Cans of Beans was a slice-of-life dramedy webcomic that ran from 2012-2019, about a creepy-by-choice loner werewolf named Carl and his chill surfer-bro roommate Dude. I wrote, drew, and did all of the management of Cans of Beans–a one-woman show.
Aaaand about 2 weeks ago, I accidentally destroyed my own website by updating WordPress using an old version of Comicpress, a theme used by many webcomickers of that era, and now I have no choice but to upload my whole comic onto a mirror while I’m scrambling to fix the original site.
What an excellent way to force myself to revisit my old comic!
The Beginning (Pre-Webcomic)
I started Cans of Beans while I was still in art college, pursuing a BFA in character animation. The style of Cans of Beans certainly reflects this: the faux-Warner Bros 2D animation art style, the 4-fingered cartoon hands, the painterly backgrounds reminiscent of 90’s Disney.
More importantly, I was surrounded by a community of fellow animation students and comic-lovers. My friend group at the time were absolutely obsessed with their own original characters (OCs), and through a strange unsaid social rule that only other OC-havers will understand, I began to interact with their OCs by creating my own OCs, which became the basis for Carl and Dude through Formspring and Tumblr.
(I’m sorry I legit don’t remember whose OC this is anymore)
And like many OC-havers, my OCs started taking a life of their own. I started dreaming about them. Writing out little skits with them. Doodling them when I got too tired of in-betweening my class assignments. I began writing out their whole backstories and their families, and the silliest little details about them.
There came a point where Carl and Dude (and Carl’s werewolf alter-ego Billy) practically consumed all my thoughts. It became logical for me to jump into the world of webcomics with my characters and burgeoning story.
Exploring and Getting into Comics
I wasn’t exactly a stranger to comics prior to making Cans of Beans, but Cans of Beans was my first big comic project I was embarking all by myself. And I was an ANIMATION student! I had no mentor to teach me how to draw comics, just endless enthusiasm for my characters and a desire to tell a complete story that I could conceivably finish in 3 years (spoiler: it took longer than 3 years). And boy, did I draw.
The comic page on the left was part of a larger set of rough comic pages I sketched to explore Carl and Dude’s relationship and dialogue, all the way from 2011. And the comic page on the right is the final comic page from 2016; I’m a little shocked upon reflection how much of the original dialogue was preserved in the final script.
Because I was an animation student, I ended up double-dipping a LOT of my class assignments to help me explore Cans of Beans‘ art style while simultaneously learning a ton. Turns out, if you’re really excited about the subject you’re drawing, you are more likely to learn more!
I went with this painterly style inspired by Edward Hopper and old Disney films, which I thought helped ‘elevate’ the very cartoony-look of the characters. I was aiming for new webcomic-heights, dammit! But upon reflection, this might’ve been a mistake… more on that, later.
Making Comics (It’s Fun!)
Did I mention I was an animation student during that time? MUCH of what I learned was very applicable to both animation and comics, but I was determined to use EVERYTHING I was learning and apply it to comics instead. I started off by writing a first draft in a pseudo-screenplay format because that’s the style of writing I learned from my animation courses, and I finished a very rough first draft by early 2012. I named it Cans of Beans because Dude is first introduced to the story buying canned beans, and I couldn’t be bothered coming up with a better idea. I had hundreds of pages to draw! I’ll figure out a better comic title later! (Narrator: she didn’t)
I treated comic pages and paneling like I would a storyboard, where I ended up drawing a lot of A-B shots and moment-to-moment sequencing, and combined it with my rigid desire to have fully painted backgrounds. I look at these pages with both a lot of fondness and a lot a LOT of head-shaking; dammit, past-me! It’s no wonder why you took so long to draw these pages!
This first chapter was by far the most fun I had drawing. I told myself that I would draw 1-2 fully colored comic pages a week, and I was PROUD of maintaining that schedule. I even blew off a summer animation course taught by a very well-known animation legend just so I can draw my boys (in retrospect, I made the right decision). And I was indeed drawing all this while attending art college, mid-terms and finals be damned.
But life kept going on, and I was still drawing this comic I first conceived in 2011.
Making Comics (It Sucks!)
In 2013, I graduated with a BFA in Animation, mid-recession. The animation industry was struggling and very few studios were willing to open their doors for junior/associate artists, let alone interns. And through some combination of the economic downturn (which affected everybody), a less-than-stellar portfolio (I was too busy drawing Beans!), and a crumbling circle of friends (I am my own worst enemy), I graduated with no job prospects.
From 2013-2015, I was working in retail while continuing Cans of Beans, while ALSO trying to get my life and portfolio together. And it was during this period that I drew some of my favorite comic pages I’ve ever made. I’m STILL proud of these pages. Drawing comics was the only thing I had full control over, and the only thing propping myself up… even though it made verrrry little money.
