YO! This is the postmortem for RATBASTERDZ 3: STRAW DUCKS.

I started writing these as a way to reflect and bookend the production of each episode, hopefully you will get something out of it too. You can read the first two here: 1 2

And support the show on Patreon here! If you enjoy this kind of BTS stuff or my longwinded writing, I do that EVERY FUCKIN MONTH on there! 

STORY

Going into the batch we wrote after episode one, a “Deacon episode” was something I considered essential. I’d always loved the character and wanted to develop more of him now that we had him established. He felt like the breakout star to me, in part due to how much of a departure he is from the rest of the cast, and how much character @Gianni lent to his performance. 

Peter (@AmazinLarry) has sent me random ideas for RB episodes and scenarios for years now, often insane or bizarre, as a joke. One he sent me was “Deacon Duck SWATs himself so he can capture the CIA”, which I liked enough to save. When we wrapped episode 1, Pat (@pjorg) and I were discussing what we wanted to do next, and that one immediately stuck out to me as being what felt like the perfect Deacon episode. 

I’ve talked in previous writeups about RB being about getting back to the heart of why I started making toons. Back in the day Peter and I wrote most of my cartoons together, and he voiced pretty much everything I made too. I think he is genuinely one of the funniest people alive, his humor is very distinctly his own. With the episode concept being his, and with how many ideas he was sending me for the show, it seemed natural to bring him on as the third writer. This was cool because, starting with this batch, I got to work with the only two guys I’ve ever seriously written cartoons with together on the same project. 

A big thing for me is preserving the individual voices of the animators in the cartoon– I think in this episode we saw that with the writing too. @Nihaho said something to the effect of “I feel like I’m animating all the shots Peter wrote”-- and I wasn’t conscious of that, but he was right! I think you can kinda tell who wrote which parts– Peter’s voice is a lot more silly/absurdist, Patrick’s is a lot more into concise dialogue driven comedy/structure, and I’m a lot more character/environment driven & into the bigger picture and theme. (Pat’s words not mine!) 

The entire first draft was scripted by Peter, and other than the ending there wasn’t too much we changed, other than punching up gags here and there or injecting new things when it came to visuals. This is the only episode that wasn’t my idea at its inception, so I asked Peter to write a little bit about the first draft: 

Deacon was obviously the focus of the episode given the concept, but I knew I had to get the three main boys involved in this and give them all their own little moments. So I worked from the middle out. I knew the meat of the episode would be Deacon killing federal agents, and there was already an established idea that each episode would have a segment set to music, so that would be the core that I worked backwards and forwards from. 

I feel proud for nailing down the beginning and all the set-up from basically the first draft, save for some trimming on the Casteneda bit. Some personal highlights include Deacon having a Santa Claus inflatable in his front passenger seat, inspired by my boss at the time, and Rodney’s awe over Deacon’s crappy car and crappy house. I think highlighting the idea that these characters are young and impressed by a “cool” adult hanging out with them was very funny to me, especially contrasted with the grim situation. 

To the point about Santa– we wanted that scene to mirror the car-ride from the first episode, but with its own distinct uncomfortable feeling to it, like riding in the car with a coworker you barely know. I was specifically thinking of when I had to do this at an old retail job and how fucked the inside of my manager’s car was.

Another specific reference point I gave to @plainstupidmoron when he was writing the song on Deacon’s radio was being driven around NYC by this guy I knew from college. He had a chip on his shoulder about being at art school and started larping as a blue collar guy. It was funny. He listened to Johnny Cash the whole time as I sat in the back in silence. There was something very specifically hilarious to me about this that I wanted to capture.

Jacob did a great writeup of how he wrote the song too, which you can check out here! 

The ending took some refinement and back and forth with me, Jon and Pat. I knew it had to be an anticlimax and have some kind of deus ex machina so nothing is radically altered. At first I had Deacon’s house open up and he flies off in a Mad Max styled gyro-copter, which was rightfully deemed too silly. 

We wanted to provide a little more motivation for Deacon, so we came up with the idea of the hostage negotiator being his estranged brother, and all of this serving as an over-escalation of a petty feud from decades ago. It couldn't be any sort of legitimate grievance– it had to be something so inane that only a psycho like Deacon would fixate on it for so long. 

For a while we had a flashback sequence of Deacon going to war and coming home to find his mag stash disrupted. I wanted this to provide some backstory on Deacon, and thought it left room for a lot of fun visuals of what he looked like before he got his eyes fucked up, him in the war, etc. I randomly saw this awesome piece by @Ricksteubens and contacted him to illustrate this montage, having both done detailed military stuff and pinups he seemed like the perfect fit. It ended up getting cut pretty early though– in the board phase I found that any time this flashback started my brain would turn off. It disrupted the pacing pretty significantly. We had the high energy chaos of the montage, built a steady tension, then derailed it only to try and loop back around to that same tension. 

At the end I reached back out to Rick to do the credits sequence, which was a cool full-circle moment where we finally got to realize these early visual ideas.

Originally Deacon’s brother reacted logically to the mag reveal– “are you fucking crazy?”. Upon cutting the flashback, we realized it’s much funnier to continue playing it straight– him knowing EXACTLY what it's in reference to implies there's a history we don't even know about, that the straight man in the situation is actually operating at the same level of psychosis. To the former point, so much of good cartooning is the details you leave out– the more movies I make, the more conscious of that I am in the writing process as well. 

DESIGN/INSPIRATION

I wanted their confrontation to lean into the self-seriousness of a war movie– tonally, I felt that would really make it “Deacon’s episode”. We’re stepping into his world and frame of mind. Plus, there’s something I’ve always found funny about something very stupid being presented with intensity. Street Fighter Chode has been a favorite flash since it came out– something I always loved about it was the constant tonal whiplash between complete non-sequitur shock absurdity to this very gritty dramatic narrative of the two tankmen. I didn’t realize this was an influence until writing this out LOL.

I watched a lot of vigilante and war movies for inspiration. Deacon’s a Vietnam vet, and I wanted to channel that in the montage as if he were reliving it. In retrospect I wish I had watched some gorey splatterfest movies instead, I think that the cartoon’s montage ended up feeling way more like a horror movie. However, I think there’s something more true to what a character like Deacon would think is “badass” gained from movies like “Death Wish” and “Dirty Harry”-- so ultimately, it all worked out. The episode title, “Straw Ducks” is a reference to the movie Straw Dogs. An early writer’s note was that Deacon had tons of “home-alone style traps”. Home Alone is essentially Straw Dogs 4 Kidz, and I had just watched the latter in my batch of inspiration movies, so it stuck.

The things that inspired you to start creating never truly leave you, for better or worse. X-Men Origins came out when I was 11, and it was my favorite movie. I watched it more than anyone ever should. I hadn’t seen this film in a decade. About a year ago, I got into a discussion about what defines a “favorite” movie– so I went back to watch the shit I loved as a kid. When I saw this scene I screamed.

The original iteration of Deacon’s line was “You don’t call, you don’t answer my emails, how else am I supposed to get your attention?”. 

