The Capital of Helsinki

Author notes

26. The Tragic PSA of Mr. Punch

Air Raid Robertson

on Oct. 9, 2009

After a couple of full page strips I wanted to get back to doing some basic, three panel ones. For the most part, I think those ones end up turning out a lot better.

The idea for this gag came to me when I was watching some anti-drug PSA. It occured to me that Punch and Judy would likely make the worst possible mascots for public service ads against domestic abuse.

At first I wanted to have differing facial expressions for Punch and Judy. I do consider silly facial expressions to be one of my main illustrative traits. On the other hand, Punch and Judy are usually portrayed with hand puppets. And, as you already know, hand puppets don't usually have much emotive range on their faces.

I ended up using models that have one solitary expression frozen on their faces in every panel. I actually think that it enhances the dialogue this way.