Those Meddling Kids!

I’m trying something new.

As you may know, I sometimes do tiny comic strips, except that they’re not drawings but pictures of Lego. They’re fun. I like to do them. I’ll continue doing them in the future. However, despite the great flexibility of Lego (not to mention the variety of available minifigures), they do have one major drawback. Their small size makes them difficult to photograph well sometimes. For example, having several figures in focus at the same time is almost impossible for close-ups. I’d be a more seasoned photographer, it probably wouldn’t be much of an issue, but I’m not that more seasoned photographer and won’t be anytime soon.

At the same time, I recently got rekindled with my childhood favorite toy (which is also attracting more and more adults these days). If you’re not from Europe, you may not be too familiar with it. They’re called Playmobil, and while they’re not as varied as Lego, a Playmobil figure has the serious advantage of being about twice the size of a Lego minifigure, which makes them much easier to photograph.

Also, it’s interesting because while Lego are more fun and interesting to build (there isn’t much to build in a Playmobil set), the reason I preferred Playmobil as a child was that they were more fun to play with, to create stories with. It’s a toy that has always been story-focused.

I bought a few sets for my kids a few years ago. Sadly, they never really got into them. Probably because none of their friends are familiar with them. And you know, how kids mostly play with things that their friends play with too, even when they don’t play with each other. Some sets in particular caught my attraction. My kids had recently discovered Scooby-doo, my son’s birthday was coming. He saw the Scooby-Doo series from Playmobil and wanted them for his birthday. Luckily, they were on sale at that moment, and he got a few: the Mystery Machine, the whole gang, and a few more.

Those Scooby-Doo sets were interesting. They were for kids but… they were also aimed at adults. The nostalgia factor was big. And I got interested in them, and I found myself instantly imagining stories with them.

Later, I bought a few for myself too (you’ll see them, eventually) and more stories started popping up in my mind.

This is really the magic of Playmobil, I think. It triggers your imagination like few other toys can.

So I’m going to try doing just that, stories with Playmobil, as short comic strips.

I may even try to do a full story, I have the beginning of one in mind, but I have no idea where it’s going. I should give it a shot.

For starters and as a test, here is a short strip I made with the Scooby-Doo toys.

The idea for the story is not mine; it’s from a meme I saw on the interwebs a little while ago.

Here it is (click on the picture to see it bigger):

So… What do you think?

Do you want to see more of this? Or not?

If yes, any suggestion is welcome (technical or else)

Thanks in advance.