Rick, 1 question.

[Maxie]

1)What was your inspiration or motivation on the basis of the character's looks, because I'm trying to become an artist myself and your drawings are beyond belief; even the new style you made I love it seriously.
2)These comics are awesome, but I wonder how long do you think it would be if you tried making an anime like "The Peanuts" I swear that the show would make people go balistic.

[merkamerka]

Anime and Animations take months to make and are usually handle by a team of people (making animations = WAY different then drawing) so the chance of seeing a Housepets! anime or "the Peanuts" is completely absurd unless rick has a nice buck to pay for people to plan animations, because unfortunately animation takes time and money(Plus voice actors are good too). Although don't get me wrong, I enjoy the idea and If I was to ever take in a field in animation I'de completely go up for sponsoring the idea.

Also that's 2 questions.

[Maxie]

Yeah I kinda side tracked on this, Merk since I was reading some of his work lol, btw this is Vee

[merkamerka]

Yeah I kinda side tracked on this, Merk since I was reading some of his work lol, btw this is Vee

Oh hay :3. You needs to get on Mabinogi more. I'm not normally on here, it's on my Watch list though. Also Makaa is mad at you.

[Maxie]

Yeah I kidna figured that out today when Chris called bout Levi spamming my name, btw if you got a cell, send me a message so we can text !

[Buckdida]

Anime and Animations take months to make and are usually handle by a team of people (making animations = WAY different then drawing) so the chance of seeing a Housepets! anime or "the Peanuts" is completely absurd unless rick has a nice buck to pay for people to plan animations, because unfortunately animation takes time and money(Plus voice actors are good too). Although don't get me wrong, I enjoy the idea and If I was to ever take in a field in animation I'de completely go up for sponsoring the idea.

Also that's 2 questions.

I refuse to let you use me as currency. Also, a Housepets! cartoon...that would definatly work, but yeah, production would cost a lot. Even just making a flash cartoon takes a rediculous amount of time and effort. Effort that goes into the comic. So, it'll be a while if it does happen.

We can always hope though.

[rickgriffin]

The original design was based on a single picture I saw once and then lost. So, it's probably not very true to that. I've been an artist for a rather long time, so it's my thing! I just have a tendency to draw things cute so this comic is rather good for me to do in that aspect.

And an animation is not on the cards right now; someone else would have to offer it first.

[merkamerka]

The original design was based on a single picture I saw once and then lost. So, it's probably not very true to that. I've been an artist for a rather long time, so it's my thing! I just have a tendency to draw things cute so this comic is rather good for me to do in that aspect.

And an animation is not on the cards right now; someone else would have to offer it first.

you could always go with the idea of a flash toon, but then again those never come out too great unless you spend forever making them.

Such as I made a simple Cartoon(Panel by Panel) for me and my friends to enjoy and we all worked on it... it took close to 2 weeks. It turned out nice but still wasn't to good.

[BeyondUshuaia]

If I win $40k at a casino or the lottery I'm so totally gonna pay for that animation. (not like I go to casinos )

[merkamerka]

I read your name as beyond inuyasha... huh. And the biggest amount of money I've ever made was from saving up for a year and about a half, I had a little over 1,100$. Nice huh?

[FerretWithASpork]

If you ever are interested in an animation for the comic check out Blind Ferret Entertainment. (Yes, I know how ironic it is that it's me telling you this :3) I BELIEVE it's run by the people who do Least I Could Do, and they're doing animations for Least I Could Do, Looking For Group, Control, Alt, Delete, and Player versus Player.

Least I Could Do is going to be a Canadian TV show pretty soon, and you can check out their animation in the trailers on their website.

[merkamerka]

Canada? That's babies work.

Also that's the equivalent of "really nice" flash animations. What vee means is more of like a anime type of animation, more smoother, etc etc.

[ResTheRabbit]

This is gonna sound like something completely unreasonable if you are considering moving forward in the animation extremely quickly, but I'm going to the Art Institute of Nashville TN for animation and while I'm there I'd be happy to look into how I could help. I'd even be willing to be your labor jockey for a frame-by-frame though I'll admit I despise flash animations. I much prefer hand drawn. You can feel the animation more, but that's beside the point. If you want any help, I'd be willing to put aside time for it. Albeit I'm not exactly in college right now, but I will be starting in the summer.

[FlyAwayNow]

I'm sure all of you have heard of Omahdon, that could be an alternative to animation if you look at his work.