Having not seen or thought about this movie in a decade, a copy of that line appeared in the script and went unnoticed for a year. It’s fucking crazy how your subconscious works– this crappy movie is a part of my creative DNA forever because of my dumb kid self! The worst part is that I was purposefully trying to avoid any Liquid Snake dialogue…and somehow stumbled into Sabretooth and Wolverine??? There’s something interesting about it though– I’ve always considered the project a sendup of what inspired me to create to begin with. When you hear this it’s through a romanticized lens of the formative stuff being inspiring and awesome, but an authentic interpretation would have to include the stuff that sucks, too.

I wanted Deacon’s home to be distinctly southern– A shotgun house, one long hallway. I thought this would not only make it specific, but be the most effective way to frame the action and emphasize the horror. Something I noticed about the south is that you see a lot of overgrowth bleeding onto the homes themselves, which I've never really seen elsewhere, so I made sure to include that. We made sure there were lots of holes and scrapes inside to make it really feel like a guy with a hook for a hand had been living there. Something that got lost along the way though was the idea of the TV remote having dozens of holes poked through it! The spit wall and fetus jar in Deacon’s basement are both references to real stories friends had told me that always stuck with me as being particularly deranged.

Deacon’s brother started off by trying to make him visibly related, but more “put-together”. In trying to contrast Deacon’s character, I was trying to channel my great uncle, honestly– the vibe of a southern guy that moved north and looks back with a mixed sort of shame and detachment, but the accent is still there and undeniable. Eventually I had the idea to invert some of Deacon’s design elements in the same way. Deacon’s cranium leans backwards, his leans forwards…deacon’s bill is wider at the top, his is thinner, etc.

In early 2023 I saw Fox in Space for the first time, and immediately thought holy shit, his voice is perfect. It’s been next to impossible to find VAs with authentic southern accents, you only find caricatures. I could tell Fred’s was, while subtle, real. He has grit to his voice that mirrored Deacon’s perfectly, and his performance really made the character. Around the time we wrote the episode I was going through a pretty dark patch, and Fox in Space 2 was about the only thing that I found genuinely inspiring. Getting to collaborate with someone who I believe is making some of the most interesting and creative work in animation right now was a huge privilege. 

Once we had the Lieutenant in the script, I had started designing him as a rat, but it wasn’t working. Then I remembered Lt. Fubie! In my original iteration of RB created for college, I had a duo of Frog cops as one of the foils of the series. I wasn’t taking the idea seriously at the time, and I named the big one “Lt. Fubie” after @TheEvaluh’s old skype name. I had always liked his design and silly name, and thought it’d be fun to get Kevin on board to do a little cameo voice. From there I decided to make the CIA agents all frogs too to tie them together visually. 

PRODUCTION 

Straw Ducks, along with Ep 2, were initially experiments in limited animation. While Ep 2 was about re-learning flash and animating with fewer drawings, Straw Ducks was very much about mirroring anime structure from the ground up. Not to retread the same ground as the last writeup, but I had Evangelion on the brain at the time– Something I was conscious of was how much they focus on a background, creative angle or close-up while the characters speak to limit movement. I went through all of Evangelion around this time and screen grabbed all the background-forward compositions from the show, and spent some time studying those. Several of the backgrounds on this one began as adaptations of the basic underlying structure of Evangelion compositions. 

An example of this is the scene right after the montage, the backgrounds of the dead frogs. This was a direct homage to when Unit 03 gets massacred, and I tried to mirror the general composition and timing of the cuts. I first watched that scene in high school and it was one of the craziest things I had ever seen, all these years later I still find it chilling. Though obviously RB isn’t serious– I wanted to evoke the same general feeling and rhythm of that segment, this sort of empty aftermath of horror. 

Towards the end of Ep 2/the beginning of Ep 3 I started to find my footing with my new flash pipeline. Originally there was a series of steps to get the look I wanted– pen firmness cranked up, drawing slow/zoomed out, etc. The more I did this though, I found it largely impractical. I eventually found a rhythm of sketching how I normally do, with the firmness cranked all the way up and the smoothing down. I already bear down pretty heavily and draw quite messy– so in Flash I’ll throw down more ink than I think I need to, and then go in with the eraser and “chisel” things, which gives it a more organic, gritty texture. 

In line with the “arrows at a target” analogy from my last writeup, I started making a conscious attempt to combat my inner perfectionist here. Certain inbetweens would end up sloppier than I’m comfortable with, and I’d have the impulse to perfect it. Instead I’d catch myself and move on. Trying to embrace the “fuck it, let’s see what happens” mentality. Maybe the shot will suck, and maybe it’ll look good, maybe because it’s sloppy, it’ll be more interesting! From my perspective at least, if you want something technically perfect and consistent, AI will be there in two years. I think our role in response to this is to focus on channeling what makes our work innately human– embracing imperfection and making spontaneous creative choices.

Another cool full circle moment was collabing with @Mindchamber– growing up on NG, his work had always been an inspiration. On this project I’d come to realize how influential With My Mind’s Madness was-- I used to watch it daily back when it dropped, and it really imprinted on me aesthetically. Especially back then, you never saw dudes going gritty in flash, it always stuck out to me as being something special. His work on the montage knocked me dead and brought so much personality– him, @Jaime-R and @Emrox all on the same segment was an all-star lineup of guys that push Flash to its limits! 

MONTAGE

Something that is important to me in Ratbasterdz is balancing the comedy/character complexity of dialogue-driven shows, but still thinking visually and prioritizing the unique medium we work in. We start with a script-- a process that can make things visually uninteresting if you aren’t careful. As such, I purposefully leave segments vague to leave room for visual improvisation. The entire montage segment was largely blank, and was something I figured out naturally during boarding. Boiling the frog’s face with the pot of water was a direct homage to Straw Dogs, and the first one I knew I wanted to include. With the shots Jaime ended up animating, I was thinking Superjail– letting the hyperviolence play out with no cutting. I wanted to lean into that more, but with how fast the montage song was going, I felt like having too many held cuts disrupted the rhythm. 

That rhythm itself was its own unique part of this episode– I wanted this soundtrack to be based in grind/mathcore, thinking the chaos would best fit Deacon’s character. Go watch a good mathcore band, it’s like a ritual. Weird time signature shifts, abrupt changes midway through complex riffs, psychotic drumming, all played with a visceral level of intensity. You rarely get a chance to breathe or catch a melody. I tried to mirror that rhythm in the animation– long cuts, short cuts, some extremely well animated, some that are loops of 2 or 3 frames, all interspersed between each other matching the cacophony of the music. 

After seeing how many backgrounds were necessary for the cartoon, @Shufflehound made a great point– it wouldn’t make sense to put the same level of work into every montage BG, as the majority are only on screen for a fraction of a second. He suggested having them as color splashes instead. This idea really stuck with me– we’d have the layouts loose, skip the inks, and go straight into abstract painting, knocking the backgrounds out in half the time.

I wanted this segment to look radically different, and spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to do here– the entire length of the production. Bits and pieces came together over time. I got a bunch of comics last summer– Jhonen, Crumb, Weirdo Comix, Ted McKeever, and Wayshak. I realized there was sort of a singular through-line aesthetically I was resonating with– as I studied the inks, the idea of the montage being stark, textural B/W came to mind. Harvey had already done a color splash with black and red to illustrate his idea, and it started coming together. 

