Hardy Har on a Hard Drive

with a robot wife and a happy fish

Back in 2018, after working on Space Kid and Cat with Greg Nix, we got the opportunity to pitch a few ideas to Warner Brothers Animation. Specifically, they wanted fresh concepts for intellectual property they already owned, including Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

While digging through their vast library of characters, I immediately fell in love with Lippy Lion and Hardy Har Har. I envisioned it as a silly cartoon version of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Lippy’s get-rich-quick schemes always landing them in trouble, as they hop from town to town, forever tailed by a persistent zookeeper. We decided to make the pitch in comic form:

Of course, this did not end up becoming a show (I believe Jellystone was already in development at the time), but I came across this comic recently while tidying an old hard drive, and I still think it’s fun. If I don’t share it here, it will just collect dust on that hard drive for all eternity!

Here’s a fun thing: my wife is a writer on a very cool game that contains more than one murderous robot character. Recently she asked if I could draw her a Slack profile pic of what she would look like as a murderous robot herself. Beep boop!

Above are some doodles made on a Google Jam board during a morning warm up at work. Most of these creatures aren’t feeling great, except for the fish. What’s your secret, Mr. Fish?

Things to Enjoy:

• I’ve been reading Orchard of the Tame, an incredible comic by Marlo Meekins and Nick Cross. It feels like having more Bone to read, which is probably the highest praise I can give a graphic novel.

• JAWNY put out a new album of alt pop gems, with “Giving Up On You” currently on repeat.