The origin of Captain Kittenface and the details of his “accident” will be covered in the strip later. This is a quick timeline on how the character developed over a number of years from multiple projects into the cat-man-hybrid he is today.
About ten years ago I did a comic called “Retaliation Game 1” with Mister Crackers. His character Moonpuppy was at one point exposed as a fraud; being a cat in a moonpuppy’s costume. Mister Crackers quickly turned this around by proving Moonpuppy to merely be a moonpuppy in a cat costume in moonpuppy costume. Here is the cover from that comic as illustrated by Mister Crackers from ten years ago.
Many years later I did some paintings for a show in St. Louis called Meth and Hotdogs. It was to be centered around cartoon characters and as Moonpuppy’s costume has always been a favorite of mine I wanted to give a little homage to an old drawing buddy.
Around about this time my son was getting really into the PBS kid’s show WordGirl. If you haven’t seen it you should as it’s actually pretty good. In the show WordGirl’s sidekick is a monkey named Captain Huggy Face.
Realizing how hilarious it was to combine “Captain”, “any word,” and “Face” I began toying with names that might borrow from the great minds over at PBS. This eventually brought me back to the kitten mask above and the name Captain Kittenface stuck.
I spent some time toying around with the character and he popped up frequently in random projects as I searched for a home for him.
Here he is in some gravatars I made (available here).
Eventually I developed a backstory for him and tried to cram him into the Retaliation lore as a villain in “Retaliation Cornelius and Ovy.” While the cliffhanger was exiting enough for Jared and I Captain Kittenface never felt quite right to me as a villain.
In August of last year I was asked to do a flyer for a drawing event here in Richmond and had the opportunity to create a mashup of characters from earlier projects. Captain Kittenface of course made the cut and appeared for the first time in color.
A few months later Jared began Pea Green Coffee Cup and inspired me to give a proper web comic a go. Captain Kittenface seemed like the perfect character to start with. The group quickly fell into place as I pulled Captain Remarkable and Calypso off the shelf to give Kittenface someone to hang out with.
Kittenface has never fit into the molds I built for him. He came knocking on my door many years ago and has only recently began to tell me who he really is. All I can really do is give him a world to live in and friends to hang out with. The rest is up to Seamus.
It’s really great to get an insight into a single character. Having this kind of insight into one’s own work and style can only help. I’m silly envious that you were drawing like that 10 years ago.
That cover from ten years ago was drawn by Mr. Crackers. I was drawing like this ten years ago, far more crudely and less awesome than that cover. I too was silly envious at the time.
Ahh, thanks for the clarification. It was a bit tough to figure out all the names. Still, there are some really unique moments in the comic you linked to. I dunno, that old comic is pretty great!
This is great, Mark! Getting on your site makes me appreciate webcomics even more.
This also makes me want to dig up the stories I wrote about Bobby when I was in the 5th grade. Where are they now??
Wow, thanks Jason, that’s quite a compliment!
Wow, very cool analysis. Glad to have been a part of the Captain’s impetus.