelia art references because, lets face it, a little goes a long way, and the Federal Government is going to save money by using up the old stockpile. These last three episodes have been the most popular yet, which makes me wonder what that says about you, dear reader…
We are heading into the home stretch for season one. This was episode 22, and we are ending on episode 26. I am interested in collecting data from you folks about the future of this strip, but I will ask you all more about that in the coming weeks. Thanks again for reading, and as every Youtuber says, “Like and Subscribe!”

Mind Expansion Developments

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The tainted DC water storyline has been the medium for some character development. In a one page strip such as this it becomes difficult to get into the backstory of any of the characters. This week we gain a bit more insight into Smithson’s origins. We know from previous episodes that he was washed down rock creek from his home in the National Zoo during the derecho of 2013. We now learn that he was one of the Smithsonian’s “Simian ambassadors”, and was trotted around various schools and government offices (including the CIA…which is literally just upstream from the Roosevelt Bridge). We can suppose that it was on these field trips (and possible clandestine detours) that he developed the ability to reason and eventually talk (In my mind, a very similar, although less violent, development that Caesar goes through in the reboot of Planet of the Apes).  He did indeed build up an immunity to some of the mind control drugs, but the last panel might hint that he is out of his depth in next weeks episode…

Something in the Water

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Last weeks comic highlights an aspect of DC life that is intimately known by the locals, DC water sucks. Don’t get me wrong, its a lot better than it used to be, but there is always something wrong with it. I used to live in Petworth (part of Northwest DC, East of Rock Creek) in a rowhouse built in 1912. We had a lead line that came into the house from the street, and we routinely had 280 parts per billion of lead in our water (the “safe” limit is around 20). Transgendered fish are common in the Potomac due to birth control pills. Snakeheads have taken over. A well meaning group of rowers took disadvantaged youth out on the Anacostia and, on their FIRST outing, bumped into a floating corpse. But what this weeks comic is alluding to is not these mundane aspects of urban water life, but a particularly DC issue, the secret government agencies that are doing lord-knows-what in our name, and are dumping the refuse of their experiments into the waterways willy-nilly. Have you noticed that nobody talks about fluoridation in the water anymore? Exactly…

Expired Easter Eggs

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Happy belated Easter, loyal GONOGO fans! Last weeks episode was yet another attempt to capitalize on a holiday in the publication schedule. Because of the time it takes to make this comic, it is hard to be topical. Holidays are known well enough in advance that the least I can do is try to tip my hat towards something I KNOW will be happening regardless of current developments. It doesn’t hurt that the former president (the subject of last weeks comic) is also pretty consistent…

Relaunch of the bi-weekly blog

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GONOGO has returned for the rest of the season, and with new episodes the bi-weekly blog about last weeks episode returns also.

I hope, perhaps in vain, that I could inject a little bit of character development into this “Sunday funnies” style strip. So, this week’s episode turns on the idea that there are many types of Troll, and that Foggy may have a spotty past when it comes to his troll identity. We all live in the age of the internet troll, and GONOGO has not been immune to some of the slings and arrows from the comments section (although they almost always centered around the confederate statue, Col. Magnolia Runsandhyde…I wonder if there is some connection there…) But, as they say, at least they are talking about you…

‘Tis the Season, of Reruns

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We here at GONOGO have decided to take a brief hiatus so that we may properly enjoy the Holiday season. We’re taking this opportunity to let people catch up on the first 13 episodes.

While you can always check previous episodes out on the gonogocomic.com archive, the “reruns” will be posted on Facebook every Thursday through March.

Happy Holidays!

 

Dirty Goldfish Water

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GONOGO is a political cartoon. Not really, though…That is, its not the type of political cartoon that you would find next to an editorial in a newspaper (remember them?) but rather, its a strip that will occasionally dip it toe into the political waters. That metaphor isn’t quite correct either, GONOGO is like the goldfish and politics is like the water. We don’t ever really see the water, but you know its there, and without it the fish wouldn’t be able to breathe. (and I get obsessed about drawing the best plastic castle I can, but that is a different tortured metaphor.) This week’s Episode is one of those comics that lets the water get a little dirty. Like Steven Colbert I try not to say the former President’s name too much, and mentioning his least favored son came very close. But there is no getting around it, I have to make fun of the MAGA crowd. The subversive bit that I hope came across in this episode was the addition of the Abuelita (the little Spanish speaking granny that pummels Smithson). Even though I am making fun of the MAGA folks on the surface, I am also giving a nod to the Latino (I have some friends who bristle at the term Latinex) folks that are often hiding in plain sight. It seems entirely plausible to me that a little non-English speaking granny would be in with a tour group to Washington DC, and that the MAGA tourists would fail to see her. But her superpower is that she can’t be blinded by the Trump name, and sees the emperor has no clothes (or that there is a talking monkey!).  Sometimes it takes someone with a different perspective to see that the water was dirty all along…