I decided on the general look, but the rest was a mystery. At first I thought about ripping an underground comix inking style, doing crazy German expressionist style compositions. That seemed too plain though. Photo-collage mixed with digital ink and paint came to mind, making it like a surreal hellworld. That wasn’t clicking either though. Nothing felt chaotic or insane enough. I decided to let it simmer.

Later I decided to paint them all traditionally. I’d print the layouts, paint over top of them, and then scan them back in. I wanted it to look like the BGs in old W-P-S or Alfred flashes– maybe because I saw those very young, but there’s always been something that feels scary about these traditional paintings crunched down into flash. It has a very unique atmosphere. I got a bunch of cheap paints, sponges, toothbrushes, palette knives, etc…and then didn’t do anything with them for months! 

I hadn’t painted in years, and was never much of a fan, so I kept dragging my feet. Eventually I sat down and spent a couple hours fucking with it. I immediately realized that doing these traditionally, even as sloppy as I intended, was going to take longer than it would be to just do backgrounds the normal way :P 

Back to the drawing board. I didn’t really know what I was going to do. At this point I had started booking the premiere show, and with the deadline approaching and only a vague idea of what this segment was going to look like, I started sweating. 

While talking about it to Marty, he said something to the effect of “Yeah, textural stuff is harder than it looks if you don’t have a lot of experience. Say, hasn’t @Thejanitor9k done some of that stuff before?” – So I reached out to Sean, with the idea that he’d paint a couple large, textural splatter canvases in black and red, we’d scan them in, I’d cut them up digitally, and throw some digital ink and paint over top of them. 

I had no idea how this was going to work, I just started fucking around. I’d cut out parts of the canvas PNGs and paste them over top of the layouts, using a different part of the canvas for each individual “plane” of the room. I let each one evolve spontaneously. I’d chisel lines with a textured ink brush and eraser where I felt it needed it, splatter digital paints and textures, then digitally paint in shadows/highlights where necessary. I found a sort of pipeline with it eventually, but I did each one a little bit differently. 

My initial attempts at painting ended up not being a total waste either– I had several sheets of paper I had wiped my brush on or used to mix colors that I scanned in too. There was one page in particular that had these really organic looking brush strokes in black that sort of looked like grass– this scene in particular, I literally just scanned that page in, inverted the colors and cranked the contrast, and it became the ground plane. 

This ended up being the most fun part of the process. This was at the end, when I was terribly burnt out and sick of working on it– and suddenly, it all became really fun and exciting again. What I learned from this is that if you keep things intentionally vague, it can kind of reignite the “spark”-- it introduced an unexpected series of creative problems to solve, which in turn made something I’d seen a million times over into something that was actively engaging again. This is how the puppets and the live action montage from Jay’s Day happened, and I’m realizing that I think oftentimes that’s the strongest stuff. I want to try integrating this into my process more going forward. Animation is so slow and repetitive that often you’ll end up getting into a sort of routine on a large project– and while that’s kind of a necessity for finishing more than 3 cartoons before you die, there’s safety in that. Fundamentally it’ll get done in a reasonable timeframe and look solid. But safe art is boring! I look back at some of my favorite shots from all of RB, and most of them have some spontaneous thing I decided to add in the moment. Not every shot can be that of course, but something I definitely want to keep working towards!

After I had gotten into the rhythm of these, Marty saw them and had an idea– the whole idea of textured BGs for animation comes from an era where they didn’t have the capability of making the textures “live”. He’s been doing all sorts of crazy compositing in flash over the past few years, and called me to pitch the idea of trying that in the montage. I was immediately down, though terrified because the premiere was four to five weeks out at this point. Marty’s a fucking legend for this, honestly. He comped nearly every montage shot while fighting two similar work deadlines and getting sick. Real MVP shit. 

He recorded a little video on how we did that part if you want to listen to us talk about that!

PRODUCTION CHALLENGES

Production on this one was probably the biggest challenge in Ratbasterdz thus far. It was a cocktail of unfortunate timings that left me pretty terribly burnt out.

It was great to enter full production on episode 3 with a good chunk already finished. However, I saw the biggest downside to the “chainsmoking” method– it exacerbates the typical cartoon cycle. In my experience, you enter a project with a ton of enthusiasm, ride the high of the “newness” down to the end, where you find yourself sick of it. By the time I had entered full production, I’d already been living with this cartoon for well over a year. I hit the ‘sick of it” point in the middle of the episode, which heavily contributed to the intense burnout I experienced with the cartoon following. This was something completely foreign to me-- I'd never felt "burnout", I'd never not wanted to be making art all the time.

After Jay’s Day wrapped and I moved my priority to this one, I took a new job in a new career. While I knew that long term this was going to offer a better quality of life and allow me time and flexibility to work on Ratbasterdz, the first few months were an uphill battle. August-December I was working pretty much every weekend and most nights, and during the days I was always overwhelmed and underprepared. 

Reasonable people would have taken a break from the cartoon for a bit while they got their bearings, but I am stubborn. My creative work is something I’ve always worked on compulsively, until I finish a project I don’t allow myself to do much else. The thought of the cartoon hitting stagnation made me feel ill. With the Patreon, I felt a new sense of responsibility and pressure I had never felt previously. The thought of letting anyone down or taking too long gnawed at me a lot. 

I’d force myself to work on it in my limited free time or lunch breaks even when my heart wasn’t in it. It felt like I never got to enter “the zone” with anything. I was more hands-off than I wanted to be and things slipped through the cracks. What was originally my favorite episode had turned into something I had started to resent. I started to think of my passion project as another set of responsibilities. I realized, this is how it happens– these little slips are what erode the foundation. Nobody sets out to make shitty art– they start making minute, even unconscious compromises that lead to a gradual degradation. 

It felt like one hurdle after another was popping up on the life front as these months droned on. The stress and lack of rest started exacerbating a lot of health problems, physical and mental. I was bordering on collapse. I reached out to a friend I had bonded with over similar circumstances around this time, only to find he was being institutionalized. He gave me some advice-- and I realized I could keep doing things the way I always have and lose it, or make some changes.

The creative process parallels life, which is part of why I find creative work compelling. You experience ups and downs, and in order to fully appreciate the “ups,” you have to live through the “downs.” The contrast is necessary.

For a long time I’ve approached art with the mentality that discipline trumps motivation. Creating anything meaningful takes a lot of hours that aren’t necessarily enjoyable. But, the momentary sacrifice culminates in something more fulfilling than the sum of its parts. I still believe this is essential advice for all artists, but I adhered to this too dogmatically. Bluntly, I had conflated the majority of my value as an artist to my productivity alone. I’ve always looked at creativity as a spiritual practice– translating abstract thoughts/feelings into something tangible that other people can interface with. I had also somehow totally neglected that aspect of it. You have to make room for the work to be what it’s going to be. Sometimes that means grinding through the tedium necessary to complete your passion project. Other times, it means channeling that fleeting motivation into something. Whether that’s a spontaneous addition to the bigger project, or painting some weird unrelated idea you had on a whim. 

