One Happy Camper!

Here is an idea I have had for quite a few years now. Many of the short stories that I’ve written for Suits and Guarders are between 4 and 10 comic gags before the story wraps up, but now I am considering a much longer story. I am still not entirely sure as to how long the story will be. The premise for this story will be built around the lifeguards temporarily leaving the city pool to work at a mountain lake over the summer. I am also considering that they win a talent show contest and the prize is the opportunity to go away to this lake camp to work. Ellen is driven to win this competition because this is the same camp of her childhood. The story will have several efforts by the lifeguards to come up with ideas for winning the contest like forming an a cappella group, a garage band and perhaps even a comedy skit. After much contemplation and work, they manage to pull through, and Ellen gets to revisit her summer memories.

The lifeguards of "Suits and Guarders" harmonize on the pool deck. This is a Norman Rockwell tribute too.

There are a long list of things that needs to be figured out like the format of the cartoon and the flow itself. For the last three years, I have done my work on 9x12 Bristol Board in landscape view which works well for comics but if I switch to making a graphic novel, I may need to consider rotating to a portrait view and perhaps even moving to a larger scale. Oh, and of course, then I have to consider scanning something that is in a larger format. Because a true graphic novel is vague in description, I don’t plan on changing the flow of the cartoon. It will still have the typical punchline and gag humor to it and the same sweet charm that it has. One of the upsides to doing a webcomic that isn’t syndicated is that you have free reign in choosing the size comic you want, portrait or landscape. The downside is later you may have to change it.

The inspiration to write about camping stemmed from taking a short camping trip every year with a youth group I was in many years back. My brother and I always looked forward to it, because there were numerous shenanigans that took place along with a few pranks. I was one happy camper! On this note, I invite all of my readers to share with me some of your fondest memories that you have from summer camp. It would be great fun to see how many I can include in the story.