"Frappe Brain" - Regis' Comic Workshop (featuring @bearsockz and Tess Bach) (2025)
BACKSTORY BEHIND THIS COMIC:
The idea was simple: Try to get a "guest star" to appear in my comic series.
I was making my comic series, "Regis' Comic Workshop", and the comics I made were mostly decent. I was pondering ideas on how I could potentially make my comics more interesting to read; to see how I could go about getting more readers interested in the skits I wrote.
And then, the idea hit me; I would commission a "guest star artist" to appear in one of my episodes.
Easier said than done.
I had attempted to contact various artists on Twitter about the "collab comic" idea I had (artists such as NoonNoon, DarkLawst, and a few others), but despite me mentioning that I was willing to pay them for their part, many of them either formally declined, ghosted me, or never even saw my request to begin with. Contacting some of these artists would also be difficult, as sometimes if the artist had closed DMs, I would have to ask them in the comments of their posts.
Bearsockz was among the many artists I had reached out to during my quest to find a "guest star". I had considered them because I loved their cute dog cartoons for a while now. I thought they would also be a dead end, but after a few days, on February 19, 2025, Bearsockz had replied to my message saying they were interested in my idea, and to be honest, I got excited at that moment, because I never thought my ambitious idea would work out.
To tell you the truth, I never had an idea for the collab comic beyond "This comic strip would be a crossover between my OC and this artist's OC", and the reasoning for the lack of planning was because whatever comic strip I would write would be specifically tailored to that particular character. I didn't want to pre-write a "one size fits all" comic that I could plug any character into, as I felt like such a comic would be "corny" to read; like a TV show that had forced product placement for the sake of existing. I was also expecting my idea to be rejected by a lot of the artists that I reached out to, so the "tailored version" wouldn't be made until I got the green light from at least one.
And now that I had approval, what do I write the comic about?
I felt I had to treat this comic as having significant importance compared to my other past works for two main reasons; This comic was a commission I was paying for, and I wasn't sure if I could convince an artist as big as Bearsockz to work with me again. In my mind, I had to make this comic count.
February 21, 2025; two days after Bearsockz greenlit my idea, I turned to my best friend who lives in Wales, and gave him my rough idea for the comic:
Tess sees Taylor the Dog Barista and asks them, "Are you one of them kitsunes?"
Taylor responds, "No, I'm your barista, I'm here to tell you we're out of peanut butter"
Then my Welsh friend started suggesting I should add a "bunny girl" to the comic, and I replied, "[My friend here] trying to sneak a furry into the comic," to which he responded, "But you have a dog girl."
I then told my friend that Bearsockz' OC wasn't likely a furry, to which he pointed out that Bearsockz' OC was an anthro dog.
I tried to argue that anthro doesn't necessarily mean "furry", but then found a Tweet on Bearsockz' Twitter where they refer to themselves as a furry.
"You go onto a page with anthro animals and [then] act surprised [when] its [creator is] a furry," my friend responded.
"Cartoonists draw anthro animals all the time though. It's [a cartoonist's] tradition," I said
I then finally had an idea for the comic; my OC Tess would ask Taylor if she was a furry or not out of the blue.
I quickly came up with rough sketches to give to Bearsockz, with their OC drawn in blue outlines to indicate their parts to draw, and my OC drawn in pink. Another 3 days would pass before Bearsockz would respond, and they found the idea cute! Once the money was sent over, and after I gave them the specifications for the comic panels, I got my needed drawings later that same evening. During the time waiting, I drew the Tess parts during my work's lunch break, and I secretly drew the background for my comic at work while the shift was slow, using paint pens on an index card. Once all the panels were drawn, and once I got home from work, I quickly hopped onto my computer and assembled all the panels in Adobe Photoshop.
The comic was then released on Twitter, Reddit, and DeviantArt the next day, on February 25, 2025, and this comic would end up being one of my most well-received episodes so far, next to "HIRING ARTISTS ON A BUDGET" and "HYPOCRISY".
Side note: Because this was a collaborative comic, Bearsockz was given some rights to the copyright of this comic.
"Regis' Comic Workshop" is on WEBTOON CANVAS: Regis' Comic Workshop | WEBTOON (webtoons.com)
Series is also on TAPAS: https://tapas.io/series/Regis-Comic-Workshop/info
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