Luck finally found me in early 2015. An old art school friend reached out to me saying that Telltale Games was looking for Choreographers (later rebranded as Cinematic Artists) and he believed I had the skills for the job. With little to lose, I applied, passed the job test, passed the interview, and before I knew it, I abandoned my previous dream of being an Animator and took the plunge into becoming a Game Developer.
And I was STILL drawing Cans of Beans.
Making Games AND Comics (Why?!)
There is no shortage of gossip, thought pieces, and social media posts talking about the issues with the Games Industry at large. Telltale Games was one of the first major game companies to have full-length news articles chronicling the widespread management issues, the systematic crunch, and its eventual collapse. I was one of hundreds who was deep in this game-making machine, and I worked HARD. Yet, I would crawl back to my 400-square foot tiny home in the Bay Area and draw Cans of Beans after 10+hour shifts, still determined to finish this comic from my college days someday, even though I could no longer maintain a one-page-a-week cadence.
But this work-on-games-then-on-comics was not sustainable in the long run. My mental health and general outlook on life affected how my art was looking… which ironically coincided with the darkest part of the story. In hindsight, I think being in that dark place helped draw out the drama of these chapters.
There’s a lot to say about working at Telltale Games, but the one thing I can say about it, in the context of comics-making, is that being a Cinematic Artist taught me so much about composition, editing, dialogue-writing, and character acting. I suffered beautifully. And sometimes that knowledge would pay-off, the pages above are examples of what I learned as a Cinematic Artist distilled into comic form. And sometimes, I was too goddamn tired and would half-ass my beloved comic.
Why is Carl’s head so big and ill-proportioned here? Why is the color palette so bland? Why are Dude’s eyes so close together?! Blame game dev crunch. (I am SO re-drawing these for the Tapas mirror re-upload)
Finishing Cans of Beans
On April 28, 2019, several months after the mass layoffs at Telltale Games (and myself working at different, healthier games studio), I uploaded page 300 and finished Cans of Beans.
When I was still deep in the comic-making process, I dreamed of finishing Cans of Beans someday, and I reached a summit that few webcomics, both famous and unknown, have ever reached. But I felt strangely empty after completing the comic. Cans of Beans was such an integral part of my life and who I was as a person, and now it was just… done.
And reflecting on myself, I realized that I, as a person, am totally different than who I was when I first came up with the characters for Cans of Beans in 2011. I created Carl and Dude to explore facets of myself at the time (my social anxiety, my sexuality, my yearning for love) and spending some 7-8 years on a story that I came up with back in college had me crystalized, frozen in a semi-juvenile mindset that I was eager to break out of. By the time I finished drawing that final panel of Dude walking away from the beach singing a line from The Beach Boys, I have already explored to hell-and-back these facets of myself outside of my comic. I was ready to explore anything, ANYTHING that wasn’t the old-me.
What Comes After?
I think my desire to be done with Cans of Beans has made me not want to touch it for years. I left it alone, I never made that Kickstarter I was kicking around, and I became a bit of a shut-in with my own community (sorry).
Will I ever make a sequel to Cans of Beans? I’m not so sure. I have spent many daydreams thinking how I could continue Carl and Dude’s story, but the stories I’ve come up with didn’t match the spirit of the original comic They were darker, sadder, and occasionally nonsensical, and frankly I don’t think anybody should read the drafts I produced. I’ll list some of the sequel ideas I had:
- Billy becomes a monster, and Carl tries to ‘cure himself,’ to Dude’s horror
- After moving to the East Coast, Dude eventually yearns for an open relationship. They eventually break-up.
- Carl and Dude marry and adopt a kid and grow old together (that’s literally it, there’s no story)
Some sketches of an older Carl and Dude for the first and second sequel ideas.
Maybe it’s a reflection of how I saw the world as an adult in her late-20’s. Or maybe I have grown horrendously cynical. Or maybe I was running out of ideas, and that latter prospect horrified me.
Post-Beans, I was brewing all kinds of comic ideas that swung HARD in the opposite direction of all themes, art styles, etc. Years later, the one that finally stuck, that I am just as in love with as I was with Cans of Beans over a decade ago is La Principessa which you can see sketches and concept art of right here in this blog. And I love, love, LOVE that I am making comics again. A part of my soul is being restored as I draw this new story, and most importantly it isn’t cynical and sad like the sequel ideas I had for Cans of Beans.
Depending on how well-received Cans of Beans is on its new mirror host, I may be open to finally making that Kickstarter and throwing in some extra (FUN) side-stories. But until then, I am back to drawing comics with reckless abandon, once again.
Anyway, thanks for everything, Carl and Dude (and Billy)! I wouldn’t still be making comics without you.