The Curious Dreams of Lizzie Schwartz

The project I'm going to be working on over the next few weeks is a comic book. If you recall, I pitched for a comic book for the group project, and I've been sort of itching to do one since. This particular comic book will be one in a series featuring some characters I've been tossing around in my sketchbooks for a while. 

The series is called The Curious Dreams of Lizzie Schwartz, and it's all about a seven-year-old girl who has strange adventures in her head alongside her teddy bear, Sigmund, and her pillow, Felipe. 

There isn't a continuing story in the series; the characters will enter a different universe in each book, sort of like how the original Star Trek TV show had the same cast of characters, but each episode was a self-contained journey to a new world. And these dream worlds will usually relate to something going on in Lizzie's life. So, for instance, the comic book might start off with Lizzie feeling insecure about always having the wrong answer in school, and then she has a dream of Opposite World, where everything that's wrong in the real world is considered right. 

In the comic book I'm going to be doing over the next few weeks, no one understands or pays attention to Lizzie's jokes, and she has a dream about a land in which comedy and laughter is strictly forbidden and punishable by beheading. Here's the original sketchbook page where I came up with the idea:

As far as target dates, on November 20th, I'll have character designs and story sketches. On November 27th, I should have the story written out. On December 4th, I should be well under way with penciling in the comic book, and on December 11th, it should be inked in. 

Hopefully, this comic book will feel like its own thing, but a few inspirations going in are George Herriman's Krazy Kat, Charles Schulz's Peanuts, Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes, Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, Walt Kelly's Pogo, Carl Barks' Donald Duck comic books and anything by Milt Gross.