For the Record, I am NOT “Q”

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The Facebook algorithm is at it again. Last week’s comic featured the last panel where Foggy states “I am “Q”.”  If you are a human being, you read the comic and find it amusing that the troll claims he is “Q” in order to earn $100. But, if you are a soulless AI you decide that this is an affront to your very purpose in life. Yep, the comic was flagged for “Misrepresentation”. The Facebook AI believed that I was claiming to be “Q”.

So, just to be on the good side of our robot overlords I want to state for the record: I am NOT “Q”. Now, enjoy your comics, humans.

High Water Mark

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This week’s episode had the most “engagement” by the GONOGO fan base in the history of this webcomic. (If you must know, these are the stats according to Facebook: 3764 people saw the comic, 510 did something like click on it, 17 shares and 9 comments) So, what has changed? I blame the Civil War. Yep, the one line “Hero of the War of Northern Aggression” seems to get people’s hackles up. I find it fascinating that the civil war has such a grip on us a century and a half later. Really, GONOGO was making a commentary on the removal of civil war statues (told by the statue’s perspective) and y’all are just stuck on the Civil War itself!

If I would have known about Colonel Runsandhyde’s popularity beforehand, I wouldn’t have “killed him off”. Perhaps he can return in a later episode…at low tide…

The Lost Cause? Try writing a webcomic…

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Readers of GONOGO will hear me say for the millionth time that this comic is written almost a year in advance.  I often bounce ideas off of my father while writing the scripts and it was June of 2020 that I started talking to him about this wacky idea of Confederate statues falling from the bridge. Literally the next week the news was consumed with BLM images of confederate statues coming down. With that kind of lead time I can only hope that the jokes still hold up.

One of the difficulties about this topic for a comic is that it needs to be crystal clear where I stand on the issue. For the record (although I think I did a pretty good job in the comic) I am for pulling the statues down. Allowing The Colonel a voice does perhaps introduce some confusion on that point, but I feel that he is sufficiently ridiculous that pretty much anyone who reads it gets where I stand. My opinions on the Confederacy are pretty straightforward: They were traitors. But, it gets tricky when you consider the average joe conscript, who was essentially forced to fight. I am less in favor of tearing down that sort of monument. It’s that wiggle room that gives me a comedic opening. Our Colonel is known for running away. Does he really deserve to be torn down like the rest of the generals?

Probably….

Mayor McChez Sleeps With the Fillet-O-Fishes

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Avid readers of GONOGO will have followed last weeks strip with glee because we are tying everything together in a nice little bow. Our Private Dick reveals that he is hot on the trail of Mayor McChez and he hints at a wider conspiracy involving the pharmaceutical companies. I am a fan of the film Noir genre, and this series of episodes have tried to hit lots of the tropes. Chinatown is of course a big influence, hence the band-aid on P.I. Remex’s face, and the hints at the greater, unknowable forces at work (Big Pharma…Big Water) No noir parody would be complete without the rapid fire back-and-forth, which figures prominently in this episode (so much so that it breaks with the format of the strip entirely)

This is the penultimate strip before the midseason finale. I hope to take stock and check-in with you loyal readers then to see if you like where things are headed in the comic (and to see exactly how many of you are out there) I would also like to know how you are reading GONOGO? (From GONOGOCOMIC.com, Facebook, Webtoonz, Twitter, etc?)

Noir Detective. Sorry, not Batman

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You may have noticed that the strip is now in black and white. Don’t worry, the painstaking watercolor will be back soon, we just need to solve the mystery presented by GONOGO’s latest character: Bazooka Remex P.I.

