Hush Hush Beginnings (or, "secret origins")

Hello all you extremely bored and desparate readers!

Obviously, you are here because there is absolutely SHIT to do right now and you are trying to decide if reading our blog or taking your life is the better option. Well, if it means anything, I'm glad you didn't take your life and you decided to take your chance on this (although after reading this, I may have inadvertantly encouraged suicide).

Today's topic is, once again, about us! I mean, if we were on a panel, you'd think we'd love the sound of our own voices.

Anyway, take a look at that truly crude rendering at the beginning of this blog, for it is both terribly drawn and historic! This is the very first illustration of the Poverty Pack that you (hopefully) read about today! Those of you eagle-eyed fanatics (which I am guessing is probally about -10 of you), should notice various differences with certain characters. Let's analyze it, shall we?

What?

What do you mean you ae stepping away to "use the bathroom"? why are you carrying that gun for? GET BACK HERE! LIFE ISN'T THAT BAD!

Ahem.

So, lets begin:

This piece was created back in 2007 and the first thing you'll notice is the playful logo. I actually liked the original logo, as it was very "comic-booky" in concept. But after hammering out details, Ted and I went for something a little less adolescent an used the grimy logo we have today.

Who the hell is "Visual Gumbo", you ask? Well, that was going to be our comic publishing name before Afro Stache. It was probably the 2nd or 3rd studio title we went through working together and with others. I can't recall what elicited a name change, but Afro Stache' was born from that. Now, on to the characters:

Starting clockwise from the vary top left we have our beloved Brown Wristband. Here, the lovely Gidget Florie is sporting her classic silver hooker attire, but her hair is pulled back into 2 fluffy cury puffs, and her wristband isn't one of those rubber charity bracelets, its more of a sweat band...

Next is Super Fabulous Frog, here just known as "Super Frog". Pretty generic right? But add "FABULOUS" and everything becomes flamboyant.

Black Pigeon is up next. His costume pretty much retains the design I use til' this day, with theexception that his bandana/mask is more black silk and he sports a dope "pigeon chain" around his neck. I imagined at one point that Street Sweepah would have given him that to help "bling" him out.

Speaking of which, everybody's top MC "Street Sweepah" follows BP and rocks a shorter chain than he usually does. He also has his collar popped, and sports some brown "Tims" on his feet. His ride, "MY BOO" is parked behind him, and is largely unchanged.

A shorter, squatter BEEBLES is parked before SS. Aside from his smooshed appearance, he also has "B.E.E.B.L.E.S." on his front "hood".

Superfluous Sleuth is rock bottom, folks! And aside from his obvious tan outfit, he had at the time, the monniker of just "Super Sleuth". Lawsuits waiting to happen, his name was adjusted, as was his choice of color.

In the lower center is the voluptuous Cookie Brown. Yeah, she had that outfit designed long before issue #5 (oops! spoiler!), but the originally features a LARGE cookie on her belt, and a cookie necklace. She's still the bomb.com!

That mook with the inaccurately bent leg is none other than Whistleman. No real changes here, aside from some anatomy lessons. Move along.

Finally, that brings us to the template team leader. But his name wasn't Captain COMMANDER. It was Captain GENERICA. And he was to be exactly that: the typical handsome and courageous "Superman meets Captain America type" who would and could do EVERYTHING better than anyone. Of course now, all he can do is bark orders really well. But it's close enough!

So there is! The earliest concept of Poverty Pack. Not much else has changed from our early notes. Willy Johnson had not been conceived as of yet, which is why he doesnt start showing up on most of our publicity ads and materials.

I hope you enjoyed this excerpt today! I hope you are still alive, actually! Hopefully you'll be back next time for another stunninf Frog Blog!

Have a great weekend!