[zeroslash]

I wouldn't mind seeing a few Housepets animations, but the question is are we talking about an actual TV show or just something less extreme? If it's a TV show, then there's numerous things that need to be considered. For one, producers look at shows not as art, but as a means of a profit. They may be concerned about the quality of the show, but only when it comes to if viewers like it and how expensive the project is going to be; the more expensive the project is, the more money it's going to take to animate it, which means less money for the producers. The Housepets art style isn't the most complex in design as a webcomic, but try animating Peanut or Grape in a 360° rotation. Even in Flash, that could be trouble. Of course, give the show a good budget, and it won't be a huge deal, but how do you receive a higher budget? Yeah.

Plus, what is the target audience? Housepets reminds me of the novel Watership Down, in which the older audience probably wouldn't like it on the grounds of the comic featuring talking animals, and the younger audience wouldn't like it on the grounds of the comic being written in an adult style. (Eventually, Watership Down did get published, and is now considered a classic, but still.) Furries would definitely love Housepets, but how big is the furry fandom?

Regardless, I'm interested in seeing a Housepets animation of some sort, as long as the director and writers know what they're doing. Heaven forbid Housepets gets Stefen Fangmeier or John Davis to direct something like this.

[Sleet]

I think the audience for a Housepets! cartoon is not quite there, but I think it's on its way. There was a time not too long ago where cartoons were thought to be either just for children, or absolutely not for children, like South Park and any of the crap made for Adult Swim. Nowadays we have shows like Regular Show and Adventure Time that are clearly not targeted to either demographic exclusively, and then we have squeaky clean shows like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic gaining significant cult following with older folks. I think the market for a show like one based on Housepets! is definitely growing, and I think it's likely to be a lucrative demographic to aim for within this decade. I think the main obstacle for such a show would be getting exposure wide enough and selling the idea.

[GameCobra]

I think it would be a long time before Rick could get his comic into the animation area judging from what i seen so far, but one thing is for certain: The more people that know about the comic and vouch for it, the better the chances.

This comic is definitely giving off a Garfield vibe whenever i think about it being animated. and that's a good thing!

[Aquablast]

Comic and animation are two completely different things, but I am sure Rick knows that well.

And I think Housepets doesn't need to "target" anything. It is fine as it is right now: males read it, females don't mind it, clean enough for children, cute for some people, funny enough for everyone.


But nevertheless, none of this actually matters, as long as we are not ACTUALLY making one. We did attempt something like this, see: An ANIMATED infinitesimally brief history of the world. Although it kind of died because of a lot of reasons, one of the main reasons is because of the lack of artist and my lack of effort to hold people together. I could, but I don't have the brain power or resources for that... Which I still don't have at this moment.

[Sleet]

A TV show definitely needs a target audience. The target audience is one of the most important aspects of television, as evidenced by the fact that the premises of networks tend to decay into nothing but a demographic. If Rick were to hypothetically get his comic adapted for television, it would need to target some demographic.

[jopencjusz]

Well, idea of making animated version of Housepets is very interesting, but I don't know if it possible to do it. Firstly the idea of it must be accepted by one of the TV companies and they must be interested in doing it. It means that there must be a target audience and as you said earlier, it's difficult to define a target audience for this comic. But on the other hand, there're a lot of cartoons that there're seem to be for a children, but on the other hand there're a lot of dialogues and situations which are comprehensible only for adults, so it's possible. Maybe in the future there will be cartoon based on Housepets

[ResTheRabbit]

Well when you refer to picking a target audience, question the level of complexity of the jokes presented in the comic strips. As far as I can tell, kids would be satisfied with the art style and the wacky antics initially but the jokes do have a level of complexity that you seem to find on the internet rather than the television and that's a really a good thing! The media networks have milked dry every simple concept and tried to dumb down the joke complexity over the years, whether unintentionally or not. The complexity of the Housepets! jokes are targeted toward generally anyone and they involve a little bit of knowledge on the part of D&D but truthfully exploring concepts like these can only encourage exploration and curiosity in a particular subject, and that's okay as well, as long as it isn't risque enough to cause alarm. (Joey's role-playing would be the only thing to question really, but even that might fly)

If we recall Spongebob a few years back, we will see a very different style in the jokes. This change was apparent directly after the director (who also happened to voice Spongebob) was replaced. Why he was replace is unbeknowest to me but it is clear that the humor level quickly declined into nothing more than mindless drivel. What was once smart humor is now dumb humor. It's pretty much everywhere and while I don't think the general public of America is dumb, the cartoon companies are approving studios to produce work that is far from considered adequate by yester-years standards.

So in conclusion, the target audience is everyone, and even though it has smart humor, that would actually enhance the audience appeal.