I have always been a fan of Noir comics. Not so much for the plot, but for the use of black and white to create drama and mood. In fact, my favorite Batman anthology is “Batman, Black and White” which is a series of short stories where each artist interprets Batman through the black and white lens. Someone once pointed out that artists do best with limitations (mostly because it gives them rules to break) but I truly appreciate the elegance of the project behind Batman, Black and White. The limitations are set out with elegance and economy: Make a short story just using three ingredients: Black, White and Batman.

While Bazooka Remex P.I. is no Batman, he is a hard-boiled noir detective. My hope is that once this set of episodes is done, that we will have an opportunity for him to come back and struggle to solve more mysteries under the Roosevelt Bridge…in Black and White.

A Long Walk, But Worth It.

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One of the books I have read about webcomics reassures the budding creator, “the first hundred comics you write are gonna suck” (or something like that) and that is good advice, because it is true that I have seen a vast improvement in the quality of GONOGO with each passing episode. But the Teapot Rats have been with me since the beginning. I devoted four whole episodes to their shenanigans. In the end I am proud of their payoff. Yeah, you could say that this episode is just a vehicle for a series of Rat-based puns, but to me it is so much more than that. Getting GONOGO’s comedic footing has not been easy (and we are definitely not there yet) but I do feel that the Teapot Rats episodes have moved the needle significantly towards the funny goal, and more importantly, they are the type of thing that I find funny (If I didn’t find them funny I would sincerely need to reevaluate this whole “webcomic” thing) We say goodbye to the Teapot Rats in Episode 10. Only 90 more episodes to go…

Digital Darkness

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Each panel of GONOGO is a hand painted watercolor that is scanned into the computer, with the final comic assembled in Photoshop. The results a kinda wonky at times, but that is a feature not a bug. I dont even use black ink, I use a dark brown for the outlines. (Winsor & Newton Nut Brown, to be precise) It is a far more labor intensive process than what many “Webcomics” artists do. I hope that it’s wonkyness conveys as a “handmade” look and not a lack of skill (although I am increasing my skill in every comic I make) This choice, of course, has consequences. The new format for webcomics is that they are being read on phones and not PC screens. Many webcomics capitalize on this and abandon the left-to-right-page format in favor of a vertical scroll. Although this looks great on a phone, I just cant seem to wrap my head around how this format would look printed. And yes, I realize that it may never be printed (a kid can dream, cant he?) but I feel like abandoning the format that we all grew up with to accommodate a platform that has only been around for about a decade is not “on brand” for GONOGO.

I am not such a luddite that I am against using photoshop wizardry when needed. In this weeks comic I needed to depict the rats in the dark, so instead of doing a very risky watercolor wash over the finished artwork, I simply applied a blue/purple gradient in Photoshop. The result does have a more “digital” look than the rest of the comic, but I just chalk that up to the director using “special effects” to tell the story.

Breaking in and Breaking Out

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This episode of GONOGO was a bit of a revelation for me. Up to this point in the first “season” all of the events happen under the Roosevelt Bridge. At the time I could see that this might become a bit limiting if the comic were to continue for several years. The idea that the Teapot Rats could tell us their origin story in flashback gave me the license to take the story to a different locale (even if it was just 10 blocks away to the White House) and it gave me the opportunity to draw something else besides the underside of a Bridge. Also, I dearly love a Heist Movie. I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have rats put on ski masks and gather round a floorplan of the White House.

Too Close, Too Soon?

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I am as shocked as anyone that the plot line where the Teapot Rats “break into the white house” would become so…close to reality. In fact, the layers of scandal alluded to (Warren Harding, Teapot Dome, Tea-Party Crackpots, The Boston Tea Party and the Radical Right) seem rather quaint, in retrospect. Even the fact that I was able to work in two puns seems like it is not enough somehow. I have been working on the second half of season 1 lately and I can assure you that I am learning from the events of last year. I suppose the fortunate thing, now that we are returning to less scandal filled times, is that I won’t have nearly as many “accidentally relevant” moments…we can all hope.

Rats.

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As I have mentioned before, the comic is created about 8 to 12 months before it is published. One of the storylines that has been in the works from the beginning was that of the Teapot Rats. Of course, like Mayor McChez, these little guys are a metaphor. They are a representation of a certain segment of society that, let’s just say, some people find deplorable…

But what was once quirky and cute has lately become quite sinister. The insurrection of Jan 6th has created an atmosphere where calling these people rats is too kind. They are traitors and fascists. Full Stop. If January 6th had happened when I was coming up with this storyline, there would have been a completely different comic.