I realized how much I’d been ignoring true creativity. I never drew unless it was for RB or a commission. Even when I had the energy I’d shut it down, thinking it was “wasted time” because it wasn’t in service of this larger goal. I’d become so intensely disciplined that it had become a disservice to the work itself. It culminated in work I wasn’t proud of, a version of the cartoon that was less “true” to what it was supposed to be. Stuff I ended up having to go back later to redo or fine-tune. I was so focused on finishing the episode that I had totally lost sight of enjoying the process.

I’ve since been making a conscious effort to find balance. I took some time off from the cartoon, and when I returned to it, I made a point not to work on it every single day. I started letting my animation take as long as it needed to be. I’ve made time to read, write, and began keeping a proper sketchbook for the first time in years. Drawing what I want when I want. It’s been revitalizing, I feel like I’ve reconnected with the heart of why I like making art. It's something I'm still working to figure out daily.

PREMIERE

I thought booking the last premiere was a challenge but this one was substantially more so. 

Music scenes shift, grow and evolve in such short spans of time. A lot of the smaller spots that would have taken a shot on us weren’t an option anymore. I think by the end I had reached out to something like 15 venues, ranging from established venues to extremely DIY spaces, even in neighboring cities.

On a whim I bothered Snug a second time, and they were willing to give us a Friday. I immediately said yes and started working on a lineup.

Snug’s a lot less DIY than spots we’ve worked at previously, and Charlotte’s a much more popular city to play in since the first episode. Suddenly everything had this “business” element I had never run into before. It was a struggle, and for two months I was half-expecting everything to fall through at any moment. 

We were working on finishing the cartoon up until two nights before the show. In the past, we finished the episodes a couple weeks out, so I had time leading up to the show to make finishing touches and relax. This time there was a week straight where I was going to bed with stinging stress headaches. The night before the show I hardly slept, it felt like the weight of the past eight months crashed down on me at once. But, true to the analogy I made earlier about ups and downs in life and art, the show was an all-time highlight. 

Every time I start booking a show I think “I’m never doing this again”, and by the end, I can’t wait for the next one. These gigs always live on in my memory as some of the best times of my life. Bringing together like-minded artists and seeing my favorite bands with great friends, I really can’t imagine anything better. It's surreal and very special to see so many people I care about, from all different walks of life, all in the same space– friends from childhood, college, my local music scene, and 10+ years of homies I've met through NG. 

As far as the events go, it’s never looked or sounded better. If we’re to go off tickets, there were triple the amount of people than the first show. I’ve been floored to see how much this thing has grown. With the first gig, I thought it was crazy that a handful of friends were traveling from out of town for it. Seeing how much of the crowd was composed of people that travelled specifically for the event, and how far so many of them came this time around, was really insane.

Violent End closing out the night after being the first band to join the Episode 1 bill back in 2022 was a perfect bookend and really felt so special. I’ve seen VE a lot, and that was my favorite set I’ve caught from them. Seeing how much they’ve grown as a band alongside the RB shows themselves was so fucking cool. Such crazy energy from everyone there, the entire thing felt like a dream.

Seeing how much the NG community fucks with RB means more than I can really express. It’s still something I find hard to process that people are willing to travel for these. I really appreciate this site and community for actually giving a shit about this kind of thing. What this site represents is important, and it's important we never take it for granted.

NG attendance list: 

@moonslop @amazinlarry @spinalpalm @brewster @joshua @croody @nihaho @peekaywalsh @sveekins @findoesnothing @ghost-bat @deadlycomics @thejanitor9k @plainstupidmoron @hannahdaigle @puppetology @iejomaflo @droid @poptaffy @brandybuizel @littlbox @alexmigo @jaster @mikelzng @coledawg @cokenutz @eckslol @nubcat @kowproductions @cchilab @squirm0 @roxas853

During some of the lowest points of the past year I’ve continually found myself coming back to the music and words of Ian Mackaye. I’ve been a fan since high school, but the older I get the more I understand why he is the realest to ever do it. 

He once said “The crowd is what makes it a show. Without you showing up, it’s just a band practicing on stage”. I’m a broken record, but I am appreciative beyond words for everyone who has made this project what it is– whether that’s the friends that have worked on these cartoons with me, people that come to the gigs, read these massive tomes I write or supported it in any way. I live for this shit, through all the headaches it induces, and it means a lot to me that anyone gets it. Thanks. <3

Just dropped the recap video of the Straw Ducks premiere show over on my YT page!

If you haven't seen Straw Ducks yet you can watch that here! (won't let me embed it for some raisin)

Still wrapping up the postmortem for this episode, will share that on here soon.

In the meantime-- check out Ratbasterdz co-writer @Pjorg 's new cartoon BABE ALERT!

C U SOON!

BRAND NEW RATBASTERDZ SHIRTS LIVE

AT

WWW.RATBASTERDZ.BIGCARTEL.COM

They're printed on Comfort Colors this time, real nice quality. We've also got a bunch of the logo tees, stickers, and a couple Jay's Day shirts leftover too. Get urself somethin nice.

Thank you for all the love on the new episode. The amount of support for RB on here is always very humbling. I feel like a broken record, but it means a lot.

I'll have another postmortem blogpost about the production + premiere show eventually on here eventually!

If you'd like to read my initial recap thoughts on the event and see some more pics before I get around to that blogpost, you can do that here. TLDR: it ruled! Felt like a dream. Thanks to all the NG heads that came out!

+ as always, you can listen to the soundtrack for the episode on Spotify, Bandcamp and Apple Music.

Tyler, @plainstupidmoron, and I also put together another playlist of inspiration tracks for the episode. This was stuff used as placeholders in the animatic, references when writing, bands that played the premiere, etc... If you like the music in the toon and want some other good shit that sounds kinda similar, check it out

Lastly! My homie's band MERC lent two tracks for this episode, and just dropped their new EP featuring the credits song! Good dudes that make evil music and have supported the show since the start. Show em some love. Friend-bias aside, MERC is making some of my favorite music coming out rn.

Think that's it for now, till next time o7

BUMPIN IT ONE MORE TIME ON HERE-- RATBASTERDZ 3 PREMIERES LIVE THIS FRIDAY IN CHARLOTTE NC. ALL DETAILS IN ATTACHED FLYER

NG UPLOAD GOES LIVE THE FOLLOWING WEEK

TICKET LINK

WATCH THE NEW BRIDGE KIDS TOO!

RATBASTERDZ EPISODE 3 PREMIERES APRIL 25TH IN CHARLOTTE NC, FEATURING A STACKED BILL OF CAROLINA HEAVY BANDS.

DETAILS IN ABOVE FLYER. (killer art by @mikecarf)

PRESALE TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

Episode will debut here on NG a week after the premiere.

Beyond stoked on this one. Cya there. <3

My friend wanted me to make some stickers of this shadow drawing i did last month so i got a small batch of em made.

You can buy one here! https://ratbasterdz.bigcartel.com/product/edgehog-sticker

Ratbasterdz episode 3 just passed the 80% point recently too! Life's been very busy but I'm happy with how much progress we've made in spite of that. Should have it out early year, and will begin booking the premiere show very soon!

