The top cat

As a natural progression from the fat cats it was a retty straight forward decision to make the 'boss' the fattest cat of them all, and in this case it was a simple matter of looking back at my comic book research into various characters that dominated crime via a business perspective.


This is a painting of one of the batman villains, the penguin, in the likeness of Alfred hitchcock. The sophisticated snobbery that can be seen here emulates alot of the perceptions of the current bankers in the media. What I also quite like is the iconic monocle which seems to represent the entire upper-class 'aura'.

Couldn't really have a post about a 'Top Cat' without having THE top cat himself. Plus he is also a good example of a less sinister rogue, and perhaps a lovable rogue in this case, though I don't quite think he would fit what we were after as the general message we are aiming to send is one without pity for the bankers, and more for those workers who have suffered.

Another example of the penguin, this time a more pantomime effect with the bright pinks alluding to a more playful and less sinister approach. If we went down the avenue of ridiculing the villains of our story then this is certainly a good referencing point.

Another prime example of the cruel and tight fisted business men is Mr. Burns from the Simpsons tv show, and his feeble manner is an interesting addition to the greedy stereotype. Here he appears weak in physical stature, old, and slouched with a heavy brow and relatively unhandsome features- all traits that enhance his personality and cruel nature, and despite all of this he still remains somewhat intimidating.

The classic example in the comic books of a cruel business man, the kinpin. He frequently pops up in a variety of stories in the marvel universe and appears as a legitimate business who's morality is questionable when being subtle, and when outright being villainous he is a character that you love to hate.

I quite like the oversized stature of him, in all his appearances, especially the image below. Even though it is an illogical size to be, it says everything about his 'presense' of character. This is something I will want to emulate when designing the main 'villain' of our story.

The Fat cats

Seeing as bankers were going to be the antagonists in our story I drew inspiration from the 'fat-cat' painting during my previous research, and started to look into the current media and whom they were targeting as the 'villains' in this current affiar.


Alot can be read into various photographs of the main bankers of the world, such as this one. The obvious attempt to appear friendly, the gesture of shaking hands, the proud and haughty look to the one, and the over-all confidence that bankers exude are the trademarks of their every appearance in the media, intentional or by manipulation of the media.

As with tabloids there are of course various artists who have parodied the apparent greedy nature of Bankers via various sattirical works. Below are some examples that gel with our ideas quite well, and offer the right sort of humour.

After mapping out the general story, which would feature an officer worker going against greedy bankers, I decided to take the idea of 'Fat cats' quite literally and started to explore the idea.

As can be seen, it is quite a popular idea and often employed in the media, and so because of our target audience being those who read the newspaper, scouring for any news about the economic climate, it would be best to give them what they are familiar with and change very little about this idea that has already been explores so well.

''Stresser!''

Martin and I sat down and discussed the main protagonist of our story, who would represent the downtrodden people, and their current state in the economic climate. In this case we wanted to go for your 'average' middle-class officer worker, possibly a family man- the sort of person who wold symbolise those effected by the credit crunch.

In my digging around for appropriate sources of inspiraton and reference I happened across this magazine advert insert, which is steeped in sattire. The symbolism of the noose around the Banker's neck as his tie is quite poinant and is precisely the sort of tone we wish to strike with our story.

Above and below are some examples of how the main protagonist may appear, I wanted to find images that really encaptulated this entire essense of being an officer-worker bogged down and under pressure due to financial issues.

One of my favourite pictures here of an office worker surrounded by 'fat-cats', perhaps alluding the greedy nature of bankers? That is certainly how I would interpret it, and I think this really nails the satirical nature of what we are after.

Jack kirby

When discussing amongst the group about the potential outcome of this project, we eventually came to an agreement about the style we would be aiming for. I was tasked with looking back at the old school comic book genre, in this case Jack Kirby in particular.

One of the things I particularly wanted to look into was his use of panel layouts, which would help me in my storyboarding and compositioning of certain frames. I also like his simple linework, mostly being dictated by the block inking as aside to a huge amount of detail mostly seen in current comics. For purposes of making an animation it is essential to consider the principles and opt for something that caters for economy of line and speed.

Here is a good example of using wide shots for crowds, and how the environment can be used to draw the eye inwards to the focul point of the image. Often an invisible arrow can be traced by the mind's eye, a trick often employed by comic book artists and storyboarders who wish to alert the viewer to something specific in the scene.

I particularly like this bottom image, the dynamic and energy of the framing is superb, especially for its time, and is something that perhaps I can emulate in my storyboarding.