- BEGINNINGS - In 1994, after a few years of drawing one-off cartoons that I drew for myself, or for a friend's compilation comic series 'Treacle' etc, that same friend, Tony Renouf, had approached the Otago University Student Newspaper, "The Critic," to contribute a comic strip page in every week's issue. The plan was to have a strip from four different artists showcasing a different style of art and story, so Tony chose himself, An-'Fin'-y, some other guy (Chris I think), and me. The challenge was for me to figure out something that I could regularly churn out. Consistency had not been my forté up till then, and to make matters worse one of the requirements was to have something that didn't rely on people reading every issue to understand that week's joke. One day, inspiration struck. I had been working on the crew of a short film at the time, and I was at one of the locations, the Town Hall, when I looked straight upwards along the grand looking wall with its columns and statues carved into the facade. The extreme angle coupled with the dramatic sky instantly reminded me of something out of a Batman movie. And perched on the roof arches were some pigeons. Coupling the two images, my mind created the term: "PigeonMan". And a legend was born. - HARD SLOG - The effort involved in making a regular comic strip, even when it's only a weekly one, is seldom a simple process. I had to come up with a storyline that would not only work for the characters and fit my style of humour, but also fit within the confines of a fixed width panel. As most people know, comic strips usually follow the formula of 'story, story, story, joke'. I decided to keep to that format, though occasionally I was influenced by the great Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes and used the 'story, story, story, joke, zinger' style. Luckily, though tapped a few times already, the 'SuperHero parody comic' idea had a wealth of possibilities, not least of which was parodying the camp Batman TV series and it's standard plot devices used recurringly, so I had plenty of material to draw from, able to give it my own spin in the process. I learned a lot during the course of those 26 episodes. How to cram in all I wanted so that it still made sense. Drawing characters in a consistent style. Working to rigid regular deadlines. Conforming to the Newspaper's guidelines. Making a clear, readable, funny, silly strip that I could be proud of. - RESPONSE - The other three strips had their own styles, and they were nice work too, but mine seemed to be slightly more mainstream, and was the only strip that got any feedback from the masses. Though it was minor feedback, it was nevertheless significant for me. A friend of mine was in the University Union cafeteria one day, and he overheard a young woman say "Oh, I only read 'The Critic' for PigeonMan." Well, it made me smile all week! Later that year I was acting in a play at my local Repertory Theatre, when the cast and crew went all teenagery and started writing big "We like you..." cards for everybody, so they were all signed by the whole cast etc. On one of them I sketched a quick 'PigeonMan' profile. The bass guitarist from the orchestra watched me sketch it, and stared with open mouthed awe. "Do you draw PigeonMan?" he asked. I nodded. "Cool!!" And it turned out he was a big fan. Getting the tiniest of tastes for what big-time fame must be like, the bass guitarist (whose name was Fud, for some reason) asked me to draw the cover to his demo-tape for his band, Contemporary Kanvas. So I did. When I was showing it round to the cast of the play, they asked me who the sidekick in the drawing was, and before I could answer, Fud said "Oh, that's GuanoLad." It was weird to see a virtual stranger talk about my characters so animatedly and knowledgably without my having directly told him these things. I guess truly famous celebrities get that kind of thing all the time. It's a wacky feeling. - FUTURE - The possibilities of the continuation of PigeonMan are many and varied, and I've entertained the possibility of each briefly. More strips, computer animation, radio play, television cartoon, movie. It's nice to dream, and who knows? Stranger things have happened. But seriously, in the last five years, all that's really happened is a few one-off reappearances. Until now. The advent of the Internet, the popularity of comic strips on the Web and the excellent exposure possibilities it holds, have kickstarted me into reviving the legend. I'm not sure how long this will last; it may be short term, it may be long term, it may reshape my life. It'll be fun to see how it goes, and great to follow PigeonMan and GuanoLad's adventures again. I hope you enjoy the ride! Paul Potiki October 1999