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, ETC ETC ETC <3

Just dropped the footage from the Ratbasterdz: Jay's Day premiere show over on my youtube page! All shot and edited by Wesley Jacobs, whos both Rodney's VA and the most talented live action video guy I know. If you don't know what this is-- for each episode of the cartoon we put together a hybrid cartoon screening/live show featuring local hardcore and metalcore bands. Always a blast and already stoked for the next one.

If you haven't seen the toon yet, you can do that right here on NG!

vvvvvv Show some love to the bands at these places! vvvvvvv

FEAR ILLUSION:

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CHAINED:

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VIOLENT LIFE VIOLENT DEATH:

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and if you wanna support more Ratbasterdz, my patreon page is here and you can grab merch here!

Episode 3's comin along slowly but surely! Everything we've got done for that one is coming out killer and I've been constantly stoked working on it, can't wait to share. Hoping to have it out by the end of the year (knock on wood!)

PEACE

HI! This blogpost goes into the production of Jay’s Day from the start till the end in excruciating detail– Of course if you haven’t seen Jay’s Day this will make no sense, so check out the toon if you haven’t already! 

and if you haven’t read the first one of these I wrote for Episode 1, you can do that here!

POST-UNDERGROUND 

After Underground released I was at sort of an impasse on what I wanted to do next. Spending two years on another 11 minute episode just didn’t seem viable or fulfilling– I had way too many ideas for these characters and this world, and a lot of things I wanted to say and develop further. The idea of doing significantly shorter episodes didn’t really appeal to me either, on the basis that working around a predetermined runtime immediately feels restrictive-- you’re not able to fully explore things as they naturally develop.

When you look at the landscape of independent animation you don’t really see many guys that are putting out cartoons somewhat often, all longform original work, and also not utilizing rigs in some capacity. The only dude at the time I was conscious of doing so was @aaron-long, so I reached out to him for advice. He introduced the idea of “chainsmoking” your projects– having a little bit of the next one started before you finish the first one. This helps keep a more consistent momentum and mitigate the slump you get after finishing a long piece of work. This was pretty formative in the way I handle ratbasterdz currently. (If you read this, thanks Aaron!) 

I think prior to this I was forcing myself to think within a structure, like it had to be another 10 minutes and tell an equally ambitious story because that’s what we established with the first one. Knowing from the get-go that you’re working on something larger than a standalone piece, you can develop the story bit by bit across multiple episodes, build ideas concurrently, or focus on weird specific ideas that you wouldn't think of when trying to write a standard episode. In explaining it to me Aaron compared it to songs on an album which has really stuck with me. An album has room for experimental songs, heavy songs, upbeat songs, etc…and they all culminate in something bigger than the sum of it’s parts. I felt like this also was the best utilization of our format as an internet cartoon. The beauty of doing it all yourself even down to the distribution is that you don’t HAVE to subscribe to any structure for how you do things. 

I had also decided that I wanted to make the move back to Flash after moving away from it 7-8 years ago. Partially for ethical reasons, partially for practical reasons. 

Flash was and is THE program for DIY animation. To what degree this matters I dont know, but as I looked back on my own history with animation I couldn’t help but feel bad for abandoning flash! While it's not without flaws, I taught myself to animate with it as a kid, and the majority of the web animation that has stayed with me was created using it. I’m very much endeared to it, it carries a lot of history and inadvertently embodies a spirit of creation you don’t really see anymore. 

Marty's video Artifacts really pushed me back into being a Flash guy too, if you haven’t checked that out yet please do. Major thanks to both him and @mikecarf for continually taking time to help me get reacquainted with Flash and teaching me so many new things about it. At first I was fretting about losing the lineart style– but I look back at Underground now, and for being a cartoon that intends to be rough looking, it’s still pretty clean. I feel like this crusty flash brush really gives the drawings the dirty, chaotic feeling I’ve wanted. It’s difficult to train yourself to draw in, largely because to get the brush texture, the wacom pen firmness has to be turned all the way up. It’s kind of like drawing with a leaky pen or something, it takes a different approach. 

I knew if I was going to get all these episodes done I was going to have to limit my animation a bit more. This felt like the perfect episode to experiment with because Jay is such a slow, stiff character to begin with. Underground was supposed to be my attempt at limiting my animation– which is very funny looking back on because there’s so many goddamn cushion frames. I look at how much time I spent doing near exact traces of the keyposes, and while it looks nice, I feel like as an independent there’s a lot better ways I could utilize my time. Which is the sort of lens I try and look through now– realistically examining the position of an independent animator and gearing how you create around the limitations. That can mean different things for different creators. For example, I logistically don’t think cleanup is a worthwhile use of time if it can be avoided– it adds another eight months onto production redoing work with “nicer” lines, a superficial thing that isn’t indicative of a better drawing at all. But maybe your style is super graphic and clean– for you, that might mean gearing your work around the overall design so that the material is still visually engaging with less drawings overall.

Point being, there’s literally nothing stopping you from making a cartoon however the fuck you want as long as you hold your work to a certain standard. Animation style can change drastically from shot to shot– put a couple shots on eights and another on twos, draw the characters differently every time, embrace weird idiosyncrasies of your process. If anything it all adds more personality, which is what we need more of in animation. Within the landscape of independent work I’ve seen this sort of shift towards chasing what appears as “TV Quality” animation or some sort of studio-level consistency, which is totally missing the point. “Indie” is supposed to exist as an alternative, giving people something authentic where mainstream entertainment fails to. Instead we’re seeing it turned into what is essentially its own mock industry. Trying to achieve the same look/mirror the practices and behaviors of that system should not be desirable or the end goal. Even within alternative schools of thought there’s these sorts of structures people seem to adhere to either out of habit or fear or conservatism. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but I feel like on this project I really started to think outside of habit and structure, and I’m looking forward to pushing further on the next episodes. 

I tried to seek out what unique and creative limited animation offerings there were out there for inspiration. Marty and @shufflehound put me onto a bunch of good stuff (Edit: @speedo also suggested a ton!), one of which being the animation of Tissa David. Specifically I was thinking about her work on the Electric Company, having a certain set number of drawings and reusing them in unusual patterns. A lot of her animation is all “important” poses pushed in really interesting ways with no inbetweens or cushions– I still want to take a crack at animating more extreme stuff with that philosophy, or some of the stuff Trigger does– but this episode tonally didn’t feel like the right fit. I took a lot of inspiration from the general philosophy anime implements too– where it’s really only the important shots, or when there’s a specific movement or timing in mind, that are given the works. I tried to sandwich more static shots between more animated ones, and even when things do get relatively static, to try to inject a little something here and there to keep things visually interesting. I studied what moved and when in work that inspired me, and how things were layered. @speedo also gave me a rundown on how he times and spaces his animation. He’s got some of the most appealing limited animation out there in my opinion and works crazy fast. Through his advice I started to get more comfortable with incorporating longer frame counts, and really thinking if each motion needed 15 drawings to convey an simple action, or if 2 strong keys with a couple support frames could achieve the same effect. 