So, having said that, I would like you to take in the next few GONOGO comics through a nostalgic lens. Cast your mind back to the benign loonies of the Obama era’s “Tea Party”. These are the wacko conspiracy theorists of the X-files saying, “The truth is out there”, not today’s Q-Anon folks who say “There is no truth”. After all, there are plenty of sympathetic rat characters out there (Chuck E. Cheese comes to mind) and there are plenty of sympathetic kooks out there (Kanye West for example) but where you will get no sympathy from me is if you support the insurrection of Jan 6th, those people don’t even deserve to be called rats.

GONOGO Cheeseburger TO GO

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Our Buoyant Mayor and the yellow freezer of his dreams

And so, as mysteriously as he arrived, Mayor McChez departs…stage left. It is unclear if the all-beef-patty of politics will ever answer for his crimes. I suppose if we take the idea that he is a metaphor for events happening around us, then it is absolutely plausible that he will get off scot-free. He’ll probably even be able to block any commission formed to investigate his crimes…

We must also bid adieu to another character that has been with us from the start: The freezer filled with expired boner pills and cash. We never really got a chance to say goodbye…

You Could Have it Your Way, If He Were Burger King.

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Mayor McChez falls into water
A Cheeseburger Politician is Rarely on Solid Footing…

I started this comic as a way to deal with the pandemic. Most of the first part of “Season 1 A” was written and drawn about a year ago. Back then, if you can remember that far, we had a President that wasn’t very good. I created our beloved “Mayor McChez” as a way to deal with that guy. I know it’s a bit juvenile, but to my way of thinking, Mayor McChez fits perfectly as a stand in for the former president. His suit is flashy and ill-fitting, he signals his importance by wearing a goddamn sash that announces his title and he has a giant cheeseburger for a face. He has the sorta face that begs the question, who voted for this guy?

Of course, the root of all evil in politics is not just one bun-faced idiot, it’s money; which is why it’s only natural that the freezer full of expired boner pills and CA$H belongs to this guy.  This episode ends with him falling into the Potomac, facing an uncertain fate. I suppose that was my way of coping with the last guy in office…that is, if I draw it, maybe it will come true…

 

Two All Beef Patties of “NOPE”

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Mayor McChez stumps for votes under the Roosevelt Bridge

The bots may have won this round. Facebook has denied me the ability to advertise this week’s cartoon, for nebulous reasons, but I suspect it’s because I have the words “Republican” and “Asinine” in the same sentence. Its funny that the week I get blocked is the same week that the former President gets blocked by Facebook. I have been aspiring to have this little satiric cartoon be “politics lite” because it is part of my lived experience here in DC. That is, while politics is ever present in my life, it is not the main focus. There are, however, certain universal truths, like putting “Republican” and “Asinine” in the same sentence.

 

Fortunately there are things that the bots simply wont catch. I doubt that they have seen the commercial with the gorilla and the Samsonite luggage from the 80’s. The derecho of 2013? Or my universal metaphor for a corrupt politician, Mayor McChez. Mr. Mayor is the first outside character to be introduced in the GONOGO Multiverse. How can you not love a politician with a cheeseburger for a face? We will be seeing some more of him in the coming episodes, but rest assured he’s not moving in under the bridge with the boys, he’s going to be long gone before the bots catch on….

A Bridge, a Troll and a Monkey

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Foggy and Smithson under Roosevelt bridge
Foggy and Smithson in their natural habitat, under the Roosevelt Bridge

Back again with a brief discussion of last week’s Episode (#2)

This project was many years in the making, which means some of the jokes were first written down a long time ago. Fortunately, bashing Republicans seems to be a perennial punchline, who knew it would be so very true today? Also, because this comic takes a bit of time to make (its drawn and watercolored by hand) the jokes and ideas need to be able to land as far as eight months into the future. The idea of a Troll and Monkey living under the Roosevelt bridge is actually one of the elements that has survived from the very beginning. The first element was, in fact, the bridge. I have worked in Arlington and lived in DC for over twenty years, and I often cross this bridge during my commute. It not only connects Virginia and DC, but it also flies over Roosevelt Island, Federal parkland in the middle of the Potomac. I wanted to speak to characters that were in DC but not an actual part of the DC political scene (that is, I didn’t want to do a straight-up political cartoon, nor did I want something along the lines of Doonesbury) In this “no-mans-land” underneath the Roosevelt bridge give the characters the ability to travel between worlds without going anywhere.

