Arguably the most difficult project I have worked on to date, or at least the most draining.  Of course it would have to be the Michigan State Spartans reaching the Final Four championship game, and I wanted to pay tribute using the movie “300” and Gerard Butler’s infamous “This! is! Sparta!” line before he kicks the Persian emissary into the bottomless pit.

 

At first I thought about drawing it on a sheet of 8.5” x 14” like “Deep to Right,” but found that it didn’t give me enough room for all of the details, so I went to a normal sheet of 8.5 x 11.  The original design called for an extreme close-up of Leonidas’ eyes, noseguard, and the front piece of the helmet, with spears in the background sticking up and which would be repeated for the other panels as well.

 

His lieutenant would appear on the left out from behind the helmet and point up with a finger, saying his line (I debated between using “sir” or “sire”), and then Leonidas’ eyes would follow him or roll back before the final panel.  It was all much more comic-book like, and I found that it just didn’t suit my cartoon style just yet and I didn’t like the designs coming out of my pencil so I went this route.

 

Thankfully, I only needed to draw the cartoon once (the first panel) and Phooshop the lieutenant’s turned head for the second and simply repeating the first panel again with the changed line.  I did have to re-draw the expressions and add some more background shields, but I’m very proud of the work as it is the first comic strip in the regular sports cartoons section.