Through watching the Bridge Kids process over the years, I recognized there’s certain places where incorporating symbols would speed up my process exponentially. I fretted a lot on if incorporating even the faintest approximation of rigged animation was somehow in compromise to the look/ethics. What I realized is that it only has that effect if you let it– you can use relevant bits sparingly as a way to speed up the true tedium, in turn giving you more time to direct focus to the truly creative and interesting parts of the process.

With certain shots where I could tell we could get a lot of mileage out of a little, I’d create mouth/eye packs tailored for that specific key drawing of the shot, still breaking them and doing unique iterations when a sound/motion called for it. In the past I’d draw the entirety of the lip sync straight ahead, only rarely reusing mouth drawings towards the end of a shot– which frankly feels like a colossal goddamn waste of time in retrospect-- I’d redraw the same near-identical “E” shape mouth 30 times over, and then do that again for every single mouth shape. I can’t think of how many hours this has probably saved me for what is essentially the same effect. I’m still very neurotic about things looking organic and don’t like to use these more than when necessary, and don't reuse these assets between shots. I like each shot having it’s own unique drawing that’s more reminiscent of whatever I originally drew in the storyboard than any sort of standardized character model. 

There were moments where I began to doubt myself along the way, whether or not limiting my animation or incorporating mouth packs was somehow in compromise to what Ratbasterdz stands for to me. An analogy Marty shared with me that really changed my perspective on it all, I will now share with you in hopes it helps someone out there:

As an artist you need to fail in different directions. Imagine getting good at something is like shooting arrows at a target: 

If you’re a perfectionist, you’re likely to miss in the same way every time– detailing things to a fault, excessive rigidity, leaving projects unfinished. This is like shooting your arrow too far to the left. 

If you’re more about production speed, you’re also likely to miss in the same way every time– rushing things, lacking care/attention to detail, subpar results. This is like shooting your arrow too far to the right. 

You have to analyze what type of artist you are, and adjust your aim accordingly. Meaning that you’re being fast and sloppy as often as you’re being slow and methodical. Even if you're still off the mark, you’re closer to hitting the target than you would’ve been, had you kept shooting your arrow in the same direction. Each adjustment nudges you a bit closer to the bullseye.

Thinking about the cartoon from this perspective made me realize, hey, even if this doesn’t come together the way I want, I’d just need to adjust my arrow left again next time. 

JAY’S DAY

Early on when I pitched "chainsmoking" to @pjorg, he mentioned “What does Jay do all day” as an example of how much freedom we had approaching the project with this mentality. Ironically, Jay’s Day was the last of the episodes wrote. The Jay-centric episode originally was “Jay Gets Sober”. There were some funny moments in that one but it felt too much like a cartoon trope, a waste of potential. We cannibalized the good parts of that and put it into what is probably my favorite Ratbasterdz thing we’ve written– which won’t be featured in this current batch, but regardless of where the project goes once these episodes are done, I’ve promised myself I will see through to completion. Without either of these the batch felt a little empty. Jay’s Day sort of came about out of that– the “what does jay do all day” idea stuck around in the back of my brain and it just felt natural. It exemplified what we wanted to do with these episodes: taking it in wildly different directions with the core focus of authentically fleshing out the world and characters. It was a simple premise with a lot of potential to build both Jay and Bluxton county, and it felt like the perfect follow up to Underground in that it establishes immediately what our intent going forward is.

In tone and pacing I wanted it to be incredibly slow, to the point of it being excruciating at times, to mirror Jay as a character. One of my biggest regrets on Underground is cutting out a giant chunk of silence in the car ride scene that was there to emphasize how fucking awkward it was. Whenever I showed people the boards it wasn’t landing, so I cut it down– but in retrospect, that’s kind of the point! I should’ve been more okay with making people sit with being uncomfortable. On this one I decided to let each pregnant pause and drawn out sentence last as long as it needed to, and even up until the final render I was adding seconds onto certain pauses. This was the root cause of one of my biggest concerns during the production of this episode– that it was too slow, too much of a departure from the first episode, etc….which suddenly felt insanely stupid once I saw it play in front of an audience at the premiere, in that moment I realized it’s honestly more gag-driven than Episode 1 was. Something I have continually noticed about each project I do is that the elements I am the most unsure of in the trenches of making it end up being the strongest parts in the end.

The intent of this episode more than any of the others was to flesh out Bluxton County as a location. I feel like the location is central to everything about Ratbasterdz and that's something I didn't fully highlight in Underground. I spent a lot of time on google maps and driving around taking reference pics to try and solidify what is authentically the south. The characters were also very specifically referenced in that way. I went through family’s facebook friends of friends and found people that fit certain visual archetypes I had in mind, then tried to find what were the most distinguishing characteristics that I saw amongst all these people, and did a bunch of passes caricaturing them into my animal designs. 

Also want to shout out @slippypunk, who did the majority of the BG layouts on this episode! He injects so much personality and life into the RB world and has such a keen attention to detail. He really brought the whole look of the show up a notch. He did all his layouts on paper and scanned them in, which I thought was a super sick idea! @iejomaflo even had him to scan in a sheet of the paper he was using to work as an overlay, preserving some of the grit and texture in the final paintings.

MONTAGE

The purpose of the montage in this episode was a direct extension of this idea. The first iteration of this segment was radically different– it featured a slower paced song with Jay slowly walking from background to background, eventually tripping, falling, and rolling through several more locations. I think I went on autopilot when I did this, and after sitting with it I found that I’d mentally tune out every time that segment came on, which to me is always a sign you need to redo some shit. Jay’s actions weren’t really funny or interesting enough on their own and the locations were all sort of breezed through with not enough focus placed on them. 

The final draft of the montage began as a series of brainstorm sessions with Marty. He came up with the idea to have it instead focus entirely on backgrounds with little to no character animation, other than the occasional denizen of Bluxton County to help characterize it more. We'd only see Jay at the beginning and at the end, almost like we're seeing it through his eyes. It'd be way slower and let you live in the world with them for a minute. I really took to this as I felt like that's something Hideaki Anno does in his work a lot that I've always resonated with. I spent a lot of time studying the way he composes the "empty" and more candid shots in his work when I started re-boarding it– even in the live-action footage I tried to lean into that.

At some point I said something like "I wish I could just do that Bakshi thing where he animated characters over live action footage", and it clicked, I could totally just do that. I had the benefit of living like a half hour away from where a real life "Bluxton County" could be, it suddenly felt very silly that i'd never thought to utilize that. Throughout all the early stages of this cartoon Marty and I had been geeking out on weird and experimental media, which was also a big push in the direction of wanting to do something more out-there. I remember being concerned about whether or not it'd be too disorienting-- this was one of those big moments where I started to think about fully utilizing that we are free of any pre-established format for how a cartoon has to operate. In that, fuck it, maybe it will be weird and disorienting, lets give it a try and see what happens. It also helped from the perspective of thinking within your limitations, as it turned what would have been 1:15 of animation/BGs into a couple days of shooting, editing, and misc. character animation that functions as something far more unique and memorable. When we started putting that sequence together I realized it sort of has a narrative function as well– in that it visually communicates what being high feels like in a more authentic way than a typical WOAHHH DUDE IM TRIPPING, instead things feeling a little more “real” or intense than they usually do. 

