Early Gozaimasu Sketches and Storyboards

The seven scanned pages below are early storyboards with an earlier take on the Ohio-based history behind Tom Duck and Harry.  Most of this material was never used or if used was modified, as evidenced by major differences in the "published" Gozaimasu story, but it does show some of my early painful attempts to draw a duck and a pig, not to mention some pain-inducing puns.  

I don't remember whether these pages were all produced at the same time or in this order.  For example, note that the rat who introduces himself as Ratz is called Rod Rat two pages later.  By either name he never appeared in the posted strips, but rats are featured in both the posted "dailies" and the first adventure, in which there is also a cool cat named Catz.  None of this necessarily implies any conscious planning on my part.  And don't even ask about the "TomDuck&Harry.Comic" strip at the bottom of the first page.  I have no idea what that was about!

I never used storyboards when writing the cartoons subsequently posted on the website.  Instead, my initial drawings, often executed in sketch pads enroute to work by bus or subway, were later digitized and edited online, usually using Microsoft's free Paint program, and then posted directly to the website.  No secret here, as it is quite obvious that finished drawings are neither my forte nor my practice.

Some of these pages have been modified to make them more readable in the restrictive format of this website template.  Sorry, GoDaddy, but we're pushing the envelope, here.  I have to say, though, that they continue to make improvements, one of which they created in response to a request from me for an easier way to perform an otherwise tedious operation,