If there is some debate as to whether comics are extremely different from animation, there are minor differences but overall it isn't so drastic a change that animators couldn't adapt from the comics. I used to aspire to be a comic book artist and I've found the change to animation to be a subtle one in style. The difference is the amount of time it takes to lay through every frame and structure everything. What can be said in a speech bubble takes hours to sync the lips to and coordinate the sounds to match. I'm not trying to say it's impossible, it'll just take more time to out-put than one man could really handle (insanity-wise).

Finding a studio to head up or take over the project is a viable option, but having another studio do it is like giving away what is yours for them to twist it to a demographic, instead of sticking directly to the ambitions that you are striving for with the comics. Rick you would have to direct it if you wanted it to stay the same as the comics in the direction you want. Now heading up a studio isn't actually such a bad idea. Looking around and finding a good team isn't exactly difficult if you know where to look. Plenty of people do work on their off time, and with them presenting an idea to be accepted by a producer for television just takes charisma on the part of whoever is presenting it. Bad ideas have sold very well because of people who are charismatic. The series has a good head on it and while it doesn't need to go beyond a comic strip series if you don't want Rick, I'm sure the television industry would welcome such an addition. At any rate, you wouldn't have to do much work other than tell people what you want done. Being a director is a lovely thing.

Just make sure what makes Housepets!, Housepets! doesn't change in the process of taking it through the television industry! If you want to bring it further, stand for what you stand for, cause it's dog-eat-dog in the television industry. They'd just as soon pay you off to turn your series into garbage.

[Aquablast]

Personally, I wouldn't even think about a TV show. Why pick that when Internet is clearly superior in terms of almost everything? No schedule issues (for both you and the audience), no need of studio, low budget, more audience (I don't claim this as a fact, but I am sure more people use Internet than TV), more room for screw up/corrections, direct feedback from the audience... Etc.

Of course, if any of you can make it into a TV show. Go ahead, I am not stopping anyone. Frankly, I prefer action above all else. Because no matter how masterful you are in theory, it is all null unless you can apply it.

[Sleet]

TV means more audience and more guaps.

[ResTheRabbit]

The only reason I would really suggest a TV show over the short length feature film or even the online animations would be the lack of funding for each. You see, with the television industry, the producer pays the studio for the work and they go through the network. In terms it just means more money for the same work. It wouldn't be as lucrative to do a short movie unless you had credibility or renown amongst people other than the internet communities. Which I'm not saying the internet community isn't good, otherwise why would we all be here? What I'm saying is that if you want a decent animated film that goes a long way and gets exposure, then it would have to be some form of television show, then feature movie, and that in turn would bring people back to the original comic. Plus, I'm not saying this for Rick, but I did notice that he said he wanted to make a career out of this web-comic (I'm pretty sure I read that right, please forgive me if I didn't because it was on another topic that I can't remember the title of) and the truth is, the internet doesn't pay! hahaha I mean sure the internet's great, but career-wise for exposure and everything, you'd have to take it somewhere. And what I've said so far isn't for the comic, it was regarding the question of whether to animate the series with quality. If you really wanted to make a career out of it, Rick, you could find a newspaper to put the series in, which they'd probably be glad to but still I think that's selling what Housepets! is pretty short in terms of what I've seen.

[zeroslash]

I'd prefer Housepets to remain as a webcomic than to see it as a TV show. It can be agreed that it could do well as a show, but I like Housepets as is, since it's not influenced by TV show stations and producers.

[ResTheRabbit]

Yeah I kind of prefer it as a comic too, no lie. But I'm an animator, so I can dream. :3

As a note however, producers don't have control over any of the actual story, only the director does. But what usually happens is the producer wants to make a change that the director doesn't really agree with. After that the producer threatens to stop funding the project. This is turn causes a great stress on the part of the director to either consent to the change or try to compromise, but in the case of Housepets! there couldn't be a compromise, hence my statement on not bending or distorting the idea.

Now that I'm really running through the checks and balances I realize it'd probably be really difficult to stretch the length of each episode out. Most of the humor in the series is a bit short (not saying that's a bad thing). But transforming three or four panels into a 15-25 min. episode would provide some challenge anyway.

And lastly on my rediculously long posts, (I'm sorry they're so long) what I've contemplated on is to really get the animated shorts or miniature film down first and let it's internet exposure do most of the talking to get approval because the only real reason a producer wants to change something (unless he's egotistical fat-head) would be because he was concerned over whether the product wouldn't be accepted. If the series could gain credibility beforehand and then just sort of elapse into a miniature series, then it would probably go over better than an all out confrontation with the marketing and television industry.

Hahaha you know I think what I just said was on par with one of the comics themselves. "Ideally I'd be lauded as a genius beforehand, and then someone would write down the ideas after." It's from peanut fussing about not getting feedback fast enough.