Last summer @TheJanitor9k and I got together and spent a day driving around where I grew up + surrounding areas filming from morning till night. This was a fucking blast and a highlight of this whole thing. In the past decade-ish, especially since the pandemic, the area is rapidly getting paved over by the day. In a lot of places it’s totally unrecognizable. This especially bothers me because it’s not like you can just create more land out of thin air. Once all this wilderness and greenery is gone it’s gone forever. That’s always been a big personal part of what Ratbasterdz is, trying to capture a specific moment in time, how I remember these places being as they will inevitably be sanitized apartment complexes and townhomes too in time. Now it does that quite literally in a way i didn’t anticipate– as long as the cartoons exist there’s little bits of my hometown as I remember it forever embedded into them. I’m glad we shot that footage when we did because in the time since a lot more has gotten torn down.

I wanted the way it was shot to also be reflective of the era, so we put fisheyes on our cameras to imitate the look of CKY & other skate videos. It only occurred to me after I had already cut the footage to music that we should’ve gotten an old school camcorder and shot it directly onto DV tapes & crunched it into early youtube res. In retrospect I would’ve shot it in 4:3 too!

Thankfully @Deadlycomics came in clutch and was able to transfer the signal from digital to analog. One thing he told me that I thought was really cool was that on his converter, there’s a PAL/NTSC switch that created a glitch effect when swapped, so during the screen recording he’d intentionally flip it to create glitch frames here and there. He’s a fucking genius and if you’re not already familiar with his work do yourself a favor and check it out! 

LIFE INFLUENCE 

The first/last shot of the episode and the cyclical nature of it was very much inspired by my time with a torn ACL/Meniscus, which were the primary months we spent writing all the RB episodes. I couldn’t walk or stand up without my leg collapsing in on itself, which made pretty much every daily task a huge pain in the ass. Getting up to go to the bathroom or get something from the kitchen was either stupidly painful at worst and incredibly frustrating and inconvenient at best. At the time of my injury I was working at a pizza place, and my buddy still worked there, so hed bring leftover pizzas all the time to help me out. So this time in my life is characterized in my memory by waking in and out of a haze on the couch surrounded by half-empty pizza boxes. I ripped this directly for the cartoon because I thought it was a funny visual in spite of it being one of the darkest times in my life. Which, if you want to get philosophical about it, speaks to not only what Ratbasterdz has been to me from it’s inception, but what the art that has most impacted my life has been– taking the negatives of life and transmuting them into something positive.

From the moment we came up with the idea I wanted it to start with Jay waking up to an extremely 2007 song w/ clean vox. I felt like this immediately sets the tone for this episode aesthetically. This was also a reference to this music video by an old school NC metalcore band which is super reflective of the era. NC has an incredibly rich history with metalcore which I had no idea about until I became more active in the scene here a couple years ago-- frankly I feel pretty stupid! So the intro was my homage to that. A couple of the dudes who were in that band also play in VLVD now, who ended up playing the premiere show for this episode— really fuckin cool and surreal how things unintentionally came full circle.

I originally wanted Jay to bike to Burger Barn, some beatup bike with flames on it that hes had since he was 10. Quickly realized it’d make the whole thing a drag to animate, and the idea of walking was much funnier. It leans into the whole feel of the episode being insanely slow with very little payoff, and emphasizes the total isolation these characters live in. It’s also just something you see a lot in rural areas– often I’ll drive by a dude walking on the side of the road, with stretches of nothing in either direction, and think how long he must have been walking for. Or where he’s going and why. It was fun to actually explore what a guy like that might be doing. A lot of high school memories are just walking the side of roads for an hour to go to a convenience store with my friends so that was definitely an influence as well. When you’re actually walking those stretches it certainly feels like the slow-motion Jay lives in. 

The drive thru scene came to mind because dudes in bands are always talking about a specific fast food chain around here, I think on the basis that when you get out of a show that’s the only thing open next to Waffle House. The drive thru guy was very much based on the dudes at the taco bell I used to hit after work sometimes. They’d keep the “We’re sorry, this location is closed” robot voice playing on the intercom, but if you sit there for a second they’d go “...whenever youre ready”. When you'd pull up to the window it erupted in a cloud of weed smell. I remembered the dude had studded earrings which felt like a very specific southern guy archetype I tried to channel.

PUPPETS

The puppet scene was another relatively “last minute” change– when boarded I didn’t really think of it as being anything special, but the more I sat with it, it felt like a missed opportunity not to have them represented in some drastically different visual style. I considered getting different guest animators to take on that part in 100% their style, but dropping close to a minute of animation on a single person felt like too much. I was also considering getting someone to 3D model the characters in a claymation style and just have their mouths flap, which is in turn what gave me the idea of getting puppets made. This also felt like a much wiser investment because not only is that a minute of screentime that didn’t need excessive animation, but we also have the puppets forever and can do more things with them in the future. It also helped to keep things visually engaging in what is otherwise the least visually interesting part of the episode. I remembered @deedledraws had done puppet stuff in college so I brought her on board, and goes without saying her work came out phenomenal. I feel like the puppets are one of the most interesting parts of this episode, but are something I honestly had next to no involvement in– so I’ve asked her to do a write up on what her process was like creating those:

Making these puppets was both a joy and a challenge! The challenge being bringing these animated 2D characters into the real world faithfully. I started with some concept art sketches to adapt the designs into puppets. The concept art noted fabrics, the general size of the puppets, and different features such as Rodney’s sculpted eyes. After getting the go ahead I created unique patterns out of newspaper for each puppet. Using these patterns I cut upholstery foam for the puppet base, and used hot glue to attach each piece together. The heads and bodies are separate for these guys for ease of movement. From here I covered the heads in their respective fabric, and glued in their eyes (painted and sealed ping pong balls for Wade and Jay.) I fitted on their eyelids and hand stitched them into place. After getting their eyelids the puppets personality really started to shine through. After the fabric for the heads were fitted on I made all fabric arms/ clothes to fit over the foam bodies. Clothes were stitched on, and from here they just needed some small details. Teeth, piercings, and tongues were all made from fleece and stitched onto the heads. That about wraps the process of making them up! I loved making these guys, I love seeing them come to life on screen! 

On my end it just involved doing the actual puppeteering/filming. For that we just propped up a greenscreen I had from an old job and used some lamps to simulate three point lighting. I cut the audio that the puppets had to lip sync to and would play it on my phone and follow along. We had to do this a couple times over for various different reasons, it was a big learning curve but really fun. After that it was just comping it together in after effects, fixing the colors and masking them into the thought bubble! 

PREMIERE SHOW



Putting together the premiere this time around is a great example of “failing in different directions”-- although I’d still consider it a total success! For the premiere of Underground, I was trying to put it together three weeks before the actual event. Which was fucking crazy and stressful as shit. Venues were booked out, it was too short notice for most bands, and there was practically no time for promo. It’s a miracle that show was as awesome as it was and we got the amazing bands we did to play it. 

This time, I naively assumed none of these things would be stressors if I was booking it further in advance, LOL. What I thought would eliminate the stress spread it out over four months instead of two weeks.

