SugarBuzz

"SugarBuzz!" is a humor comic book series created by Woodrow Phoenix and Ian Carney. Phoenix and Carney met at a convention and decided to work together after realizing how much they liked the same cartoons. Because their idea was to homage saturday morning cartoons such as those made by Hanna-Barbera, their comic was originally entitled "Saturday Morning Special". Slave Labor Graphics publisher Dan Vado liked the concept but didn't like the name and told them to think of something else. They named the book "SugarBuzz" because it sounded like cereal.

The series is an anthology comic with every issue featuring a different concept, sometimes three or four. The number of characters generated over the course of "SugarBuzz!"s existence so far is well over sixty!

A popular feature of "SugarBuzz!" is the stories that are written by Ian Carney's eight-year old son Jake. So far these have been drawn by Phoenix and other guest artists Andi Watson, Jonathan Edwards and Zach Howard.

While the creators have deliberately chosen not to repeat themselves, they did produce additional comics with the most popular characters from the initial run. Those characters were Pants Ant, and the Where's It At, Sugar Kat? detective sisters. These two comic books were soon optioned for television: Pants Ant, by The Cartoon Network; and Where's It At, Sugar Kat? by Walt Disney inc.

Nine issues of "SugarBuzz" have been published by Slave Labor Graphics, along with a number of spinoff one shot specials and separate series for "Where's It At, Sugar Kat?". Three volumes of reprints have been published in trade paperback form. There have been two French book collections by La Comedie Illustrée under the title "MultiVitaminé".

Characters

(Not an exhaustive list)

* "Future Crab" - time-travelling crab from the future

* "Gordan freeman" - nerd, with a magnum

* "Lumbo and Lumbo" - Two idiot brothers

* "Holiday Heroes" - a team of heroes who protect our sacred holidays: Santa, the Easter Bunny, Halloweenie and The Whitsun table lamp

* "Horse eat Dog" - a horse obsessed with the taste of dogmeat

* "Dinosaurs versus Ninjas" - a team of four dinosaurs who defend the Earth against alien ninjas from the planet Ninjoid, created by Jake Carney

* "Mr Mayfly" - an insect who sleeps his entire life away because of his bad alarm clock

* "Bachelor Speedbump" - a five piece pop group who have crazy adventures on tour

* "darren danger" - space pig in the 28th century

* "Mr Extra" - distracted neurotic genius with a tail

* "Splash Girl" - heroine with the powers of all sea creatures (based on a character who previously appeared in "Sinister Romance")

* "Valenteen" - possibly gay hero with love powers and a canine sidekick called Duncan

* "Upchuck Duck" - a duck who has multiple illnesses

* "Pants Ant" - an ant who fights crime in giant robot exoskeletal pants

* "Eager Beaver" - a pathologically friendly beaver who drives his 'friends' to suicide

* "Urbane Gorilla" - a louche ape in a smoking jacket pursued by an evil vivisectionist

* "Frankenmouse" - an undead mouse assembled from the contents of several mousetraps

* "You bad bad monkeys" - two young monkeys who behave very badly all the time

* "Tattletales" - squirrels obsessed with spying and finding out all your naughty secrets

* "My Wife the Robot" - A sitcom with a go-getting husband and a metal wife who wants to be human

* "Where's It At, Sugar Kat?" - The most attractive girl in the world and her sister who is a ghostbuster

* "The Ultra Spacers" - a team of five very old futuristic space adventurers who can't give up being heroes

* "The Lovely Land of Love" - two animals who must take care of loveliness forever

* "Bug Bear" - an annoying gay grizzly bear

* "Precious and Percival" - two children who live on a tropical island with a giant octopus

* "Rock Mom" - drug ODing rockstar with straight-edge kids

* "My two dads" - a teenage Jesus and his two dads, God and Joseph competing for his attention

* "The forty thieves" - a gang of forty identical ali-baba style crooks

* "Pandora's Lunchbox" - a girl with monsters in her lunchbox (appeared in free comics day SLG book, 2002)

"SugarBuzz!" comics

* "Sugar Buzz!" #1-4 (1998)
* "The Skeleton Key/Sugar Kat special" (1998) with Andi Watson
* "Eager Beaver" (Slab-O-Concrete, 1999) ISBN 1-899866-93-0
* "Sugar Buzz!"#5-6 (1999)
* "Sugar Buzz: Live at Budokan!" (Slab-O-Concrete, 1999) ISBN 1-899866-33-7
* "Sugar Buzz!" #7 (2000)
* "The Pants Ant Trouser Hour" (2001)
* "Where's it at Sugar Kat?" #1-4, miniseries (2002)
* "Sugar Buzz!" #8-9 (2003)
* "Where's it at Sugar Kat: The Thin Of the Land" (2003) ISBN 0-943151-56-2
* "SugarBuzz! Your ticket to happiness" (2004) ISBN 1-59362-008-X

References

* Withrow, Steven (2003) "Toon Art: The Graphic Art of Digital Cartooning", 146-47 Watson-Guptill Publications ISBN 0-8230-5378-4

* Stangroom, Howard (2003) interview in "Comics Forum Magazine" 25, 31-43

* Kane, Will (1999) interview in "Sugar Buzz: Live at Budokan!", 180-91 Slab-O-Concrete ISBN 1-899866-33-7

External links

* [http://www.slavelabor.com Slave Labor Graphics] - Official Site
* [http://clairdebulle.com/Oneshot5a907e4df52f4aad8f28b9385fd94814.aspx Clair de Bulle] - SugarBuzz in French
* [http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=003689 The Pulse: Jen Contino ] - Interview with the creators