Shine On You Crazy Anglerfish: Angry Octopus Comics
July 9, 2009 7:24 AM   Subscribe

Angry Octopus Comics is a webcomic collaboration between Mikepop and his daughter, updated twice-weekly. Created with mixed media and compiled in Photoshop, the premise is simple: the octopus always ends up angry. [via mefi projects]
posted by filthy light thief (29 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
While there are only 4 strips, 3 made me smile. That's beating most webcomics right there.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 7:31 AM on July 9, 2009


How awesome is that? I was just browsing through projects and voted for this one after this oh so wonderful strip. Yay angry octopus!
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:32 AM on July 9, 2009


I smiled 4 times. I'm also impressed at the marine biology knowledge of this 8 year old.
posted by DU at 7:35 AM on July 9, 2009


I'm kind of bummed there aren't more of these.
posted by dortmunder at 7:37 AM on July 9, 2009


I bet the guy from xkcd is staring at a half-finished strip with a complicated punchline referencing the Riemann-Zeta function and mumbling to himself 'Octopuses.. all this time I should have been doing octopuses...'
posted by permafrost at 7:41 AM on July 9, 2009 [14 favorites]


I was all ready to bitch about how I'm sick of these lo-fi, ironically un-artistic web comics when I realized that they're actually done by an 8-year old. Then they became fantastic.
posted by HumanComplex at 7:43 AM on July 9, 2009 [1 favorite]


Yay for daddy / daughter projects. Might make me post ShotHotBot & Daughter's epic stop motion animation film: my little ponies vs. the dinosaurs.
posted by shothotbot at 7:52 AM on July 9, 2009 [1 favorite]


Heh, I guess I could have clarified that his daughter isn't an art student, but a young'in on summer vacation, and that they've just started this endeavor.

Bonus bits: Mikepop has a few other projects that are pretty neat.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:55 AM on July 9, 2009


I thought you had to be a talented artist with a "message" in your "bad art" to pull of "ironic bad art" like Jackson Pollock.

These aren't bad. this 8-year-old does better then i probably could.

Poor angry octopus, get's no respect. no respect i say.
posted by djduckie at 8:00 AM on July 9, 2009


Wow, thanks for the kind words and the front-paging!

I'm also impressed at the marine biology knowledge of this 8 year old.

When she was younger, we started every morning with me making up a couple of stories over breakfast. She would choose the topic/title and would tend to be fixated on one subject for a few weeks at a time. So, for a time it was the ocotpus. So I'd cram all sorts of actual otcopus facts into the stories.

ironically un-artistic web comics

I assure you that my un-artistic contributions are genuine.
posted by mikepop at 8:00 AM on July 9, 2009 [9 favorites]


i'm guessing maybe dad's contribution is the titles? like Hide and Seek and Give Up and Shine On You Crazy Anglerfish. well done!
posted by msconduct at 8:02 AM on July 9, 2009


I'm currently involved in a collaborate art project with my one year old. It's in the early stages, so I can't say much, but it involves cheerios and the floor.
posted by diogenes at 8:08 AM on July 9, 2009 [11 favorites]


These are great, and made me think of The Angriest Dog In The World.
posted by jquinby at 8:25 AM on July 9, 2009


Another thread about (possibly angry) octopuses?

I kid, I kid. This is cool.
posted by WalterMitty at 8:47 AM on July 9, 2009


What, no tentacle porn?
posted by Skeptic at 8:57 AM on July 9, 2009


I'm currently involved in a collaborate art project with my one year old. It's in the early stages, so I can't say much, but it involves cheerios and the floor.

My terrier would be interested in a curatorial position.
posted by The Bellman at 9:07 AM on July 9, 2009 [11 favorites]


I love the combination of 8-year-old art and digital enhancement, especially in the Anglerfish one.
posted by gurple at 9:25 AM on July 9, 2009


Kudos, Mikepop! This is an awesome father/daughter project that will be remembered for a lifetime. The strips that are there so far made me chuckle...
posted by JibberJabber at 9:28 AM on July 9, 2009


What is it with kids and the octupuses? One of my son's first words was octupus (although he used the alternate pronunciation: "ah-puss"). It became a sort of imaginary friend for him, although it was sortof creepy and malicious. When he would trip or knock something over he would turn around to his invisible octupus friend and yell, "no, ah-puss, no!"

I'm currently involved in a collaborate art project with my one year old. It's in the early stages, so I can't say much, but it involves cheerios and the floor.

Although I applaud your foray into the world of art installation, the real action is in performance art. Currently my 1-yr old daughter is working on a suite of pieces centered around our cultural notions of "appropriate" and the transgression of those norms in the public sphere. Very heady stuff.
posted by slickvaguely at 9:33 AM on July 9, 2009 [16 favorites]


OctopusFilter! Love it!
posted by jabberjaw at 9:38 AM on July 9, 2009


Currently my 1-yr old daughter is working on a suite of pieces centered around our cultural notions of "appropriate" and the transgression of those norms in the public sphere. Very heady stuff.
posted by slickvaguely at 12:33 PM


Sounds like you should sign her up for City Of Heroes!

or, uh.. was that the joke you were already making?
posted by orme at 9:47 AM on July 9, 2009 [1 favorite]


I want moooore!!! Mooorre angry octopi!!
posted by medeine at 9:47 AM on July 9, 2009


I knew I made the right choice of choosing the octopus over the alligator as my favoritest animal when I was 5 years old.
posted by aftermarketradio at 10:05 AM on July 9, 2009


Shouldn't that be "mefi's own Mikepop"?

and, yay! I just noticed this comic the other day and I love it! Well done Mikepop and daughter!
posted by gofargogo at 11:22 AM on July 9, 2009


Shouldn't that be "mefi's own Mikepop"?

I thought the [via mefi projects] bit made that clear enough.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:43 AM on July 9, 2009


Heh, I might try this with my 2 older boys, age 7 and 10. We have collaborated in the past with home-made Pokemon cards. If I remember correctly, the last comic they did involved the alien infestation of "Charles Gibbelton" (a take on ABC News' Charles Gibson) and his head, of course, exploded at the end.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:27 PM on July 9, 2009


I love it! More please!
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:59 PM on July 9, 2009


The Angriest Dog In the World comic.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 5:33 PM on July 9, 2009


Thanks for all the great feedback! I read some of these comments and some emails I got to my daughter last night and she got a big kick out of it.

i'm guessing maybe dad's contribution is the titles?

That's correct so far. I'm sure she'll come up with some along the way. I'm encouraging a process with a lot of back and forth. She came up with the idea for the first few strips and we both storyboarded them out. I did the backgrounds for the panels and she did the story elements (balloons, treasure chest, etc.) I did the octopus in photoshop. She drew a page of fish and I liked the anglerfish in particular so I asked her for ideas on that (then I did the photoshop ligting effects). As we go forward maybe she'll draw the octopus and I'll do some fish or something. Basically we're just putting a lot of ideas out there and drawing things and seeing what happens.
posted by mikepop at 12:17 PM on July 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


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