I started hitting up venues the day after Thanksgiving for what was going to be a show in April. Finally lock one in mid December. Couldn’t get a final lineup together till March. 

I originally had intended for each premiere show to fit a different vibe reflective of the different musical niches represented in each episode (this one being more 2000s emo-y), so it was like a specific extension of the cartoon in a way. I had curated a huge list of bands I was gonna reach out to and was confident that with three-four months of time on my hands I could book a perfectly curated lineup to that sound. 

What I learned very immediately is it’s all about who is available, down to play, enthusiastic about the idea and can respond. I also learned that there's always going to be a million things you could never anticipate. So while the idea of each show catering to a specific niche sound was a cool idea, in the future I’m going to continue to prioritize bands I love that really fuck with the concept. At the end of the day it’s an unconventional event that’s going to draw a mixed crowd either way, might as well lean into that. 

I was stressed out of my mind for months juggling putting this show together, finishing episode 2, starting episode 3 + the rest of life. By the time of the event I had decided I was going to have to ask a friend to book the remainder of the RB shows, as I needed someone who wasn’t as personally invested in their outcome. But then the show actually happened and I decided fuck all that, it was so worth it. It’s so fulfilling seeing it come together. It really mirrors animation in that way.

It was dope seeing the cartoon projected and hearing it on a good sound system this time. Everyone had a blast and all the worries I had during the booking process were of no consequence. Bands all kicked ass as they always do. Seeing them all fuck with the cartoon so much too really meant a lot— hardcore has been such a positive influence in my own life and im very happy that RB resonates.

In my Underground writeup I mentioned that the first screening conjured the same feelings for me of what going to Magfest/Pico Day for the first time felt like back in the day. Through hearing friends talk about the event, I realized that this was now beginning to function as its own iteration of that, a reason to meet up with your artist friends and something to look forward to throughout the year. I never in a million years would have guessed i’d be organizing something like this myself. I also mentioned distributing your work online really removes the human element of things, something I really cherish about these premieres is the reintroduction of that. Seeing the shows develop into something that brings people together and represents more than just an outlet for my work has been both unexpected and very fulfilling. Weird the directions life takes you. I was at about 20% battery the whole time through being spread so thin— and while that’s my only regret, i kind of dont care, in that seeing everyone else having such a great time overshadows any personal experience i could have and to me signifies a good event.

The NG folks in attendance this time around were @moonslop @spinalpalm @mikecarf @nihaho @pjorg @brewster @croody @yourfriendjosh @sveekins @thejanitor9k @ghost-bat @paperisfood @bill @hannahdaigle @arniegutz @weezerbloodorgy @deedledraws @drsteen @hacho7 @cchilab @alexmigo @mikelzng @jaster @claykidng @squirm0 -- a million thanks again for coming out for this! People traveling out specifically for the cartoon is something I never would have imagined, i am still very humbled. I hope these continue to draw out more NG folks in the future! Once I get more booking experience under my belt I’d like to do a larger scale version of the show/screening extending beyond just RB, still cookin on that idea.

In closing-- something I’ve thought a lot about over the past year is that growing up, I never really had any aspirations of doing “my own tv show” or anything, all I have really ever wanted to do is put out cool cartoons i really care about with my friends. NG has always been a huge part of that. Making Ratbasterdz, let alone having NG sponsor it, would’ve made 12 year old me’s head explode. I feel very grateful that I get to live that dream every day, and that there is anybody out there at all who cares about it. It means a lot. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Episode 3 is in the works! 

Thank you for all the love on Jay's Day! I've been insanely flattered by the reception, I really did not expect people to fuck with it as much as they have. Just wanted to say some thank yous and share all the supplemental material for this episode--

First of all, THANK YOU to Newgrounds. it was fucking crazy waking up to see it on the banner spot the other day, this was the first time something I’ve made ended up there. Newgrounds was kind enough to sponsor the production of this batch of Ratbasterdz episodes we’re working on, which to put it bluntly is literal childhood dream shit. This site has been a part of my life for a very long time, so many formative memories and lifelong friendships are a direct result of NG. I never would’ve started animating and certainly wouldn’t have started pursuing it seriously were it not for this site. To say I’m honored that Newgrounds saw enough value in Ratbasterdz to put the NG name on it is an understatement, hope we’ll do you guys proud with these.

We premiered the cartoon on April 6th to a packed house which was super fucking cool. Once again, thank you to everyone who came out to that. I was really floored by the response. I plan on doing a longform postmortem blogpost thing like I wrote out for the last episode where I’ll share some more pics from the event and go more in depth on the whole process. The whole show was filmed as well, and we’ll have another edit coming within the next month or two. 

The online store is restocked with all the leftovers from the premiere show– we’ve still got a handful of Jay shirts, and a good amount of logo tees, stickers, and prints. With each shirt I’ll throw in a few stickers or a print.

The soundtrack EP dropped on bandcamp and spotify the other night too! Alongside this, Tyler and I also put together a playlist of inspirations for the episode like we did for the last one– songs that inspired the soundtrack/placeholders from the animatic, songs referenced on jay’s ipod, and bands that played the premiere. Each episode’s got a different vibe in terms of sound and I hope to put some people onto music they wouldn’t normally seek out. This one’s a lot more mall-screamo/emo influenced with some heavier stuff here and there. 

(cool art in the above image is by Michael Shantz!)

If you’d like to support the cartoon we launched a patreon page back in february too! I’ve been posting a bunch of sneak peeks and updates on there as well as doing monthly drawing request streams for patrons. I rarely draw for non-ratbasterdz stuff lately so that’s been a lot of fun. 

We’ve got a little over a minute of animation done on episode 3, which out of all of them is my personal favorite. The work the team's been doing for that one is looking crazy good. Hoping to keep up the momentum and have that one out at the end of this year/early next year. Another live show to accompany that one as well. 

As mentioned above I’ll do another postmortem writeup for this episode eventually– @sugarpolyp was suggesting I record them which I’ve been seriously considering. As much as I like longform writing, most of the time I’m working and need things to listen to, and am always craving stuff that gets into the weeds of creative work– thought it would be nice to fill that gap for others potentially. Lmk if that's something people would be into!

Thats it for now, peace!

WHADDUP NEWGROUNDS

The next Ratbasterdz cartoon, "JAYWALKING" will be premiering April 6th 2024 in Charlotte NC alongside this fuckin insane lineup. Some of my favorite bands outta NC all on the same bill, stoked outta my mind on this one.

If ya missed how the last one went, the deal is we have a bunch of bands come out and jam and then screen the cartoon later on in the night on a projector. We'll be screening UNDERGROUND alongside the new episode too.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvv More details in attached flyer vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Shoutout to the legend @sugarpolyp for the fuckin insane flyer art. Please go check out his page, his stuff fucking rules.

I wanted to have this announced a little earlier to better accommodate anyone that might've been interested in travelling for it, but ran into about a million things I wouldn't have expected along the way in the booking process. Hopefully next time. Once again if anyone from NG does actually travel out for this hit me up and I'll give ya some stickers or somethin.

PEACE!