If you have a bridge, you need a Troll. Foggy Bottom is just the Troll for the job. He’s named after the neighborhood just south of the bridge. I think today we encounter Trolls more often than they ever did in ancient times. I like the idea that he is not up to speed with the times, he doesn’t have a computer, and he seems powerless to enforce tolls for crossing his bridge.

Foggy is so bad at being a Troll that he even has a companion (trolls usually being solitary creatures). Smithson is a monkey. He is named after the founder of the Smithsonian, James Smithson. We will get into his past a bit more in the coming episodes, but for now all you need to know is that he is the erudite counterpoint to the brusque and uncouth troll.

If you have something you’d like to add or ask a question about GONOGO, please visit the Facebook page for GONOGO 

Tune in next week for Episode 3!

If it’s Thursday, this must be GONOGO

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Detail of Episode I GONOGO
Detail from Episode 1. Foggy and Smithson sitting under the Roosevelt Bridge

Welcome back to GONOGO. On Thursdays between comic postings I am going to feature some commentary about the previous week’s comic.

First, let me introduce myself, I am Jared Davis. I’m an artist, painter, set designer and occasional “Elvis” living in Washington DC. Last year, during the darkest days of Quarantine, I decided that the world needed another webcomic. So, I dusted off some of my old drawings that were rattling around in some pocket sketchbooks, and began to “get serious” about this comic thing. I  created some comics back when I was in high school. Of note was Sign of the Times, which was a comic critiquing the draconian sign ordinances in Novi, Michigan that was published in the Novi rotary newsletter….I know, once a cartoonist has reached such great heights, its only downhill from there.

In the intervening decades I did a lot of painting, and a bit of comedy writing (mostly for Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club) and it took a global pandemic to get me to realize that I could “put the chocolate in the peanut butter”, so to speak. The nature of comics has changed in the past few decades. When I was creating Sign of the Times, there were gatekeepers and barriers to entry (like the editor of the Novi Rotary Club newsletter) but those barriers no longer exist in the brave new world of webcomics. Aside from barrier smashing, the actual way comics are made has changed. In the early Nineties, I was drawing with India ink on Bristol board and then sending it out to be photographed. Today, I modestly submit, that I am a Photoshop wizard. The kind of comic I wish to present has been greatly colored by the changes in the technological landscape. To be honest, I have been struggling with these changes, and I hope that you, dear reader, will come on the journey with me. These first few episodes are going to be a bit wobbly (Have you ever gone back and read any of the early Garfield? Those drawings of Garfield represent the Neanderthal state in the evolution of the Garfield strip)  so I hope you will indulge me as GONOGO finds its comedic footing over the next season or two.

Now that we have introductions out of the way, I am looking forward to the next blog post (after Episode 2, on April 22) where we can discuss the development of your newest favorite Troll and Monkey duo: Foggy Bottom and Smithson.

GONOGO is “GO”!

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I am super exited to announce that the GONOGO launch date has finally arrived! Launching this webcomic thing has been an obsession of mine during the entire pandemic, and it is, frankly, a relief to see it up “in lights”.  A webcomic about getting to know these two guys (a Troll and a Monkey) who live under the Roosevelt Bridge (which runs over the Potomac between Virginia and DC) has been idea that I have been kicking around for almost a decade, it simply took a global pandemic to make it happen.  It’s going to be the Diet Pepsi of political cartoons…not the high fructose politics of Doonsbury, but more fattening than Garfield (did I mention that strained metaphor is “on brand” for GONOGO?).

The plan for this first season is to post a new comic every other Thursday for the next year.  Alternating Thursdays will feature a blog post about the previous week’s comic. Bottom line, check back Thursdays for new stuff.  I will be the first to admit that I am not tech savvy, but the web gurus (Jason! Brian!) tell me that you can subscribe to GONOGO via the RSS feed button above, or by following us on Facebook and Instagram.

I want to close this intro by calling out my wife, Kate and my Father, Clark for supporting this project, getting us to today where we get to break the champagne bottle across the GONOGO hull! (insert catchphrase from episode 12 here) — Jared